Linked

Chapter 10

Kaileen

We were walking at a brisk pace along a rough trail through a forest that I hadn't known it even existed. Eria slouched at the back, while Kyle and I walked so close to each other that our shoulders brushed with each step we took. "Can I see the tracker?" Eria asked, so I tilted the hand with my communications ring on it in her direction so that she could see the red blinking dot that was supposed to be where Elia was. After that, there was another long silence where we all trudged along, lost in our own thoughts.

"Do you want to take a break?" Kyle took out his water flask from his backpack. We stopped in a small clearing, and I sat on the edge of a large gnarled root of a tree as we all had a drink and caught our breaths. To my surprise, it was Eria who first said that we should get going again. So we continued our trek, following the steady blink of the tracker. Suddenly, the screen of my ring went blank.

"What's wrong?" Eria challenged.

"I... the dot disappeared!" I started to panic.

"WHAT?!" she literally screamed in my ear. Kyle pulled her away from me.

"Let's calm down, people. There must be a reason why it disappeared." said Kyle, as usual the only one thinking logically. "The only thing I can think of that makes sense is that we're out of the boundary that the electronics work. But the thing is, none of the books that I've read says that there is an end to the boundary." he tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"So...?" I urged.

"This must be a new area, a secret one, that the government doesn't want anyone else to know about except for them."

Without warning, a sharp pain throbbed through my left shoulder. I glanced down at it to see a thin dart sticking out from the center of a circle of wet blood that was expanding quickly. I stumbled forwards, but the world was spinning and I couldn't see much of what was in front of me. Kyle swore rather colorfully as he wrapped my un-responding arms around his shoulders and piggy-backed me as he and Eria sprinted farther into the woods, away from the Surveillance Force officers that were chasing us.

"How'd they find us?" Eria panted. I caught a familiar glint of metal from her finger, and Kyle also had the same one on his right hand.

"Your comms rings," I managed to say, fighting the dark haziness that was threatening to overcome my vision. "We forgot to reset them. They traced us using the data in the hard drive."

"I'm so sorry, Kaileen. I should have known." Kyle was running as fast as he could, but he was starting to tire. The Surv Force got closer and closer until we could hear their footfalls behind us. We were still running for our lives when I realised that there were no more people with predatory intentions chasing us anymore. Kyle screeched to a stop, clutching a stitch in his side. Eria came out from hiding behind a tree a few meters back from where we were, looking sheepish. When we looked at where eight officers had been pursuing us, there were only eight unconscious bodies lying silent on the hard bumpy ground.

"You all right?" a male voice spoke above us. A guy who looked to be about six feet tall hopped down from a tree near us, holding a gun. Dark-haired, blue-eyed and with the longest eyelashes I had ever seen on a boy, he was hands down the most striking person I had ever seen in my life. "Tranquiliser," he grinned as he examined his handiwork, mostly to himself. "Saves time." Then he turned his attention to us. "If I were you, I'd come with me to headquarters before more people arrive." The dying sunlight cast sharp shadows on his high cheekbones. The sapphire-blue of his eyes was the last thing that caught my attention before I was swept away into darkness by the drug that I had been shot with.