The End

Chapter 14 - Kara

Turns out I couldn't leave. Not quite yet anyway. I only hope that Dad doesn't go through that drawer until I'm gone. Or unless I put everything back until I leave. The map was useless, it only had a red line leading from here to each compound and eventually ending at headquarters. I had yet to go through the files yet.

Honestly, I had a bad feeling about what I'd find. So now I sat on the floor of my room, the small box-like device in hand. I pushed the small, red button on the top left corner and the screen lit up. Four green dots were moving across the map that had appeared in the background.

They blink, moving faster than humans would normally move. Suddenly a singular red dot began to move on the edge of the screen, slowly. If green were the people who had trackers, what was red? And why were there only four green dots? It should be five. Or, well, seven if they had put trackers in the two new Outsiders.

But there are only four. Someone had died. Panic rippled through me. What had happened?

I let out a shaky breath.

There were other small buttons on the device. There were two blue buttons just under the red power one. Another green one sat just under the two blue ones. At the bottom of the device under the screen was a keypad that had numbers and letters in faded white on them.

I have no clue what the hell these things do. But it couldn't be good right?

A knock on the door made me put everything back in my bag and slide it away from me. "Come in."

The door creaked open and Hailey stepped inside. "Hey."

"Mom said she wanted you to come to her before getting ready for the meeting tonight." Hailey closed the door behind her. "What're you doing?"

"Uh, nothing." I shrug. "Just thinking."

"Hmm, listen, I know you want to help your friends...but sometimes you just have to let things work out the way they're supposed to." Hailey sat down beside me, crossing her ankles.

"I just have a bad feeling about this," I tell her. "It just feels...wrong."

"But has it?" Hailey asked, making me look over at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Until now, you've never shown any concern for anyone they've sent out. But now that it's your friends, suddenly everything is weird?" Hailey held her hands up in surrender as I glared at her. "Just saying. Maybe it's just you worrying."

I fall silent. Maybe. But I also know that each year since I was five, I watch my Dad ship out a group of people and a pit would form in my stomach. Then when none would return, I felt as if there was something that wasn't right.

I'd never told anyone that. My entire family would've said I was crazy...much like Hailey was doing now. They would tell me I was being dramatic. Hailey was only partially right about this.

Yes, this was the first year I dug around. Yes, it's because my friends are out there. But it wasn't the first year I sat and wondered what the hell was happening. It wasn't the first year I felt like something was wrong.

But it was the first that I intended to find out what.

"What would you do?" I ask. "If it were your friends out there, who would likely never come back."

It was Hailey's turn to go silent for a few moments. "I don't know."

"You're telling me none of this ever...I don't know–made you think that something was going on?"