Neverseen's Puppet

Chapter 3: Sedated

Hi guys! Sorry that the chapters have been so short. I've been sacrificing length for the number of chapters. Hopefully, I can continue to update frequently. Also, some of the dialogue in this chapter is from Nightfall by Shannon Messenger. Anything that was from the original book does not belong to me.

Camilla's POV

Camilla hurriedly shoved everything she knew about the Neverseen into a dark corner of her mind. Of course, she knew Alden was going to probe her memories at some point. But not right now! She tried to push the memories of today to the front of her mind. Except for her talk with Grizel. She tucked that back with her other secrets. Alden placed his fingers on her temples and closed his eyes...

"This may not be the best time to for all of your elf-tricks," Grizel interrupted. Camilla breathed a sigh of relief and shot her a grateful look. "We need to go check on the others, I know for a fact Sandor was not planning on searching for this long." Alden nodded, worry aging his face by ten years.

"You're right," he said, "We have much more pressing matters to attend to."

Camilla wondered if that meant the girl she was looking for was in the house. Had she seriously waited outside for five days for the girl to return? She wanted to yell at herself, but as Alden had said, they had much more pressing matters to attend to.

They hurried back over to the house. The front door was unlocked- Sandor's group must have found a key somewhere.

Camilla noticed Alden was holding a silver disk in his hands. She was about to ask what it was, but the sound of Fitz's crisp voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Do you have any idea how risky it is to light leap with a human?" he said. Camilla's eyes widened. She, Alden, and Grizel moved closer to the sound of Fitz's voice.

"What do you mean a human?" a new voice asked. Alden stepped out into the room with Camilla close on his tail.

"Exactly what you think he means," he said. Everyone jumped- it was obvious they had not noticed Alden coming.

Camilla studied the new girl. Round cheeks, curly brown hair, and terrified green eyes. Just like in the portrait she had seen in their house. Minus the terrified eyes, of course. So this was Amy/Natalie.

"What are you guys?" Amy asked in a shaking voice. Camilla wasn't sure if she was talking about the elves or Sandor and Grizel, who, now that Camilla thought about it, had to be completely terrifying.

"We're elves," Fitz told her, which obviously was poor judgment on his part because as soon as she heard the word elves Amy started laughing hysterically.

"Okay, but two things," Keefe said, " How is she understanding us? I just realized we've been speaking in the Enlightened Language this whole time."

"I gave her -and her parents- a basic understanding of our language before they were relocated," Alden said smoothly, "I case anything like this ever happened. Communication can be a powerful weapon and an essential defense."

This seemed to be the last straw for Amy. "What is he talking about?" she yelled. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BRAIN?"

"That's the second thing," Keefe said, fanning the air in front of his face, "I'm betting your sister is about three minutes away from a meltdown of epic proportions."

Very true, Camilla thought. The kindest thing to do would be to sedate the girl before she made herself pass out anyway.

"I'd wager it'll be sooner than that," Alden sighed as if he had already thought a great deal about this. "This is exactly the kind of worst-case scenario I hoped we'd never have to face. Fortunately, I came prepared."

Camilla's mind flashed to the silver disk that she had seen Alden holding earlier. Was that what he was talking about?

Sure enough, he pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it to the ground. Camilla glanced at Sophie and was startled to see her expression. It was a mix of fear and... betrayal? She didn't have time to analyze it though.

Sophie said something, but she was too far gone to decipher what it was. Her head was spinning. The room blurred. It was too late to fight the sedative. She saw others crumpling to the ground around her. Camilla sank to her knees and gave in to the darkness.

^v^v^v^v^v^

Bonds cut into Camilla's skin. Her heart thumped against her chest. No. She couldn't do this again. Fintan sauntered towards her with a ball of flames in his right hand.

"No!" she begged, "I'll do better. I promise."

"You know I don't accept failure, little mouse," Fintan smirked maliciously. He touched his burning hand to the side of her torso.

Camilla gasped and sat up straight in a cot. Her hands shook as she blinked the sleep from her eyes. It was just a dream, she told herself firmly.

She looked around the room. Cots were set up against the walls. One cot, Camilla observed, had a framed picture of someone in a shaggy elephant costume.

A boy with strawberry blond hair was sitting in on the cot next to her, talking softly into an imparter. Weird, Camilla thought. She waited until the strange boy hung up before she said anything.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Oh! You're awake!" he exclaimed, standing up to walk towards her. "You were out for over sixteen hours!"

"Well I'm so small it doesn't take much to knock me out," Camilla replied, her mind racing. Sixteen hours??? I could've escaped by now! She thought angrily.

"True," he smiled. His eyes took in her narrow shoulders and boney wrists. "By the way, my name is Dex Dizznee."

"I'm Camilla," she replied.

"I know. Yesterday was crazy from what I heard."

"Yeah... also, you still haven't told me where I am."

"Can't you guess? You're at Foxfire's healing center."

Thank you so much if you've stuck around this long. I'm probably not going to be able to update again until the weekend, but then again, maybe I will.