YOU'VE GOT THE LOVE

CHAPTER TWO

"...The girl"
"enhanced individual..."

"...her father despises-"

Snippets of sentences filter in, distorting Riley even further. She's groggy, unsure of her surroundings, and has absolutely no idea what's going on.

The last thing she remembers is her father acting incredibly unlike himself, a vast contrast to his typical demeanor. Tangled was playing on the flat-screen, she was sipping hot chocolate. Riley can't remember anything else. She goes to rub her eyes, but as she moves her hands towards her face, she's met with an unexpected resistance.

She tries again, but to no avail. Wherever she is, it's dark. She can't see anything, and instead closes her eyes tightly, trying to squeeze away any remnants of this weird fog she's in.

Despite the darkness, Riley continues to try and use anything she can to try and figure out where she is and what was going on. Wherever she's sitting is firm and cold, it feels like some sort of floor or something. That is until she feels herself slightly raise into the air, the familiar feeling of a speed bump. The difference being that she isn't seated and buckled in like she normally would be on a vehicle, well, except for the school bus, but that was a little bit different. She tries to continue collecting data, but before she can continue to do so, voices start up again. Riley becomes presently aware that she isn't alone, though this time, she catches the whole sentence.

"Likely compatible with the other two enhanced." A male voice states, accent heavy.

Riley's even more confused, but then it occurs to her that these people, whoever she's with, don't seem to realize she's awake. This makes sense, due to the fact she's in complete darkness.

"Hello?" Riley's voice is all scratchy, and she clears her throat.

A little slot slides open, and a thin ray of light pours into the small enclosure Riley seems to find herself in. Riley squints her eyes, the light quite bright in contrast to the darkness that she had found herself in.

One of the guards has turned his head, having been the one who had opened this little slot. It appeared to be a sort of peephole, this guard and another male guard, only one of which had turned any attention to Riley, in a separate area. This must be some sort of military vehicle or something, Riley thinks. At least a really big van or truck of some sorts, big enough to have this large space for Riley to stay in and a separate area for the others. She connects the dots, and concludes that the driver and passenger seat must be divided like a delivery truck would be, the cargo in this case being, well, a little girl.

The guard peers through, blinks once, and shuts the slot.

Riley groans and slides her back against the wall, the weird locks that are wrapped around her hands clinking against the other.

                                        ⋆. 𐙚 ˚

Riley is unsure how long it's been since she's been in this vehicle or truck or van or whatever it is that she's in.

What she does know though, is that she's hungry. Oh, and she also needs to pee.

"Hellooooooo!" Riley says, her voice dragging out the word.

No response.

"I need to pee! and i'm hungry." Riley continues.

A stern, rough voice with a thick accent speaks up.

"Stop complaining." The voice finally responds.

"Ugh! I really need to pee!" Riley protests.

A spark goes off in Riley's mind, and she goes on.

"If you don't take me to a gas station or something, i'm going to pee in the car." Riley states bluntly.

"Go ahead, грязная крыса" (filthy rat) The guard snarks back.

Riley doesn't understand the last part of what he said, but she is in fact surprised by the part of his response that she did understand. She proceeds with something she think may just convince him.

"You're going to have to let me out of here eventually, and I don't think you're going to want to have to see that. Plus, I don't think that whoever owns this vehicle would really be too happy about that." Riley sassily replies in retaliation.

The guard huffs and puffs, and finally mutters something to his colleague.

"Ради всего святого, подъезжайте к ближайшей заправке." (For Christ's sake. Just pull into the gas station that's coming up.)

Riley smirks to herself, and waits patiently until she feels the car slowing down.

The best part is, she didn't even have to pee all that badly.

                                        ⋆. 𐙚 ˚

Riley was finally able to go to the restroom in a dingy gas station, one of the guards having maintained a firm grip on her shoulders as he led to her the restroom, and she was instructed very clearly that if she did anything to draw attention to herself, she would be in big trouble.

Really, she's just relieved to have those clunky, uncomfortable cuffs off of her hands, but nevertheless, the guards' instruction sent chills down her spine. Riley couldn't find it in herself to retaliate this time, especially since it seemed like this guy was dead serious, and she knew how mean adults could be, even to little kids, little girls.

Riley observed her surroundings, the sign to the gas station as well as all of the stuff they were selling inside having had different names than to the gas station near where she lived. This makes Riley presently aware that she has absolutely no idea where she is, or what country for that matter. Riley continues making observations, and collecting data.

The rest stop is scarce, seemingly in the middle of nowhere with just an older lady at the cash register. She couldn't cry for help if she wanted to.

Then, a thought occurs to her. Those cuffs? She realized that they suppressed her powers when she tried to use them to illuminate the space she was in earlier that day. When the guard isn't looking, she tries to see if she is able to conjure a little spark or something.

A soft, purple glow. Just for a second, gone as quick as it came.

Riley can't bring herself to do anything though. She's in the middle of nowhere, and she's not going to lie, but that old lady is looking pretty senile. She'll just have to make a plan once she reaches the destination of wherever they're taking her, Riley ultimately decides.

Once she gets back to the vehicle, she can see that it's some sort of large military looking, bulky vehicle of sorts. Great way to not draw attention, she thinks. For some reason though, she doesn't really think it matters when it comes to these people.

Shes hastily pushed back into the vehicle, once again engulfed in darkness.

She takes this as a chance to get some sleep, seeing as there is nothing to do. As she drifts off, she can't help but wonder what's going on, and she can't seem to shake this horrible feeling she has that her life is about to change. The part that confuses her the most though, is that she can't tell whether or not it's a feeling that her life will change for the better, or for the worse. And believe her, that's saying a lot.