Prisoner Series: Book 3 Teaser...

Chapter 10 Discussion (8:15am, Sanford, NC, June 14th, 2030)

“Devil’s argument,” said Gavin. “First, let me clarify where we’re at.” 

For the first time since all of this began, the question wasn’t how to rescue one of their sisters, but should they attempt a rescue? 

          “We’re saying that maybe she’s in a safe place. Possibly happy. And maybe even with a gift not quite strong enough to think it’s anything more than heightened intuition. Correct?”

          “Yes,” said Joanna, looking around the shop at everyone gathered. 

          “We know it’s been difficult to reach this individual, right?” he said, pausing for approval. “Well, couldn’t it also be said that maybe she’s strong enough to design a barrier to remain hidden? After all, we did experience what can only be described as a reverse surge of energy the other day in the gazebo, right?”

          “I don’t think that surge came from her, though,” said Zuri. “I mean, I guess it could have, but I could feel two distinct lines pulling me in opposite directions. It felt like that blast originated from the unknown source, not from her.”

          “Agreed,” Addie interjected. “I’m fairly certain what I saw came from the black strand.”

          “I see what you’re saying—” Gavin started.

          “I think I know where Gavin’s going with this,” Maria chimed in. “Even if the eighth didn’t produce that surge, when it was just Zuri straight out of her induced coma, she was still strong enough to feel out for Lexi and Zoey. With all of you combined, her reach is a force to be reckoned with. Even if the eighth’s gift is weak, just a regular person like me, you’d be able to find her. Yet, somehow, she’s keeping you at bay. Seems it would take a lot of energy on her end to keep Zuri, let alone all of you together, from seeing her clearly.”

          “First, you’re not a regular person, Maria. You are a force!” Addie laughed. “But you have a point,” she added. “Wouldn’t we want to have her here with us then? If she is that strong?”

          “Whether she’s strong or not, maybe she doesn’t want her gifts,” Grant offered. “Or… like Joanna said, she might be happy where she is. Who are we to rob her of that?”

          “Or maybe,” Aidan said from the back of the room, “it could be she’s not like you. Maybe she’s gone to the dark side, Vader-style.”

          His words rang out in the silence of the room. A thought only Joanna had considered but wasn’t ready to share.

 

**** (Florida 11:05am)

          Dakota stepped hard and fast through the woods. If steam could come from her ears, she imagined it would scorch leaf and limb as she passed. With red cheeks and a rising heart rate, she fumed at the traitorous actions of her team. Have people always been this unfaithful? I may not have had a normal childhood, but to just go behind someone’s back like that?

          Just like when she was a child, they wanted to hurt her, confine her, use her. They aren’t my family. All these years I believed they cared about me, but I’ve been nothing more than a tool. 

          She woke up that morning even more furious. Everything she’d done. For them. For their cause.

          On autopilot, her march through the forest brought her to the beach. The Atlantic spread dark and wide before her as a storm cell raged off the coast. It looked as beautiful as it did menacing, with flashes of lightning and a distant water spout moving north. Dakota hardly felt either the wind or the rain on her skin from her vantage point. Clenching her fists, she wanted to feel the needling pain of driving rain and the surge of wind too forceful to stand.

          She never had the capability of altering biological or atmospheric things, but burning vibration on her skin and intense pressure in her brain was fueling a rage within her. Without thinking, she pulled out her notepad and pencil and began to sketch out the scene. She drew herself standing on the beach, waves lapping against her knees. She penciled palm trees bent and broken and lying on the ground. She sketched the pier in the distance being washed away. Her ferocity ripped the wet page with the sharpened granite.

          Staring at the storm in the distance, she focused all her attention on the scene playing out before her. Clenching her notebook in one hand, she slammed her hand on the image and swiped across it with a ferociousness that tore and ripped the page further.

          The action amplified the pressure in her brain, squeezing like a vice. Her hands flew to the sides of her head, pressing in on her temples, her vision began to blur as the pain intensified. 

          Without warning, a furious wind sent her flailing back onto her right arm, bending her forearm at an angle it wasn’t meant to.            

          The snap of her arm, along with the searing pain shooting from her head down her spine, was more than she could handle.

          Her scream, however, was drowned out by the incoming pelting rain and the crashing waves. Scrambling up the embankment, she pressed behind a fallen palm tree, hoping to block the onslaught. 

          As she listened to the pier snap into pieces by the waves, her rage and pain turned to fear, warping her view as her surroundings grew darker and her hearing muffled as if the waves were overcoming her. That’s when she saw them, cinnamon-colored eyes sparkling so bright they cut through the deafening darkness.

          She whimpered as her mind shouted, Help me! Please, someone. Help me.

 

**** (Sanford, NC)

          Joanna sat beside Brandon, quietly listening in on the gang’s back-and-forth. They had taken their discussion into the house so Maria could make her famous paninis. Trying to stay engaged, her skin prickled against the blanket she was wrapped in. Cautiously rubbing her arm, it began to sting as her friends’ words morphed into the cacophonous sound of waves rushing in.

          Grabbing her left arm and letting out a high-pitched gasp, Joanna jolted upright, catching Brandon off-guard.

          “Joanna? What’s going on?” Brandon’s voice was distant and muffled, like a whisper being swallowed by the wind.

          She felt loving hands grab hold of her stinging skin as the cold, harshness of East Coast waves washed over her body.             The others panicked as her body seized at the crackling flash of lightning so bright it imprinted a ghostly set of silver crystalline eyes into her mind.

          “It’s... it’s her!” Joanna choked out. “I can see her. She’s... she’s by the water. She’s hurt!”

          Zuri, pushing through the crowd, grabbed Joanna’s hand. Instantly she felt the prickling rain, the cold water, and the crystalline eyes engulf her.

          “The walls have come down,” whispered Aidan, his eyes aglow with an amber glimmer bright enough to refract crystal sparkles across the walls.

          Maddy gasped at the sight, which caused the others to shift their focus from Zuri and Joanna to the unexpected source of light.

          “Aidan?” Lexi asked, touching the side of his face as Zoey carefully removed the sunglasses he had been wearing more and more as of late. “How long have you known?”