12 Months

Chapter 6

“Yeah, I was just getting to that…” He trails off, looking away from me. I’m obviously not going to like this bad news if I didn’t like the good news, and he knows it. We all look at him. Me, in confusion, and the others waiting for him to tell me.

“Ashton…” I say slowly, my voice warning him that if he doesn’t speak soon he’ll be pinned to the ground.

“The bad news is the camp is completely and utterly destroyed, which means we don’t have a home.” He blurts out. I blink. Sort of what I had expected.

“And the worse news?”

He gulps. “We don’t know where anyone is.”

“Oh.” I reply. “So Milo and the other kids, including some who are as young as seven are who knows where, with no place to go, and we have no way of reaching them.”

“Pretty much, Little Aria. And since they’re not human and neither are we, they could literally be anywhere in the world if they were sensible enough to combine their powers instead of going alone and afraid. That means it’ll be near impossible for any normal person to locate them.”

“We’re screwed.” I sigh. “Game over. Done.”

“What he means to say is they’re safe.” Speaks Miyako. “If we have trouble finding them, Banks’s men will have even more trouble. Most of his troops are normal humans with next to no training. They don’t know the children as well as we do, so we can use that as an advantage. Chins up, everyone. We can get through this.” She grins, and I remember Ashton calling her the agony aunt. She really does sound like one.

“And why does she call you Ashton?” Caleb asks Ashton, gesturing to me. Ashton turns to me, smiling sweetly. He wants me to explain.

“Aria?” He asks, gesturing to Caleb.

“This little twit,” I point a thumb at him “happens to be my brother. His real name is Ashton Winters. He ran away from home eight years ago, just after our mother left and died. She was a Daekmalenti, too, but I didn’t know at the time. Then he helped develop that gas that Banks used so people forgot the schools, and decided to spray me with it.” Everyone’s silent. I nod. “I’m kind of over it now but it’s sort of weird. That reminds me.” I turn to him. “How is remembering supposed to save the world?”

“Well, you’ve proved the gas wears off.”

“Eight years later! We don’t have eight years, we have about ten months until he releases the other gas.”

“But this is good! It wasn’t meant to wear off at all, and you proved being exposed to the person you’re meant to forget…” He turns to everyone else. “makes you remember them.” He clicks his finger excitedly. “Idea! We can use that!”

“So you’re suggesting what exactly?” Questions Caleb. Ryan and Ella nod. Miyako answers for him again.

“He’s saying we need to rescue everyone in the schools. Then, even if people don’t remember them, they’ll have to question where all these kids came from. Slowly, they’ll remember.”