Shades of Starlight (Hiatus)

Chapter Ten

"How could one teenage girl take out three armed adults?" A voice demanded. My eyelashes fluttered. My dreams and nightmares had been flitting around my head for what felt like an eternity. It was incredible to finally be awake. I was lying on a hard stone floor, trapped by crisscrossing metal bars. My hands and feet were bound, and I was gagged. I smiled underneath the gag. This would be child's play.

"Clearly, she was given special combat training we were unaware of. And she used a pen as a weapon... and stole a melder from one of us. And her ability," another voice responded. I was surprised by how clear everything was. I would've thought it would be blurry from the sedative, but I felt fine.

"It doesn't matter," the first voice said dismissively. "They believed the tidal wave, and the blood in the cave was cleaned." Blood in the cave? Oh, it must have been from the person I stabbed with my pen. I internally shuddered, pretending to still be asleep.

"Staging a suicide would have been better," a third voice hissed.

"No one would've believed they both jumped," the first voice pointed out.

"I know. The other girl is an extremely unfortunate addition," the third voice sighed. Three men, then. The voices were all masculine.

"What are we going to do with her? She makes everything a thousand times more complicated."

"Stop asking questions and just do your job," a fourth voice growled. "Wash her most recent memories." They must mean Sophie. Suddenly, her voice filled my head.

"Please. My name is Sophie Foster. If anyone can hear me, please send help." Sophie was a Telepath. I knew it! Once I heard the footsteps of our kidnappers fade, I sprang into action. My mom had taught me how to do outward channeling. That meant that I could break or shatter some objects with my mind. I sat up and focused on the cold, thick cords binding my feet. They burst into thousands of small pieces, much more quietly than I would have thought. Standing up carefully, I brought my bound hands to my ankles and stepped backwards over them. Now I had my hands in front of me instead of behind. Soon, the cords binding my hands were broken.

Ripping the gag out of my mind and destroying it too, I started banging on the metal bars of my cell and shouting loudly. Seconds later, three cloaked people stood in front of my cell. They all did a double take, seeing me awake and unbound.

"Open the cell," I commanded. Instantly, all three of them tried to follow my order. In a moment, I exited the cage, breathing a sigh of relief. Then I spotted Sophie, who was tied to a chair in front of me. I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen her before.

"Free her," I told my kidnappers. They immediately complied. Sophie was free now, too. She'd just need to be awake.

"Sophie, wake up," I breathed in her ear and waited a minute. Her eyelids fluttered, like mine, then opened.

"What the-"

"Just follow my lead," I said to her with a confident smile. I could get us out of here, alive and fine. I turned to our kidnappers.

"Lead us out of here as fast as you can." They started walking off in a seemingly random direction. I helped Sophie to her feet, and we started after them. There seemed to be hardly anyone in this place. We didn't pass anyone until the people I'd Beguiled led us to a door guarded by another cloaked member of their group.

"Stand aside and forget you saw us," I ordered the guard. He turned his back to us, and our capturers opened the enormous door for us. Bright sunlight beamed on us, and I saw a city beyond the door.

"Forget you saw us, and tell nobody that you helped us escape," I commanded our former kidnappers. They spun on their heels and walked away. I grabbed Sophie's arm and ran out the door, closing it quietly behind us.