The international singing sensation, Ghost Bird, is a name known around the world. No one knows who the mysterious singer is, but everyone knows her music.
Sang Sorenson sings to escape the reality of her hard life. Locked in a house with her mother...
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Sang
I throw open the door to reveal an angry man covered in tattoos.
"C-Can I help y-you?" I stutter as fear fills me.
"Yeah, you can help me!" He roars, his deep brown eyes angry. "I'm looking for the new owner of this place?"
"What?" I ask, confused, tilting my head to the side.
"Get outta the way, bitch!" The dark haired man yells, shoving me out of the way and bursting into the room.
Crashing into the hard wall, I tumble to the ground and quickly pick myself up. After all, I am used to crashing and falling and having to pick myself up. I scramble after him, terrified and oddly curious.
"Excuse m-me?" I stammer. "Who are y-you?"
"Me?!" He echoes disbelievingly. "You don't know who I am?!"
I bite my lip and shake my head nervously.
"Girl, my name is Kaiden Hendricks," He says and waits as if expecting a reaction.
"Oh!" I start. "It's nice to meet you."
I stick my hand out to him. I've read in many books that this is the correct way to greet someone. Or maybe that is just fictional, like dragons.
He merely looks at my hand.
"Hendricks," He repeats. "As in the gang leader of the biggest and baddest gang in America?"
"Well, it is l-lovely to meet you," I stammer, unsure of how he wants me to react.
"Lovely to meet me?!" He echoes. "What's your name, girl?"
"S-Sang."
"Ruby!" Mother screeches, storming into the room.
Kaiden raises an eyebrow and I give a small shrug in response.
"Why are you talking to this man, Susan?!" Mother yells, her green eyes rimmed with red. "You filthy whore! We just moved and you are already spreading your legs!"
"Moved?" I repeat.
Slowly, my surroundings seem to register and I notice everything is not as it should be. The cracked, pale green walls. The tan shag carpet. The grimy windows. The dirty kitchen counter with words and names carved into it. The furniture that is not ours. Everything is different. It even smells different. How had I not noticed this sooner?
"Huh. That drug really did work, Nora," Mother snorts. "You stupid bitch, I had to drug you for the move, wouldn't want you to be getting ideas about the outdoors."
Move? Drug? Outdoors?
My head seems light and the room spins around me until I see nothing but blackness. I hear Mother's cackling and Kaiden's shouts, probably agreeing with Mother. I close my eyes and surrender to the darkness. I have no desire to stay here. To stay in this awful and new place.
***
North
"Just go in!" I yell.
Sean is banging on the door, but no one is answering. We don't have time for this. Sang could be in trouble. What if her mother is abusing her right this second and that is why no one is answering the door?
I shove past Sean and break down the front door, a skill I learned far before the Academy.
We pour into the house, but it seems empty of people.
"Spread out and search!" Owen commands.
With a nod, I head to where the bedrooms are. There is furniture out, but there are no clothes or photos anywhere. What is going on?
"Where is she?" Silas's shout comes from a different room.
"There's no fucking people in this damned place!" Gabriel roars.
Victor yells, "I can't even access the internet with their own computer!"
I follow Victor into one of the bedrooms again, the room that smells like a slightly floral musk. On the desk is the computer, but I didn't take the time to look through it when I came in here.
All the sudden, a song comes pouring out of the computer, a song by Ghost Bird. A song that I have never heard before. A song sang by a powerful voice accompanied by a piano, probably the piano in the corner of the small room.
