An icy wind blew my hair, and I shivered.

Images of what happened before I passed out flashed through my mind. Doctors planning to kill me. One of them dying; and another with heterochromatic eyes. A beak, feathers, and wings.

Nothing made sense.

I struggled to open my eyes. City lights dancing below seeped through partially opened lids as wisps of white clouds spread around me. My body ached, trapped inside a giant claw, threatening to force the life out of me while the pounding of my heart hammered against my ribcage.

The flapping of wings drummed in my ears.

A giant bird?

The beak and the wings in the operating room flashed through my memory.

It can't be real, can it? I must  be seeing things again. They didn't fix my vision sensors after all.

A high-pitched whistle pierced my ears, and a scream escaped my lips.

I pushed against the tight grip the giant bird had around my body, trying to free myself, but it didn't loosen its hold.

Sharp talons clenched around my arms like I was a rat trapped inside the claws of its predator. I couldn't breathe. My head spun as the darkness consumed me.

* * *

Sparkles of light danced through the canopy of trees. It was early in the morning. The sound of traffic droned in the distance and the twittering of birds came from the far-reaching branches above. Crackles and sap-pops came from a fire pit.

My body ached from sleeping on the hard ground as warmth enveloped around me. I found myself burrowed deep into a sleeping bag. The soft cotton material inside caressed my butt cheeks and my eyes grew wider. Crap, I'm still in my hospital gown, wearing a thong!

I peeked from the sleeping bag to see where I was. A giant figure of a man sat on a log in front of the fire pit with his back to me. The smokey smell irritated my nostrils.

"Drake." A voice came through something that sounded like a walkie talkie, but it wasn't. He lifted his arm in front of his face to speak into the device slapped around his arm, like a black bracelet.

"I'm here," said the man in a hushed tone. He pressed something into his ear.

His shoulders turned sideways first as his ear and the side of his face came into view. I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.

The other voice wasn't audible anymore.

"We are in Iowa. I had a situation last night and had to stop."

Iowa? How did we get from Atlanta to... Images of claws trapping me, squeezing the living daylights out of me, flashed through my mind. That wasn't real.

"Yes, I have the girl. She hasn't woken up yet."

Mom's biggest fear knotted at my core. Had this guy kidnapped me to be sold to human traffickers?

"There was already a clone to show her parents."

She enrolled me in defense classes I thought were ridiculous. The tension released in my limbs as the voice of Andy Maloney, my instructor, recited his mantra: keep calm, survey your surroundings, find a weapon, and remember to SING! Solar plexus, instep, nose, and groin. We had to say it so many times I dreamed it.

I switched to survival mode. I opened my eyes a crack, just enough to peek at the guy. His back was facing me again and a holograph of a map came from his watch, hovering in the air. The advanced technology fed my paranoia.

My eyes darted around and landed on a flat rock jutted from a carpet of pine needles close to me. My gaze flicked to a clear path right behind it. I unzipped the sleeping bag as silently as I could.

"Yeah, that will not happen. We are so off course..." The guy's sentence trailed on as I tucked my knees into my body and rolled onto the balls of my feet.

My heart was beating like crazy and millions of thoughts spoke at once as the adrenaline pumped through my veins.

The wind made a vulgar introduction, slipping through the hospital gown, as the only thought that came through was: RUN!

My feet reacted before I could find something else to cover myself than a flaring hospital gown. I tried to cover my behind and looked back to see if the guy was following. It was a clear path. What an idiot.

I darted past tall trees rising out of the earth to brush the sky. The sun-dappled leaves created flickering shadows on the ground. My heart stammered as my feet stepped on every single pine needle, crushing leaves in their wake. "Ow, ow, ow," I recited the mantra as the needles pricked the balls of my feet.

The leaves rustled behind me, and I turned around to look.

Only the wind! Now breathe through the pain, Sophie, otherwise you are going to die.

The noise of the traffic became louder, and it gave me another spurt of hope.

I ran, and didn't give a rat's ass anymore whether mine was showing or how much my feet were getting tortured. My lungs and legs burned as I reached the path dwindling up a hill.

I focused on a silent prayer.

Please, God, get me out of this mess. I promise to never complain about the things that I'm seeing. I'll endure the pain. Not that I want that, but I'll do it.

I rushed up the incline. When I reached the top, the forest entrance opened on a busy road. Many cars sped past, some of them honked but none of them stopped. Logic told me to stop one car as I clutched the back of my hospital gown closed. Then Mom's paranoia replaced my solid reasoning. 'You never know the person living next door. They can be a serial killer, Sophie.'

Silence, Mom. I'll take my chances with any of these cars rather than the trafficker that I left behind. I waved like a madwoman with my free hand.

A pickup stopped just as a pair of arms clasped around my body. A buzz rushed up my arms and spread down my back and legs. I shrieked.

I tried to start the steps of SING, but my kidnapper gripped my arms too tight, and I couldn't do half the steps.

How didn't I hear this idiot?

My foot stomped hard on the bridge of his foot, scared that he might wear army boots. A grunt left his mouth, and he lifted me off the ground.

It brought me to his height and in level with his face. I threw my head back hard, connecting with his nose.

A growl mixed with a suppressed curse slipped past his lips. He didn't let me go.

Still, I made a ruckus by yelling and kicking, hoping that the guy that had stopped would come running.

My feet touched the ground, and I wanted to go for a second instep, but he kicked at the back of my knees and my legs folded, connecting hard with this surface. The pain jolted up my leg, and I grunted.

"Would you calm down?" His deep voice rasped in my ear. All the hair on my neck stood straight from the tingling sensation that spread through me. The buzzing came from him.

"Help!" I still squirmed as we both kneeled on the ground. His arm gripped me tighter, while his other hand covered my lips.

I bit down hard on one of his fingers.

The guy growled, then pushed my cheek into the pavement.

A pair of shoes and the bottom of dark trousers rushed past us.

"Wait! Please!"

He stopped and looked right past us.

"I'm right here." I spoke awkwardly as the pavement crushed against my cheek. Grunts still left my mouth. He looked at us again and the confusion knitted his eyebrows as he peeked into the forest trail. He scratched his head and walked back to the pickup.

"No, wait, please!" Tears pricked my eyes.

We are right here! Why doesn't he see us?

The guy breathed hard behind me and pulled me up. I struggled for my life again.

Something connected with my head, and the pain seared through my skull.

***

When my eyes opened, I was upside down, draped over the brute's shoulder. His hand fisted the two flaps closed, resting on top of my ass.

"I had no choice, Alex. I had to mask myself."

A few seconds lingered. "I know! Fuck!" he roared. "She is out stone cold." The semi-giant was back in the forest. A moan escaped my lips, and the tingling sensation came back at once.

I screamed and squirmed again.

"Sweetheart, scream as much as you want. No one can hear you now."

"Let me go, you asshole!" I pounded on the kidney region. My fist ached as I slammed them against his Kevlar vest. "And take your hand off my ass."

"You want to flash your butt, go ahead." He let go of the flaps and my one arm flung behind my back, trying to close them again.

"You are the weirdest human trafficker."

"What are you talking about? I'm trying to save your life!"

"Save my life? You knocked me out!"

"Because you hurt me. Calm down! They tried to kill you last night, and I'm the bad guy here?"

I pushed against his back with my elbow. "Wait, last night happened?"

"Yes, and if you calm down, I'll tell you the reasons they want you dead."

"Someone wants me dead? Who? I'm only eighteen. They must have had the wrong person. I'm nobody."

"The world is full of mysteries, sweetheart."

"Fine! Do you mind putting me down?"

"Not until you give me your word that you won't try to run away or become violent again."

"Then give me your word that you are not part of some sex trafficking syndicate." I rolled my eyes just hearing how stupid that one sounded.

"You've got to be kidding me. I'm part of a rescue team."

I could hear the truth behind his words. If he were a human trafficker, I would've been in a giant crate, shipped off to the end of the world by now.

We returned to the campfire, and he dropped me on the ground. I clutched the flaps at the back of my gown and held it closed. The tingling sensation faded.

It was coming from him. I looked at the guy and gasped.

Big arms pressure tested the seams of black sleeves. His sun kissed skin went well with thick black hair, laying messy on top of his head. He cupped his nose and pushed it back in place with a flick, and grabbed a cloth from his bag, covering his nose as his eyes closed. Guilt filled my core as blood streamed down his lips and chin.

I felt bad now, but what else was I supposed to do? The guy just grabbed me and I thought he wanted to kidnap me.

His attire screamed secret protection organization. He had no weapons, not even a knife sticking out of a boot.

He grabbed his black backpack and chucked it in my direction, and mumbled against the cloth. "Get dressed."

I opened the bag and found my jeans, shirt, sneakers, and hoodie. "How did you get these?"

His eyes opened, and familiar eyes—one green and one brown—glared at me. It was the doctor from the hospital. His voice sounded familiar, too. "Last night, before I realized that they already took you to the operation room."

I pulled on my jeans underneath the hospital gown. The guy's eyes were still on me.

"Don't look!"

He turned around, still pressing the cloth to his nose.

"Why didn't that guy see us? We were right there."

"Because I'm different, like you."

I pulled the hospital gown off my body as his back was still turned to me. I pulled on my shirt. "It doesn't answer my question. How?"

He took the cloth from his nose, revealing plump, sultry lips that begged to be kissed. He was stupidly handsome, apart from the broken nose where my head connected with his face. It stopped bleeding, but he was going to have bruises under his eyes. "I can disappear."

Disappear? Okay, it makes sense why the guy didn't see us. But still.... "Why did those doctors try to kill me?"

He rolled up the sleeping bag with flicking movements of his hands. "You are different. You do not belong in this world. That sort of different."

I froze as my mind tried to process the disappear part still and me being different, while pulling on my sneakers. The headaches, the animal parts on the humans... that was what he meant.

He picked up the log in front of the campfire and chucked it deeper into the forest, stomping out the fire.

"You want to tell me the things that I'm seeing are real?"

His gaze locked with mine. "You see things?" There was curiosity in his tone, but the way his entire body tense and the squint in his eyes yelled it was not normal.

I shook my head and looked away as he snatched his backpack from my feet. He attached the sleeping bag to his backpack.

"I would keep seeing things to myself if I were you. Even in our world, seeing things is not good."

I didn't nod, but I heeded his warning even though I still didn't know what all this was about.

"How did you find out about me?" I started working through the million questions scrambled in my head.

"We have people listening. When they hear of cases like yours, and doctors that can't find out what is wrong with their patients, they investigate."

"It doesn't mean that we are different."

"Ninety-nine percent it means exactly that." He put the bag on his shoulder and motioned for me to walk.

My jaw muscles pumped and walked in the direction he pointed in. There was a small path. "So what am I?"

"We don't know yet. What did the doctors say is wrong with you? They kept looking at scans."

"I have horrible headaches."

"You could be several things. A lot of abilities cause headaches if they're not guided properly."

"Abilities?" My heart bounced faster, remembering what the doctor had said about my abilities causing my headaches. That was what the doctor meant?

"Yeah, it's not so bad once you get used to them. Earwyn will help you."

I stopped, turned around, and scowled at him. Why does he have to be so beautiful? "I don't want to go to someone named Earwyn. Take me home!"

His dark eyebrow raised. "Oh, that is a no-go, sweetheart. Believe me, your parents already think you are dead."

"They think I'm dead!"

"Yes." Offering no measure of sympathy, he walked past me.

I ran to catch up to him and pulled his arm to slow down and just look at me. "What?"

The annoyance tugged on his lips and furrowing his eyebrows. "It's what this world does. When humans find something different; they want to cut it to pieces and label it as science. Believe me, keeping you alive, keeping anything like us alive, is last on their list. We need to get moving; otherwise, we will never reach Earwyn. And Earwyn is a place, not a person."

"I don't want to go to Earwyn. I want—"

"If you tell your parents you are alive, they will die. I can promise you that. Let's make them believe you are dead. It's the only way to save them, keep them out of this war."

"What war?" The words slipped through clenched jaws.

"The war trying to keep our kind safe."

Thank you for reading chapter two. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your comments. The chapter is slowly becoming stronger and stronger with all your help. It looks like it takes a village to write a book, hahahaha.

Thanks I really appreciate it. 

A little joke, or book pun. I'm thinking of doing them after every chapter. Let me know what you think. 

What building has the most stories? The library.