POSSESSION, Book 1 in the Possession Trilogy

Chapter 6

6.

Tyson disappeared a week before my twelfth birthday. Despite being barely fourteen, she’d been offered a job working with the water rangers, near the border of the Goodgrounds. My mother had been so happy, like everyone should be thrilled to have an early job with the wonderful water rangers.

Which is true, I guess. Rangers are the highest-ranking people in our society. There are different types of rangers, all at the top of their class, all super-smart, all well liked. I could never be a ranger. They’re the kind destined for greatness, you know? The kids who always get straight A’s without even trying. Popular, with parents who adore them. No, the rangers were not for me. But Ty? Yeah, Ty was born to be a water ranger.

And she loved it.

In the few months before her disappearance, she improved the tech purifying the water so much that a man came from the Institute. His skin was naturally dark, but he still wore the covering clothes and wide-brimmed hat. He spoke with an accent, yet every word burned in my ears.

In his lilting voice, the man told my mother what a wonderful daughter Ty was, and how proud she should be, and hey, maybe the Greenies would take her from school a few years early. My mother followed along, nodding and agreeing—until the taking-her-away part.

“I need my daughter,” she said, her expression suddenly stony. “My husband is gone, and I don’t have anyone else.”

I happened to be sitting in the room when she said it. The black-hearted man glanced at me. “You have another daughter right there.”

I hadn’t done anything wrong at that point in my life. I went to school, hung out with Zenn, skipped rocks in the lake—okay, that is against the rules, but everyone does it.

“I need both my daughters,” my mom said. The man spoke into old tech, something that recorded his voice so he could hear it later, and pressed a letter into my mom’s hand. Even at eleven years old, I knew that paper held something huge. Our communications are usually sent through e-comms.

She read it after he left, tears pouring down her cheeks. They came for Ty the next day.

#

Human guards—six of them—escorted me to the cell without allowing me to dry off. The thin prison garb clung to my body, and I was terrified it would be see-through. I wondered how I could cover myself in case Jag took a peek, which he surely would. He is a bad boy, after all. My mother told me all they want is sex. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Before pushing me back in the cell, one of the taller guards tech-cuffed me—twice. The techtricity caused spots to appear in my vision.

“Hey!” I said. “How am I supposed to do anything with these things on?”

“I don’t know, girlie. Figure it out.” He glared down at me before turning to his buddies.

“My head rings for hours when those blasted Mechs go off,” another guard said as the group shuffled away.

“Me too. How long did it take to catch her? Thane will want an exact—”

Jag pressed his face against the bars, but the door had closed behind the guards, silencing the rest of the words.

“What’s up with you?” I asked.

Jag didn’t respond as he bent over to pick up the book he’d dropped.

My stomach growled, and I looked for the two trays of food that had been there before my pathetic escape attempt. They were gone.

“Great,” I mumbled as I sloshed over to the toilet and sat down on the lid. I checked to see if the wet uniform was transparent. It wasn’t, thankfully.