by Jolene Perry
“I’m hollow,” I whisper, afraid to open my eyes. Afraid of what I’ll look like. Am I burned? I feel fine, now. Hollow. Numb. Impossibly weak. But okay. “Are we alive?”
“Yes.” He jerks the last of the ropes from my hands and pulls me onto his lap, cradling me. I have no strength to argue. There’s no feeling left in me. “We’re all okay. The shadows moved on. This was good what we did. They didn’t come out. They can’t come back. The good ones pulled the bad ones through. We all felt the energy swell and disappear. It’s over.”
The trembling turns to shaking, and I wish to pass out. I don’t want to be awake for whatever’s coming next.
“Breathe, Kara. You’re going into shock. What happened?” he whispers. “Why were you screaming?”
“The pain. I thought I was burning alive.” I clutch onto him more tightly.
“I didn’t feel anything, I…” He stops suddenly. Too suddenly.
What else could possibly be wrong?
I let my eyes open enough to see that my body looks fine. I just don’t feel fine. I’m not right. Not the same. “Something’s missing.”
He pulls me into his chest, but I push away only I have no strength and don’t go anywhere.
“Close your eyes,” he says.
I can’t now. Instead I’m frantically looking around me, wondering why he wants my eyes closed.
“A little trust, Kara. Please. Close your eyes.” But his eyes are wide and his breathing sounds too regulated, and I’m starting to freak out all over again even though my body’s weak from the pain.
“You really want to talk about trust right now?” I try to push away from him again, but my arms are like rubber.
When his arms don’t move, and he holds me more tightly, I give in.
My eyes fall closed, my fingertips shaking, my chin shaking, everything in me sliding and falling apart.
“Can you feel them?” he whispers.
“What?”
“Their talents?” He’s still whispering. “Landon, Micah, Dean, Addison.”
Nothing. I feel nothing. That’s why I don’t feel whole. My body starts to shake in another round of sobs as I realize why I was in so much pain. Why I felt like I was being ripped apart. It’s because I was. They took the thing I love most about myself. Maybe the only thing I love about myself. “They stole it.”
My heart wrenches in despair. I don’t know how to function without feeling those wavelengths. Wait.
“It didn’t happen to you?”
But as he shifts underneath me, I know they didn’t. He still has his talent, and he can sense them, which means they still have their energy, too. Dread soaks through me. I didn’t join them and now I’m half of what I used to be. A nothing. I’m just a regular person, and I try to crawl off of Ocean, but I’m so weak. My body’s not working at all.
And then I remember how I was tricked into coming here, and how completely, totally, and utterly betrayed I was and find the strength to stand.
“The Middle Men. Incoming,” Landon says. “Dean. Addison. We need you.”
I spin around. “Don’t you dare send them away. They’re my ride home.”
Everyone freezes like they’re surprised I don’t want to be part of their happy little group. Staring as I turn and walk away, stumbling on my weak legs.
“Kara!” Ocean calls as he runs up and grabs my hand.
I shake him off without looking. I can’t see his face because I might not be able to leave if I let myself look. “Don’t touch me.” My heart’s breaking and crashing and I’m in shock over what I just lost. “There were a million better ways to do this.”
“Kara,” Landon says behind me. “I checked and double checked. This was the only way. I didn’t know we’d get to keep our gifts. I swear. I thought everyone would lose the energy.”
“You couldn’t have waited?” My scream comes out as a whisper. The wind has gone. Darkness presses in from all sides, and the small cove is still.
I’m not sure if I believe Landon or not, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine the mess at home. What about the people who are working all over the world? Being paid to be what they are. What will happen to them now? Who will take care of them? Bring them home? I have to get back. I have to help. If Landon thought everyone would lose their talent, then my guess is that everyone did but them. Mom. Dad. I can’t even imagine them without their gifts—who will they even be?
At the same time—Did Landon and the group choose the wrong thing? I’m not ready to admit that they might have chosen the right way here. There were too many lives at stake for them to risk what they did without more information.
But would The Middle Men have allowed them the time?
I’m not sure. And right now I don’t care.
I move toward the boats. Only I’m not even sure I’m ready to believe that I could be wrong. And my words make me sound drunk, which matches the rubbery way I feel. Ocean reaches for me again, but I push him away with a weak arm.
“My dad,” Addison squeaks, but I don’t answer. I don’t give a shit about her dad right now.
My gut turns as I think about his likely outcome now that everything’s gone. They’re either angry and going to take it out on him, or there will be no point in keeping him there and they’ll let him go. The second option seems highly unlikely, but I don’t have the strength to worry about Addison’s dad right now.
A man I’ve only seen one other time steps off the first boat. MAC. But by the way he’s squinting and looking around, they don’t see us. Right. Landon’s keeping us hidden.
No wonder we saw no Middle Men as we reached the island. I’m actually stunned they didn’t have anyone around the hole. Or maybe it’s that they wanted to lure the group in so they’d come and could be caught… I’m not sure. Actually, that was exactly right. Ocean was exactly right, too. He and I weren’t on a mission, really. We were sent as distraction in the hopes that Landon would lower his shield, which he never did. The whole time we were with him. Which is why he’s been so tired. And The Middle Men have been here the whole time, waiting for something they couldn’t see.
“It’s my uncle Mac. I can get my dad.” Addison jogs up behind me, followed closely by Dean.
“You’re not going,” Dean insists, his voice urgent and scared.
“I have to.”
“Then I’m coming,” he says.
I turn to face them, my jaw tight. “NO one’s coming with me.”
“I am.” Addison jogs toward me again.
“Addie.” Dean grasps her arm and I’m sure they’re talking, but it’s silent.
Micah gasps. “Let her go, Dean.”
Dean grabs Addison in a tight hug and I run for the small sandy hill that divides the lagoon from the beach hoping Dean won’t let her go. I don’t think I could stand to look at any one of them.
Ocean reaches out to take my arm to help, but I shove him away again and he finally stops, shoulders slumped down. We don’t zap when we touch anymore anyway. I’m angry with him, and he won’t want me now. Not in the same way.
“I meant it, Ocean. Don’t. Touch. Me.” I keep walking.
“Kara, you belong with us,” Landon says as I keep moving away. “I know it.”
I don’t turn and start sprinting instead, ignoring my rubbery legs and stumbling in the sand. “I belong nowhere, Landon. You took that away from me.”
The second boat has beached now, but the Middle Men agents look as tired as I feel. Right. They just went through what I did.
“Ocean stop!” Landon yells.
I do turn around this time, and Ocean’s face is contorted in hurt and sorrow and everything about his body pleads with me to stay.
“Too late,” I whisper. “I need you to leave me alone.”
And the group disappears from my sight as if they’re not there at all.
Twelve armed people have guns aimed at my head when I “appear” to them. I hold my hands up. “Please. I’m sorry. I lost. Take me home.
”
MAC steps my way sending a shot of fear through me, and I wonder if I was right to come toward them instead of staying with the people I hate a bit right now.
“We all lost,” he says, his voice quiet. “We’ll take you back.”
He scans with his eyes, but we all know that trying to find a group with all four talents when we have none will be nearly impossible. I’m not sure what’s left of The Middle Men, but a failed mission right now would be fatal to whatever remains. MAC has slouched a bit, which makes him slightly less terrifying.
“Uncle Mac!” Addison yells behind me as she appears over the hill.
Oh. No. She’s going to pretend she was a victim here like me. It’s the only way she’d be helped instead of captured, and she can make them all believe whatever she wants with the talent that’s still intact. I just need to decide if I’m going to help her with her cover up or not. I rub my forehead knowing all she wants is her dad back.
“Addison?” He freezes.
“Thank God you’re here. I barely got away. Please get me home before they come get me.” She throws her arms around him, and even I believe that’s what she wants even though I know better.
His arms close more tightly around her and then he backs away. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
Addison’s wide eyes are on mine and I nod my head slowly because yeah…it hurt. I guess I’m helping her out. Damn Landon. His words are echoing in my head—You belong with us, Kara. I know it. But how could that even be possible anymore?
“The pain was…” She stops because she has no idea what the pain was like, and MAC nods once as he wraps his arms around her.
“Let’s head back.”
And now that I’m crawling into one of The Middle Men boats, with the elusive MAC on board, and an Addison that’s likely to get herself killed or locked up with her father, I’m sort of wondering what we’re going to find when we get back.
Addison speaks with MAC for a little longer, and I’m pretty sure she has him convinced she was a victim like me. That she has no idea he’s not her uncle when she really does.
Hardly! I want to scream. She held me so still I thought I’d stop breathing!
At the same time, I have to respect her bravery for coming aboard, I’m just not sure how to handle it yet.
I close my eyes and rest my head on the familiar seats as the four people talk over each other, and the boat speeds away.
“There’s no way to find them now if they don’t want to be found.”
“I can’t believe we’re just giving up and going back.”
“It’s not like we can do anything to change this.”
“But are we really going to face them and tell them we did nothing?”
“We didn’t do nothing. We’ve been watching this place for weeks and never saw or heard them coming.”
Landon definitely kept us all in his bubble of protection as we got close to Long Island and probably all the time without me knowing it. Without me sensing it. Even when I still had my power as a Seeker… How will that much power not corrupt him? Will Micah and Dean and everyone be enough to keep him grounded?
And my parents. Of course they’d have Middle Men here knowing we were headed this way. Of course they did. They’d have never left this entirely up to me and Ocean. And it’s a good thing, too, because he certainly didn’t prove himself to be very trustworthy.
My chest aches at the loss of him. More than aches—it hollows me even further, and after losing my gift, I feel like there couldn’t possibly be anything left worth taking.
My chest caves in when I realize again that I will never know things about people that other people don’t know. Never. Will never search for new talent, or feel the wavelengths off the people around me.
If Landon had given me more time, maybe I would have helped. Maybe I would have trusted the shadows… But as the words pass through my head, I know I’d been taught too well, and now I’ve lost everything.
Addison sits so close to me we’re touching and I fight not to move away, because me doing that would be a sure sign that she’s not with me. That her allegiance is with the people who let the shadows steal our gifts. And I may be angry with them all, but I also don’t want her capture or death on my hands.
“Please, Kara,” she whispers. “I need your help.”
I jut my chin out in a gesture that hopefully tells her to leave me alone.
“I’m going to ask your permission, but Micah said that it’s super important that you remember what happened on the island the night you were there. I need to save my dad. I have to find a way back to Dean. Please, Kara.”
“Why are you asking my permission?” I snap, managing to keep my voice quiet enough for the hum of the engines. “It’s my memory, and I told you what I remember.”
“Because I think I need to make you remember.” She cringes. “You know with my…” But she doesn’t need to finish.
I sigh and slump. “You have no idea…” how humiliating all of this is.
“I’m under no illusion that you like me, but I hope Micah’s right.”
“Right about what?”
“That you’ll remember and it’ll help. That you’ll know we did the right thing. And that the six of us will end up together.”
“You actually want the six of us to end up together?” I ask. She’s the least likely person I thought I’d find any kind of ally in, though she does want her dad.
“Yes.” Everything in her eyes in sincere. “I do want us all together.”
I close my eyes and shift under my towel. “Fine. Whatever. It’s not like my day could get worse.”
In seconds I’m in a dream that’s so real I can feel the fear and smell the salty air.
TWENTY-SIX
KARA
I’m too young. Both my parents know it, but they’ve allowed me to come anyway. I get the feeling that they had no other choice, but I’m young enough that I don’t care. The chopper flies low, and excitement pours through my body.
“I can’t believe it came to this,” Dad says.
My headset works perfectly, and I’ve been listening to everything that’s been said.
“Me either.” Mom shakes her head.
It’s dark outside, so I’m watching the instruments between the two front seats as our pilot navigates. We have five Middle Men soldier type people in the back. I’m not entirely clear on who they are.
“We’re close,” Mom says. “I will never let a group spend time together like this again.”
“We should have seen it coming,” Dad says. “The shadows are crafty, and I sometimes wonder if it isn’t inevitable that they find people to release them.”
“It is definitely preventable,” Mom says, her voice hard. “Nearly all The Middle Men have a healthy dose of fear over who the shadows are.”
“But it’s not who they are,” Dad says. “And eventually people are going to see that.”
“Not on my watch.” Mom’s voice is hard.
I don’t totally understand their conversation. I’ve heard remarks about shadows in passing, but I listen enough to know that I won’t see or be bothered by them until I’m close to eighteen. That’s eons away.
The chopper lands, and I watch the pilot and the green glow of the instruments as he sets us down. Electronics and navigation have always fascinated me. The water is glowing around this very round, small pond, and the wind shifts the chopper several times.
“Go!” Dad shouts. “We can’t afford to leave anyone behind.”
I’m not sure what he means by leave, but Mom grabs my shoulders. “No matter what happens, or what you hear, stay near the chopper okay?”
“Do I get a taser if shadows come near me?” I ask hopefully. I’ve admired the small instruments that all The Middle Men carry for ages, but they never let me have my own.
Mom’s face gets an odd frowny expression and she chokes out, “They won’t bother you.”
I believe her.
T
he night air is almost chilly, which is crazy because we’re in the balmy summer months now. The wait seems impossibly long, but I’m sure I’ve only been here a few minutes. Mom’s always giving me a hard time for being impatient.
Shots are fired. A lot of them. A few people scream about injustice. The night is suddenly eerily quiet except for the helicopter blades, which are still pumping. Mom and Dad come over a rise in the sand with two people in handcuffs and I hear words like body bag, and collection, but I don’t understand it well enough and can’t hear over the sound of the chopper, and even if I could understand the words, I might not understand their meaning.
A shadow appears in front of me, and I yell for help. I didn’t realize they had eyes, noses, mouths, hair that looks like smoke, and the burning hits my leg so hard I scream. I’m being burned alive. It’s so shocking that it takes a moment for me to react.
“Save me!” I shriek.
The two men in handcuffs’ eyes widen as they stop.
Mom and Dad pause, and I don’t understand why they’re not running toward me. Dad starts to move my way, but Mom grabs him and holds him back—something passes between them that I don’t understand.
“It’s burning me!” The shadows’ arm is running back and forth across my leg, and I can’t move to get away and I don’t know why. “Help!”
Dad wrestles from Mom’s grip, and the shadow disappears. As we get into the chopper, everything goes black, and I wake up in the hospital what feels like moments later with massive bandaging on my leg, my parents sitting on opposite sides of the room, and a doctor saying that the burn goes deep and I’ll probably always be disfigured.
They knew.
They knew I’d be hurt.
They knew who the shadows were.
Why does everyone find it so easy to betray my trust?
TWENTY-SEVEN
Kara
“Kara. We’re here.” Addison shakes my shoulder.
I jump awake, and we’re all the way home. I wipe sweat from my brow as the memory of my dream floods me again. Everything I’ve been taught my whole life is wrong. Everything.
