SALLY.

A sound from the entrance made me look up. Cameron stood there with some clothes in his hands. I shrieked and immediately dunk myself in the water with my head poking out of it.

“I’m so sorry,” he rushed out, “I just came to give you these.”

He moved closer and placed them on the floor. When he looked up, his features were hard.

“When you’re done, I’d like to introduce you to everyone,” he said and left.

What did he have to be mad about? He had been the one to barge in on me naked, I should be mad.

I got out of the water and dried myself with a towel I found in the pile of clothes. I picked up the black jeans and red plaid shirt and wore them. I rolled up the sleeves. The shirt seemed to belong to someone taller than me and the jeans were tight. I slipped into the black converse and walked out, following the path we’d come through earlier back to the group.

They were all gathered around the big tent, I scanned the crowd for familiar faces but only saw Ryan, Cameron was nowhere to be found.

“Everyone, I’d like you all to meet Sally Jenkins, the first Enhanced. At least the first the world knows of,” Ryan announced as he came to me.

They all looked at me with excitement on their faces, murmuring amongst themselves.

“She’ll be joining us as an addition to the group.”

Joining them? I frowned. I never said anything about joining them.

“No, I won’t be joining you,” I said. They all looked at me and I swallowed.

His brows puckered in a frown. “You won’t be joining us?”

“I’m going home, back to my parents.” He seemed to find that incredulous, “Where are we?”

“Phoenix, Arizona,” Cameron answered. He moved away from the wall, impaling me with his steely gaze; I swallowed. He’d been here the whole time?

“That’s far from home,” I muttered.

“Home is gone.” He clenched his jaw.

“What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer. “You were found in a military base not far from here with some other kids. They all wanted to go home, I obliged them by sending them home but there isn’t a home anymore, not for any of us here.”

How was he so sure of that?

“My parents are waiting for me.”

He scoffed and walked into the tent. I tried to stop him but Ryan grabbed my hand. I yanked it out of his immediately and stepped back. My heart raced.

“You shouldn’t go in there,” he said, looking contrite.

“What’s his problem?” I asked, trying to calm myself down.

“He’s...” he dragged out the word, “Well a bit temperamental.”

“I need to get back to my family,” I said firmly.

He looked away and sighed. When he looked back at me, his eyes were hooded. “None of us have families to go back to.”

He looked sad. My stomach clenched. “Why?” I asked quietly. He shrugged. Why were they living in a cave and raiding food instead of back home with their families?

He motioned for me to follow him and we walked away from the crowd, into a dark green tent. It was a small space with clothes folded neatly on the left side. On the right was a pile of clothes scattered around.

“Don’t mind the mess.” He moved to the left and sat on a mat. “Rayne’s a little messy.”

I guessed he shared the tent with his sister and she must be Rayne. I sat in front of him.

He sighed. “When news about you surfaced, kids started going missing. We were being rounded up with the excuse that we were infected. There was widespread hysteria about another outbreak of the virus. When the first signs started, parents gave up their kids to Medex willingly to fix us. The few of us here managed to slip custody.”
“Isn’t there a vaccine for the ACID virus already?”
“There is. It’s a different strain this time, much worse than the original virus.”
I looked down at my hands remembering how it had been covered in dark veins. “But this isn’t a virus.”

He nodded. “It isn’t. Not long after that, there was an outbreak. The virus wiped out half of the country in months. Anyone who got infected died within weeks, the rest retreated into safe houses created as shelter and we were forced to hide in here. The strange part was we didn’t seem to be affected by the virus. We were immune to it.”

I gasped. My heart clenched. It couldn’t be. My parents… No, Sally. Don’t think like that, they’re likely to be in one of those safe houses waiting for you.

“Where are these safe houses?” I asked.

“Well, the closest one is New York but we’re not allowed to go there.”

That’s hours away.

“Why?”

“Cam says it’s crawling with security. They do a blood test before allowing anyone in.”

I scoffed. I wasn’t staying here just because Cameron said so. My parents were in New York and I was going there.

“You should stay here.” He smiled softly, “You’d like it here.”

I gave him a close-lipped smile. I doubted it. I was no cave dweller and staying underground again was not in my plans.

Hours later, we stepped out of the tent. Ryan had kept me busy with stories of his sister. She seemed to have a jovial personality. I’d like to meet her but she wasn’t here. She’d driven the truck with some others to drop the kids from the Underground. I wasn’t sure what time of day it was. There was no sunlight entering the cave. The only lighting the cave had was from the makeshift torches hanging on the wall. The air was chilly and I shivered a little.

“Let me,” Ryan said. He opened his palm and flame rose out of it.

“Thanks.” I smiled up at him. I was starting to warm up. His brown eyes twinkled as he smiled back. I looked down at the flame on his palm as it swirled and burned, I was mesmerized. I’d never seen fire so close before, especially one that was tame. We stayed still for a while before he spoke up.

“Come on, everyone must be gathered around the bonfire.” He moved towards another section of the cave.

“You guys have a bonfire?”

“Yes, where we make s’mores and tell stories. It’s fun, you’ll love it.”

“You have s’mores?” It’d been long I had one of those.

My parents and I used to go camping in the woods sometimes. We’d make a bonfire and roast marshmallows and s’mores.

“Yeah, we got them during a convenience store raid. There are lots of junk foods left in there. No one to eat them.”

Lights reflected off the cave walls, I could hear laughter. I knew we were close. Just how big was this cave, I wondered. It had a lot of tunnels.

“This cave is really big,” I said.

“It is. It was nothing more than just a hole when we first got here but, Ash created the tunnels and now it’s our home.”

We made it to the bonfire. They were gathered around a hole in the ground with fire coming out of it. Some of them had marshmallows on sticks and others were chatting amongst themselves. The atmosphere was lively but I felt out of place, I wasn’t used to such liveliness. Back home, it was always just Riven and I hanging out in my room or his. I missed him. I could only hope he was also in a safe house with my parents.

“Come on.” I followed Ryan. He sat between Cameron and a Chinese looking guy with short, dark spiky hair. I sat beside him next to the Chinese guy. Cameron looked up at me and looked away. It seemed he was still in a mood.

“Hello,” I greeted the guy beside me and he offered me his stick.

“Sally, meet Hiro,” Ryan introduced us.

I smiled and took the stick from him. “You’re Chinese, right? You look Chinese.”

He glared at me and snatched his marshmallow stick back from me. “I’m Japanese. Chinese people look different, you idiot,” he mumbled.

Whoa!

Ryan cracked up and my cheeks flushed. I sneaked a glance at Cameron. His lips were quirked up slightly in a small smile.