Author's Note: Hey! I'm back! Thank you to everyone who reviewed/story alerted/favorited my other story~ now here's a new one (nothing to do with the first) This takes place shortly after The Reckoning and it's about Rae after her mom gets her out of the lab. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Darkest Powers- Kelley Armstrong does. Let's face it, if I did- they wouldn't be nearly as good.

Second Impressions

There was a knock on the front door.

No. No, no, no, no, no! They can't have found us! I panicked and snuck a glance at my mother. Her eyes were wide and we stared at each other in shock. We were both thinking the same thing: somehow, the Edison Group had found us.

It was barely a month and a half since my mother, Jacinda, had gotten me out of the lab. It had been a few days after Tori and Chloe had run off. I'd hated them for it, too. Why? Tori I could understand- she'd runaway for no reason other than for attention from her bitch of a mom. She wouldn't last long though. Tori, Tori Enright, living on the streets? Ha!

But Chloe on the other hand, was different. Chloe wanted to please authority figures. Always did what she was told. She was nice. She obeyed rules. Of course, she had also tried to run away with the guys before, but that was when they had been filling her head with conspiracy theories.

Well, I guess they weren't 'theories' after all.

After my mom busted me out, she'd explained everything: the experiments, the modifications, and the failures. But as far as I knew, I wasn't a failure. My powers weren't out of control- the opposite, actually. I couldn't even light a match. So maybe I was a success- I had a reduction in side effects, meaning I didn't have enough power to do anything that would cause these so-called 'side effects'.

Or maybe my powers just hadn't kicked in yet. I remembered Chloe telling me that her powers had hit her all of the sudden when she got her first period. Well, I'd gotten my first period a long time ago and still no crazy over-the-top abilities.

I wondered how Chloe was dealing with her powers. She was always so skittish- she didn't need ghosts jumping out at her every time she turned around.

Truth is, I wondered about Chloe a lot. Did she find the guys? Or had Tori killed her first (I wouldn't put it past her)? What about the guys' dad? Was Chloe even still alive?

Of course, I would know all of these things if I'd gone with them. I was glad I hadn't gone, though. If I had then I would have never met my mother.

As much as I tried to downplay it, though, I felt guilty about Chloe. I could get over turning the guys in. I didn't care about them and they sure didn't care about what happened to me. But Chloe had trusted me. We'd been friends. At least- I'd thought we'd been friends.

Back at Lyle House, when she'd started to grow closer to Simon and Derek; planning an escape with them- I'd been hurt. We were supposed to be friends. She should have confided in me about the crawlspace fiasco- not the brothers. It sounds pretty stupid, but I was a little jealous. Like some little kid who's pissed off 'cause their BFF won't play with them anymore. She's found new friends.

And I guess that's why I'd told the nurses that we were escaping: a bit of revenge. And at the same time, I had convinced myself that I was doing it for her own good. Chloe couldn't live on the streets. She was a 'rich girl'- used to a bed every night, housemaids, nannies, a clean place to stay, a bathroom.

And then at the lab, when Chloe had tried to convince me that we were in danger and had to escape, I had refused and accused her of lying about Liz, Brady, and Amber. With a pang of grief I reminded myself that she'd probably been right about their deaths- as well as everything else.

Even when the truth had been staring me in the face, I'd refused to see it. Refused because I didn't want to believe that the people who had given me something special could possibly be the bad guys. They'd given me the secrets to my powers, and more importantly: my mom.

But they had lied. About everything. And now we were on the run. We'd been staying in motels and, occasionally, a cheap apartment, and praying that they wouldn't find us. I'd even started to believe that they wouldn't.

Now, sitting here, staring at my mom with the Edison Group right outside the door of the motel room, I realized that I had been wrong. Again.

Finally, my mom snapped into defense mode and rose slowly, quietly, and gestured toward the back door. I nodded and followed her lead, moving slowly, silently. We hadn't even made it more than a couple of steps before I heard an exasperated sigh from the front door and a voice I remembered all too well.

"Rae?" a tentative voice asked. "Rae…i-it's us."

Chloe.

That was Chloe's voice- she was alive! I spun around, ready to run to the door and throw it open, but I was stopped by my mother's hand flying out to stop me.

"Spells," she whispered under her breath, her eyes soft, an apology hidden beneath them. I wanted to argue. I wanted to push her out of the way and go see Chloe. I wanted to force her out of the way- using my powers if necessary, but I reeled in my anger, my frustration. She was right. It could be the Edison Group trying to trick us. I needed to be more careful, less trusting, because our lives depended on it. I should have learned that the first time.

So I followed her to the back door and we snuck out, going as quietly as possible. We were headed towards the woods for cover, then we'd find away to loop back to the road and move on, move far, far away.

We made it as far as the edge of the tree line before someone stepped out of the woods to stop us.

We were trapped.

So…what'd you think? I hope you liked it! It was a lot of inner monologue, I know, but I wanted to set the stage and also explain why I think Rae betrayed them. Give me your predictions, too- who do you think has them cornered? The gang? Or the remnants of the Edison Group? Or something altogether more sinister? Review please and I'll get to work on the next chapter soon!