Ame Perdue

Chapter Eight

The world around me had vanished in a swirl of colors. It felt like I was caught up in a hurricane. I could feel the wind tearing at my clothes, threatening to tear me apart. Everything was spinning fast than I could keep track of it. I knew that Milo was somewhere in front of me, but I couldn't make him out through the haze of colors swirling around me. The only reason that I knew that he was still there was because of his hand that was still locked firmly to mine.

The experience only lasted a moment before I felt my feet touch solid ground. Everything felt dizzy as I staggered away from Milo. The world titered to the side as everything kept spinning round and round. My legs didn't hold me for long. I crumbled to the ground, clutching my stomach as I dry heaved.

"I would have warned you that teleportation wasn't pleasant for humans, but I had a feeling that if I did you would have thrown a fit," Milo said behind me, sounding unapologetic. Without looking at him, I raised a single finger in the air to show him my feelings on the matter.

It took a few moments for the room to stop spinning, the details slowly becoming clear. From the stains on the tiles floor to the metal of the stalls, it was all slowly coming back into focus. We were in what appeared to be a public bathroom of some kind. It was medium size, featuring 6 stalls, one of which being handicapped, or for the people that liked the extra room it provided. Milo stood in the middle of the room, looking down at me with an unreadable expression.

"Where are we?" I groaned as I pushed myself to my feet. The motion had the room spinning us more, but it quickly subsided as I blinked it back into focus. I glanced at myself in the bathroom mirror, noting my windswept look. I frowned at the bandage covering the top of my head, as well as the blood seeping through it. I reached up to touch it.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, there's a layer of magic surrounding that bandage, you may not like the effects that touching it has," Milo warned. Remembering the vision that happened the last time I touched it, I dropped my hand, "We are in a hospital."

"I thought you were taking me to see my brother." I narrowed my eyes at him. There was a blossom of panic that appeared at the thought of him being here, "You told me that he was safe."

"He is safe. The people who took you took the time to incapacitate him, he is in here recovering from minor injuries and will be released when he wakes up." If I was smarter, I would have paid more attention to the last part of the sentence, but the first part stole my attention before it fully registered.

"The people who took me? It was you guys who kidnapped me." Before I had even finished, Milo was shaking his head.

"We aren't in the habit of kidnapping people. We had plans to come to your world when you were older, introduce you to this world in a less traumatic way." Milo told me, "We generally leave minors alone, which in most places in anyone under twenty-four. The person that took you had nothing to do with our organization."

"Who took me then? How did you get a hold of me?" I asked him suspiciously. I tried to run through that night in my mind, but everything happened quickly. From the car accident to the semi accident. I couldn't remember thinking that there was a possibility of getting kidnapped or anything. It hadn't been a concern at the time.

"He goes by many names, but we know him by Colt. My assumption as to why he was trying you was because he has always had a bone to pick with our leader." He was leaving something out. I wasn't sure what he was leaving out, but my instincts told me that he wasn't being completely honest with me, "Our leader managed to stop him before he was able to take you, but after that, it wouldn't have been possible to let you return to your normal life. Not with the target over your head."

I stilled. The image of the medic appeared in my mind, the faint suspicion that he had caused. He was the reason that I was in this mess? He was the person that tried to kidnap me? That didn't make any sense. Everything else aside, I had seen the look on his face when the semi was plowing towards him. He wasn't expecting it. He was shocked. He was frozen in place. If that was true, he was trying to kidnap me, then that meant...