Betrayed

Chapter Seventeen

I grimace and rub my arm. My skin is as rough as crinkled paper. I wish I had my powers back. Erin's still really out of it, too, though I'm not sure how much of it is from whatever was used to knock us out, and how much is from her powers being gone.

"Well, he was pretty weird looking after you were done with him," I admit, "but now he's cuter."

Sort of.

"Hmm," she murmurs noncommittally. "I don't like my powers. They're like... having a map... and thinking it's all bumpy and 3D, but when you pick up the mountain, there's nothing there. Only ink on your fingers."

Err... what?

I'm not sure where she's going with this, but okay. "You don't have control of your powers yet. Once you do, it won't be so bad." I glance at the door. I need to get her up and ready to move, so that once we figure out what's going on here, we'll be ready to run.

Where? Not sure.

But we'll be ready for whatever "ready" is.

Come to think of it, I'm not making much sense either, so maybe it's the sedative messing with Erin.

"You've been awake longer than I have," I say. "Have you heard anything about where we are?"

"I can't..." She rocks her head back and forth in the pillow, slowly, as if she's a cat rolling in a patch of catnip. "Everything's fog. Everything's... I'm staring at a screen, and the TV's on, but I can't tell what's playing. There's static. Do you know what static is? I'm not sure I do."

I take in a deep breath and let it out in measured counts. "We're going to get out of here safely, okay?"

"Maybe," she says. "I can't read anything right now. It's all cut off. Pages of a book, torn up and made into poetry. Poetry stinks. Did you forget to throw away the banana smoothie after the other person drank it?"

"Umm..." I tilt my head, perplexed. How in the Community am I supposed to respond? She sure became reliant on her powers fast. But then, if she wasn't sure how she was using them, maybe she didn't know what she was relying on-her own intuition or the insight her powers gave her.

"I'll see what I can find out," I promise.

"Oat milk for the smoothie!" she calls, attempting to rise before swaying and falling back into the covers. "The goat-beast will like it."

I force a smile and scoot off the bed again, careful not to fall on my face. Unfortunately, upon examining the room, there's nothing here I can use as a weapon. Given that my own powers are misty at best-even though my skin doesn't feel as dry as it did a moment ago-I'm definitely not going to be able to use water as a weapon. There's also no way I can yank the TV off the wall and swing it, though it might be something Nia could do if her powers were active.

And if she were here.

What about under the bed?

I nearly shriek as I come face-to-face with the smushed nose of the weird, not quite goat-like monster with fine white and brown fur. The monster naahs at me and shuffles out like a small dog from under a couch. I scramble back from him. He's the beast Erin... changed. He sniffs my pants and promptly clamps his teeth around the hem.

"Oh no you don't," I mutter, tugging my pants away. The creature baahs protest and bumps his knubby horns against my shin. He's...

Why is he cute?

When I don't move, the monster makes another weird nah sound and returns to trying to eat my pants. At least he doesn't seem interested in eating me.