The Vanishing Girl (4 page)

Chapter 7

That night I
tried to call Ava, but out here in the middle of buttfuck nowhere I couldn’t get reception. So instead I sat down and wrote her an email explaining what had happened. I seriously doubted that she’d believe me
—
I wouldn’t. I then typed up a brief email to my parents to let them know I was alive and made it here safely.

When I finally unpacked my meager belongings and made it to bed, the day replayed itself over and over in my head. I felt no sadness, no grief over the loss of my former life. I think this is what shock must feel like. The magnitude of my situation had yet to knock the breath out of me. I was still reeling from how quickly my life had changed within a few hours.

Finally, sleep crept up on me, and
—
thankful for once
—
I gave myself over to it.

I stood on
a white sand beach. It was just after sunset, and the sky was a deep blue-green. Other than a cluster of palm trees and a hammock, this was it. Paradise.

And I knew I hadn’t sent myself here.

So this was what the government could do. They harnessed my ability, and directed it to a destination of their choice.

Debbie hadn’t mentioned the project being able to control where people teleported, but I mean, c’mon. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that the Prometheus Project happened to find me the day after I broke into Adrian’s safe. Somehow they were sending people like me out.

Now came the hard questions, like how they found me and what their interest was in Adrian.

I sat down and dug my feet into the still-warm sand and hummed my mother’s lullaby quietly to myself. I couldn’t ask for a more beautiful place to go. And yet all the sandy shores in the world couldn’t bring back what I’d lost.

This demonstration proved something much more frightening than the loss of my previous life. My future freedom was potentially at stake.

As I glanced around this quaint island, with its hammock rocking gently in the evening breeze, I knew this was the best I was going to get from the government. But what would happen if I ever decided not to cooperate? Where did they send the delinquent teleporters?

“Wake up.”

“Go away,” I murmured.

“Wake up.” Someone was shaking my shoulder. “Man, I knew this was going to happen.”

I groaned and flipped over onto my other side.

“Listen Sleeping Beauty, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

I snuggled down deeper into my pillow.

“Hard way it is.” Suddenly the sheets were gone and my bare skin was exposed to the chilly morning air.

I gasped and grabbed for my blankets, trying to cover my naked body. When I looked up, Caden was grinning, a look that clearly expressed just how much he enjoyed the peep show.

“You asshole!” When I teleported, I came back to the exact place I fell asleep. My clothes however, never managed to make it back on me.

“I wish I could say that I didn’t enjoy that,” he paused, “but the truth is, I’ve been waiting to do that ever since I arrived here.”

And that’s when I punched him in the face.

I could hear him moaning as I moved around my room, blanket covering me, and picked out some clothes from my suitcase. I walked into my private bathroom and began to change.

When I came out of the bathroom, Caden was leaning against the door. In spite of pinching his now-swollen nose, he managed to look like a kid on Christmas.

“Damn, you throw a mean right hook,” he said, grinning.

I gave him a dark look as he opened the door for me.

“I’m sorry. Really, I am.” He stifled his smile, but the telltale dimples were still visible. “I should’ve given you more warning. But we were going to be late, and your first day of workouts is going to kill you enough without adding on tardy exercises.”

I looked over at him in disbelief. “Wow, how selfless of you. Your kindness knows no bounds,” I said, following him into the hallway.

He shrugged, flashing a cheeky grin as we rounded the corner of the hallway. “What can I say? I’m a good guy.”

Was he for real?

When we got to the dining hall, it was empty.

Caden swore. “Looks like we’re going to be doing tardy exercises after all.”

I looked around the empty room. “So how do I know what classes to go to?” I asked.

He pulled a severely crumpled piece of paper out of his back pocket. “We’re partners, and I’ve got our week’s itinerary.”

I took the paper from him and smoothed it out. The names were barely legible.

“How did you manage to inflict this much damage to a single piece of paper?”  I asked as I scanned the paper. I noticed the date and time printed in the upper right corner. It was today’s date and beneath it the time indicated it was 6:54 a.m. when the page had been printed.

“Wait a sec,” I said, looking up at him. “You were awake! On time! Did you purposefully wait to wake me?”

He backed away. “Right now what’s most important is getting you some breakfast, now that the kitchen’s closed.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Funny how thoughtful you are when it suits you.” But I let it go. After all, not only had dozens of random people seen me naked when I teleported, but also
—
and more importantly
—
I was really hungry, and Caden was my meal ticket. I wasn’t going to forget this, though. Caden would receive payback when he least expected it.

He pulled out a key from behind a series of stacked crates, unlocked the kitchen door, and slipped into the area normally reserved for cooks.

A few minutes later he came out carrying a banana and a couple of energy bars.

“
That’s
breakfast?” I didn’t attempt to hide my disappointment.

He raised an eyebrow. “They don’t serve snacks between meals unless it’s a special occasion, so there’s slim pickings where food is concerned.” Caden handed me the banana and the protein bar, keeping another for himself. “C’mon, let’s get going
—
we’ve got a bit of a hike.”

“Where are we going? I thought all our classes were within the building?”

“Not always. Sometimes our close combat training course is outside. Same goes for our weaponry class.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly. It sounded like you said ‘close combat.’” And weaponry. I suppressed a shudder.

He smiled mischievously. “Time to get dirty, princess.”

Chapter 8

It took us
about twenty minutes to trek up the hill the facility was located on. Throughout our hike up, I inhaled deeply, unused to the woodsy, wild smell of the place.

Maybe I could get used to this. The way the sun slanted through the trees, the chirp of birds waking up, the way Caden turned every so often to smile at me
—
even if he wasn’t completely forgiven yet.

But when we arrived at the training course, my optimism crashed down around me.

A semicircle of men and women my age crowded around our coach, most looking effortlessly beautiful and all looking lethal.

“Well Caden, nice of you to join,” our coach called out. He was the crusty type
—
the kind of man who never lost his hard edge. These types usually had soft spots too.

“I had to help the new girl out,” he said, indicating me.

Everyone who hadn’t already been staring swiveled to stare at us.

“Ah, yes. Well, bring her up here and introduce her.” The coach motioned for us.

I followed Caden, threading my way through the crowd until we stood next to our instructor.

“This is my pair, Ember Pierce,” Caden said to the group. I heard a few gasps from the cluster of students and noticed a couple people craning their heads to get a good look at me.

What was going on?

Our coach cleared his throat. “I’m Coach Painter. I’m the head instructor of your physical conditioning.” I nodded to him. “I’m sorry that I’m going to have to issue you and Caden tardy exercises on your first day, but rules are rules. Hopefully your partner will be better about informing you of our schedule in the future.” He gave Caden a hard look.

“I hope so too,” I said, watching Caden as I spoke. His eyes thinned and his dimples appeared. I could read his expression.
An enjoyable challenge.
That’s what he thought I was.

Coach Painter turned his focus away from us then and addressed the class. “Okay class, today we’re going to focus on guerilla warfare
—
specifically what you’ll have to do if you ever get cornered by the enemy. Pairs to the left, singles to the right.”

Guerilla warfare?
I was in way over my head. I told myself that I could do this. It was guerilla warfare every time I went to sleep.

And why the heck were there any
singles
—
shouldn’t we all be paired off?

A beautiful girl with hair several shades darker than my own separated herself from the crowd and sauntered over to Caden. She ignored my presence as she hugged him for just a beat too long.

“Hey gorgeous,” she said, letting go only to wrap an arm around his waist.

“What up Desiree?” His eyes flicked to me briefly. “Have you met Ember?”

Reluctantly Desiree pulled her eyes from Caden to size me up. Her mouth curved into a fake smile. “Not yet. Pleasure to meet you,” she said, not bothering to stick out her hand. A second later her gaze went back to Caden. “Looks like we won’t be having fun together in the singles group anymore.” She pouted. This show was all for me, though she never once acknowledged my presence.

Caden looked down at her, and I saw genuine affection there. “No, we won’t, but that doesn’t change anything between us,” he said.

“I guess you’re right. After all
—
” She leaned in and whispered something into his ear, smiling.

He smiled in return.

This girl was clearly marking her territory. Which was fine with me
—
she could have the blanket snatcher.

Nonetheless, I memorized her face. Girls like her lived to make my life miserable, but now that she’d shown her cards, I knew a few of her weak points. She liked Caden, she felt I was a threat, and she primarily used her appearance to get what she wanted. I filed that information away. Who knew when I might need it.

Guerrilla warfare turned
out to be ten-minute modules where students teamed up with their pair
—
or another single
—
and used the nearby resources to attack and take out targets.

Which was really spectacular for me, considering my vast array of knowledge on the art of guerilla warfare. Not.

Caden had already seen me cuffed, wet, naked, and now he was going to see me get my butt kicked. I was noticing an unfortunate trend here.

With a little creativity I might get through this without completely embarrassing myself. After all, I did know a bit about survival. Since puberty it had been that or die.

I was seriously questioning my affinity for survival forty minutes later, after I ran my fifth lap around the main buildings that made up the facility, the fate of all students who were not busy with the module. Back home I’d run every day, not even they could prepare me for the hellish loops up and down the mountainside.

While I ran, I studied my surroundings. The loop around the facility was large, yet I still hadn’t seen the chain-link fence that closed us in. That meant that this place must be huge. I’d have to do some exploring later.

The students running next to me did so with ease, which made me think that most of them had been here for a while. Had the government found them the same way they’d found me? Were there more like us out there, or was I one of the last ones that had slipped through the cracks?

When I and the other teleporters arrived back at the meeting point to check in, I leaned on my knees, focusing on not puking. I frowned when I noticed that Desiree still managed to look perky and cute, even after five excruciating laps.

Coach called out, “Hawthorne! Bring your partner over here! The rest of you milling about
—
run another lap.”

Caden nudged me. “That’s us.” He wrapped an arm around my waist.

Just as I let him help me up, Desiree shot me a death look. I openly rolled my eyes at her
—
this was so not how I wanted to start off my stay here.

“
Okay guys,” our
coach leaned in and placed a hand on each of our shoulders, “you’ve got ten minutes once you enter the warehouse to secure a red scarf and make it back out.” He was referring to the building in front of us. It was built into the hillside, so I had no idea how big or small it actually was.

A ten-minute module. That was the same amount of time that we spent teleporting each evening. The project was training us to accomplish tasks in the same time it took us to disappear and reappear. Which reaffirmed my theory that they could control where we went once we fell asleep.

“If you are targeted before the ten minutes are up,” Coach Painter continued, “the module will shut off and you’ll fail the training session.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “You give out grades?”

Coach looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Okay you two, get going!” He gave our shoulders one final shake and pushed us in the direction of the warehouse.

Slowly we walked towards the building. “Is there anything I should know about this module before I go in?” I asked.

Caden shook his head. “Nothing that I tell you will really help at the moment. Just be aware of your surroundings, listen to your instincts, and do not hesitate.”

I stomped through the brush. This was going to be unpleasant. I could already tell.

Caden eyed my not-so-subtle gait. “Also
—
and I know this might be difficult
—
but try to be quiet.”

I picked up a nearby pinecone and threw it at him.

“Ow!” He flinched. “Now that was just rude.”

We slipped through
the doors and entered a narrow hallway. Behind me the metal door banged shut, the sound echoing throughout the building.

Caden gave me a look.

I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said, my words reverberating throughout the building.

Caden flinched. I think I may have heard him mutter, “Worst partner ever,” but, considering everything he’d put me through since the moment we met, I was pretty sure I had drawn the short stick.

When nothing jumped out from behind the many closed doors that lined either side of the hallway, I began to get worried. Something was waiting for us. I knew how to survive for ten minutes out in the real world, but not one that involved combat.

“I have a plan,” Caden whispered. “You guard the hallway while I check each room.”

“Deal.” Guard duty seemed to be the lesser of two evils.

He nodded and slowly opened the closest door. Nothing happened. Quietly he walked through the door. A minute later he came out.

“Clear.”

“Are we doing this for every door?” He flinched again at my voice. “Because I think we already wasted nearly a fourth of our time, and we have five more doors.”

“You have any better ideas, princess?”

“Um, yeah. It’s called smash and grab. We kick the doors open two at a time, jump out of the way
—
since by now someone is likely waiting for us
—
scan the room’s contents, and move on.”

Caden looked half-convinced when he asked, “What happens if there’s too many people to take on?”

I shrugged. “We fail.”

Reluctantly Caden’s face broke into a grin. “Adventurous and daring.” He nodded. “I like it.”

“Awesome. Then let’s do this.”

We started with the back two doors, thinking it would be easier to work our way out of the building rather than into it.

I began the count. “One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

We kicked the doors inward at the same time. Sitting in the middle of my room was the red scarf.

“Shit!” I heard Caden curse behind me. I guess he was running into more trouble than I.

I did a brief scan of the room and determined that it was not obviously rigged. Quickly I crossed the room and reached down to grab the scarf.

“Freeze, or I’ll shoot.”

My head snapped up at the voice. A man peeled away from the wall, aiming a very real looking gun at me.

A grunt echoed from Caden’s room. Bummer.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”

It was only a module. The lie should have been easy.

I swallowed. “I can’t.”

He lifted the gun and fired.