Forgotten

Chapter Five

“Hey.” The first thing I realized was the person wasn’t yelling at me. The second was that it was Blake sitting there.

I brushed some hair from my face. “Hi.”

“What are you thinking about?” He asked calmly which wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought he would come out here and yell at me or ‘punish’ me for being out of my tent. What? I’d read horror stories before.

“Running away,” maybe being honest would get me some bonus points. “But I don’t think I would get very far.”

Blake made a noise of agreement. “Yeah, I don’t think so either.  I’ll make you a deal; you don’t protest tomorrow and you keep an open mind, you hear us out and then decide. And if you still want to leave tomorrow, after we’ve showed you everything, I’ll personally drive you back to your hotel.”

“What’s the catch?” The deal sounded way too good to be true. What were they going to show me tomorrow that he was so confident would win me over?

“No catch. As much as you don’t want to believe it, I do care about you and I’m not going to force you to help us. It wouldn’t turn out well anyways; you can’t use your powers if you’re acting like this.” His voice was sincere which made my suspicions rise. But what other chance did I have?

I pursed my lips and looked out at the threatening forest. “Okay sure, but you have to keep your end of the deal when I want to leave.”

“I think you’re going to change your mind after what we show you.” I glanced at him and saw a humorous smile on his face. Was he mocking me?

I shook my head. “I still think you’re all crazy.”

“I know.” Blake’s voice was so quiet I barely heard him, but I did. I could also hear the sorrow in his voice and I decided that if he did bring me back to the hotel, I would make sure to get him help. But I would press charges against the others.

Blake and I sat in the back of the truck, silent, for a little while after our talk. Finally, he got tired and left to his tent. I stayed in the truck for a few minutes before I heard a wolf howl and I scurried back to my tent. He better keep his word.

 I woke up with the sun because the tent wasn’t thick enough to block the light and I was a light sleeper, unlike Kia and Missy. So I left the tent and went over to the picnic table that their camp was situated around. It was already getting hot.

A few moments later, one of the other tents opened and Zane came out of it. I went rigid, knowing he wasn’t as sweet or forgiving as Blake. He probably would’ve hit me if he knew I had been thinking of running away. Sure none of them had physically hurt me yet, but they threatened to and they did drug Ally. The last thing I was going to do was trust any of them.

Zane sat down on the same bench as me and I immediately scooted closer to the edge, not wanting to be near him. If he hadn’t turned out to be crazy, I would’ve loved sitting next to him. Life can be so ironic.

He noticed me move away. “You don’t have to act like I’m going to kill you.”

“How do I know you aren’t planning to?” 

He studied my face for a moment with a calculating gaze and I was sure he could see my fear. “We need you to save our world. I wouldn’t risk letting everything and everyone I know die simply because you’re annoying.”

“I’m not annoying!” My face flamed at the insult. What had I done to him? You know, besides slap and bite him, but those were purely out of self-defense.

“You haven’t shut up once since you joined us except when you were asleep.” Notice how he said ‘joined us’. He was probably trying to convince himself he hadn’t committed a crime by kidnapping me.

 “Yeah, poor you,” I muttered sarcastically, figuring it would be a bad idea to argue with him.

Zane rolled his eyes. “See, that’s annoying.” I was sure I would have replied with something mean and witty, but we were joined by Missy. It was my first time actually seeing her since she had been hiding in her sleeping bag all night and let me say, she did not look like a Missy at all. ‘Missy’s were supposed to be sweet girls who wore sundresses. The girl in front of me was decked out in black and had nose, eyebrow and lip piercings. I decided she was probably another kidnapper.

She gave us a smile that looked like it would hurt her lip where it was pierced, and said, “Princess Victoria. Prince Zane.”

I felt my brow furrow. “What?”

“Hey Missy,” Zane greeted her. He didn’t seem to find it weird that she had referred to him as a prince.

“I’m glad they found you,” she told me politely, confusing me further. Was there a mental illness that made you refer to other people as if they were royals?

I laughed once, the sound sharp and bitter. “Is that your way of going along with kidnapping me?” She looked shocked at my words.

Zane sighed and explained, “She lost her memory and we had to resort to desperate measures to get her here.”

“And you kidnapped her? How did you get Kia and Blake to go along with that?” She sat down across the table from us, her eyes shining with anticipation and amusement.

“We didn’t have any other choices,” he answered simply.

Missy turned her gaze to me. “How are you dealing with all this? What exactly did you forget?”

“Everything and is the first supposed to be a trick question?” I couldn’t believe they had their own little cult of insane kidnappers. This was getting stranger by the minute.

“No, I was actually curious. Do you still have your powers?”

I slapped my palm to my forehead. “I don’t have any powers.”

Zane chuckled. “We think she still has her powers, but she can’t use them until she gets over her denial.”

“Oh… Well, can I borrow the car and go get breakfast?”

“Sure, don’t get caught,” Zane replied and I heard clattering which must have been him throwing the keys to her. Then I registered his words.

I whipped my head to the side to look at him. “You stole a car too!?”

“We’ll give it back before we go back to Astoria.” He looked and sounded so serious, I would’ve believed him if I didn’t know better. The world didn’t exist so he couldn’t go back to it. So he would never return the car.

I repressed my smile as I found a hole in their story. “I thought Astoria was taken over by evil dudes or whatever.”

“It was, but as soon as you get yourself together, we’re going to get Astoria back.” There was a sudden edge to his tone that made me flinch back as he got up and stormed away from camp... I hoped he would get lost.

It wasn’t long before Kia got up and joined me. I stayed silent as she tried to start a conversation. Finally, she said something that caught my interest; she had clean clothes I could borrow. So I changed and went back outside to stare at dirt.

After a while, everyone else started to wake up. When Blake sat down I gave him a look, hoping he remembered our deal. Then two other guys, Drake and Jason, joined us. They didn’t act kidnapped which meant I was the only victim there. And, just as my stomach started to eat itself, Missy came back. Everyone ran over to the car to greet her, but I hung back and waited for her to come over.

When Missy sat down, she handed me a napkin and a blueberry donut. “I remembered they were your favorite.” I stayed silent, because she was right, it was my favorite. It was a lucky guess.

Once we ate and washed the stickiness from our hands, the real part started. The part that Blake said would convince me.