CHAPTER 1
I was twelve when I found the book.
When I turned thirteen I asked questions.
At fourteen they found me.
Now, I'm trying to escape this prison, this awful place.
"Cam!" I hear someone shout my name, "Let's move, we've got to get everyone out, NOW!" he was screaming and waving his arms in the air.
I roll my eyes, "Always the flare for dramatics, huh?" I said as I raised my eyebrow at my best friend, Daman and took off running towards him. Right now he's my escape partner and at the moment we're trying to herd a group of kids ranging in age from 14 to 6 through a hole that we'd just blasted into the side of our cage.
"I give it about thirty more seconds before the goons try and bust this party, we need to get on the move," I said to Daman, gasping as smoke started filling the room.
"Like I didn't just say that," Daman mutters under his breath as he scooped up one of the littlest kids.
I look around and make sure that we have everyone; we do.
"Alright you guys, let's go," I shouted above the sound of blaring alarms, "Daman! You take up the back, I'll take the front."
He gives a quick nod and I take off running though the hole and into the dark tunnel that was our passage out of this place. Hopefully we had people on the outside waiting for us, that is, if everything goes according to plan…which almost never happens. I rack my brain trying to think of what to do if our breakout team isn't waiting for us at the end of the tunnel. I draw a blank.
"Look's like we're gonna be winging it," I rasp to myself, breathing hard as I run.
-3 Days Earlier
"Down on the ground!" the guard shouted at us, "Now!"
"Sir, yes sir," I said brightly, saluting the guard on the way down.
I knew that, that would earn me a kick, but I just can never seem to help myself...here it comes, I thought, bracing myself for pain. I watch with glaring eyes as the guard picks up his heavy booted foot, rears it back, then with a swift move he jams his boot into my side, right above the kidneys. I grit my teeth as I struggle to keep tears out of my eyes, squinting them shut. He looks at me, lying there on the ground with a triumphant look on his face.
Slowly I lift my head, open my eyes and force a smug grin out. He looks at me baffled…the kick he just delivered should have rendered me helpless, lying on the floor writhing in pain or even passed out. He must be new, I thought. Too bad he wasn't there for the treatment and experiments done on us in the first year that Daman and I were here in the prison. He'll learn soon enough, I think grimly.
"I think you're losing your touch," I gritted out, still smiling.
"You little punk!" he screams spit flying from his huge mouth. "Stand up both of you!" He was still screaming.
I rise slowly and catch Daman's eyes on the way up and give him a short nod. The corner of his mouth curls us in a small grin, knowing exactly what I'm thinking. I keep my eyes on the guard who is now walking towards Daman; his back is turned to me. My hand is down at my side and I hold out three fingers, then two, Daman glances my way and winks at me. I hold one finger out and then Daman strikes.
"What the he-" but the guard didn't get to finish his sentence. All of a sudden Daman hits him in the stomach with a kick that knocked him on his butt as he landed with a thud. I ran over and joined Daman, standing beside him and waiting for the guard to slowly stand and turn to look at us; his eyes betray the fear that he's attempting to cover with his 'tough guy' persona.
"You think you can take me?" he directs the question towards Daman, not even glancing at me.
"Oh, yes sir," Daman nods eagerly, sarcasm dripping from his voice, "I could take you down in about," he pauses to figure the math, "twelve and a half seconds flat."
"You think your tough or something?" You could tell the guards temper was rising by the second.
"You see, sir, the thing is, Cam and I have a deal," he looks at me and smiles, "and according to that deal, it's her turn to beat up the guard. The last time they put us in here it was my turn, so I beat up that guard. Now," he takes his time saying it, walking and getting right up in the guards face, "its Cams turn."
I shake my head slowly, "You think that they'd learn after a while," I said to Daman, a fake look of sadness on my face. I look at the security camera installed in the corner of the room and grin as big as I can, "This one is for you guys," I say to the camera, and then I turn towards the guard who is rooted in his spot.
"I bet you were a nice guy once upon a time," I smile up at him, real sweet, "but that doesn't change the facts, sir."
With that I was on him before he could take another breath. I ran at him full speed and at the last second I jump with everything I had and aimed my kick straight for his head. Thwak, my foot connects with his head. I landed and rolled, the guard is going down fast, I jumped up and watched as he floundered in the air with his hands, trying to grab something anything…I see it coming and try to get out of the way as fast as I can but, he makes a last ditch grab and ands ends up with a fistful of my ponytail.
"Great", I thought, "just great. Daman is never going to let me live this one down."
I land with a solid thump on the guard's huge stomach and quickly pull myself up as the guard slips into unconsciousness. Slowly I take out my now demolished ponytail and quickly put it back up. Then, only then, do I turn around to find Daman in a full on laugh attack with tears streaming down his face.
"Oh wow Cam, if you could've seen your face!" he manages to say between laughs, "Priceless!" he screams, still managing to laugh.
I grimace, then give him a half-smile and ask, "How bad?"
"Well," he managed to stand straight but still snickered in between words, "you had great form, beautiful even. The kick was executed amazingly, and your angle was just great, he never saw it coming and the way that you just managed to turn the perfect direction to be yanked down by your hair…that was just stunning!" He was laughing full on again. "That was the best part!" he looks at me with big eyes now, still smiling, "Did it hurt bad?"
I walk over to him real slow, pretending that something is really wrong with me. I get to where I'm just a foot in front of him and I look up at him with big tears in my eyes and he shuts up instantly.
He looks at me, concern immediate in his eyes, "What wrong?" he grabs my shoulders and the moment he grabs them I take his arm and twist it behind his back push him to the ground.
"Come on, Daman, I might be a girl, but you know me better than that," I say sweetly, "Do you really think some pulled hairs would send me to a closet bawling my eyes out?"
I'm still holding him to the ground, and he turns his head sideways so that he can talk.
"Aw, come on Cam, you know I was just joking around…if it would've been me you would've done the same thing."
"Possibly, but something like that is probably never going to happen to you." I state, looking at his shaggy curly jet-black hair.
"No but,-"
"You know what you've gotta say Daman," my words just dripping with sarcastic sweetness, "Just go ahead and say it."
He shakes his head awkwardly from side to side, protesting, and I laugh out loud. "You know you can't beat me, so just go ahead and say it." I look down at him expectantly.
"Fine fine," he grits out. "My dearest Campion Amina Mellark, I am so supremely sorry that," he paused and I say,"Well? Spit it out!"
"I'm so deeply sorry," then without a moment's notice he arches his back throwing me off the side, while at the same time grabbing me from behind in a submission hold.
"Who's so tough now, sweetheart?" he whispers by my ear.
"Let me go Daman," I snarl, struggling to get free.
"Ooh, someone's got a temper don't they?" I could tell he was smiling by the sound of his voice. "What's the magic wooorrd?" he says in a sing songy voice.
"Get the heck off," then I grab his pinkie finger and turn it back to an angle that could break it and he lets go.
"I win." I state, staring at him with my eyebrows raised, daring him to challenge me.
"Ok, ok," he says quickly, and then he grins "for now."
- (Daman POV)
"Ok, well since we're stuck in here till they come get us we may as well work on the plans." I say.
"Oh yeah those plans," Cam says, speaking slowly…excitement entering her bright blue eyes.
"Ok this is Campion Mellark; over…do you copy D-man?" I hear Cam's voice in my head and struggle to keep my face a blank mask.
"This is Daman Hawthorne, wondering why he has such a retard of a best friend." I say speaking back into her mind.
Cam glares at me and punches my arm, then we continue our conversation in the one place that the doctors, and guards, and everyone else can't reach or mess up. Our minds. We first discovered that we could talk to each other when we were both captured 2 years ago. I remember that day perfectly.
"Night dad, I love you!" I yell to my dad as he walked away and shut my bedroom door.
"Love you too son." He smiles and then closes my door with a quiet click.
I remember thinking about my family, and then just drifting off to sleep…only to be wakened a few hours later to a hand clamped around my mouth and my hands and feet being bound. I remember struggling against my captors, to no avail.
"We've got to get him out of here fast!" I heard the first guy say.
"Shhhhhhh," whispered the second one, "we've already made too much noise."
"Grab the bag! Put it over his head!" the first one said harshly.
I remember hearing them say that and then everything went black. I woke up later bouncing around in the back of a truck with just my hands bound and the black bag off my head.
"Unnnnnhhhhhh ahhhhhhhh," I groaned out.
I looked around and saw a girl on my left side and then another boy on my right side. The girl started to sit up, looked around and then saw that she was in the back of the truck with me and whoever the other guy was. She laid back down and leaned over and whispered fast,
"Do you know were we are?"
I shook my head no, then she sat back up and looked through the small window into the cab…neither of the kidnappers were looking.
"I'm Cam, and I don't know why I'm here, but I pretty sure that I'm not supposed to be."
"My name's Daman, these guys snagged me in the middle of the night, put something over my head and then I passed out, and now…I'm here" I whispered real fast.
"Same thing here. I wonder who he is," she nodded her head to the guy still passed out on the other side of the truck.
"I don't know, but we need to get out of here somehow…ok well let's try to get out of the handcuffs firs-"
"QUIET!" one of the guards bellowed.
The truck screeched to a halting stop and then the tailgate dropped. They grabbed Cam first, pulling her out by her shoulders, then me, then the kid who was asleep.
The guards shoved us roughly towards an open door in a huge building.
"This way," the guard barked.
We walked across a huge room to the awaiting open door on the other side.
"Lay down on those," he pointed towards three operation looking tables with wrist and ankle straps on them. I went and laid down on mine and they strapped me in.
"This is a nice joint you've got here," I heard Cam say loudly, "wonder how much it would cost too get these babies in my house," she patted the table and smirked up at him. He smirked back and just cranked her straps down till it looked like her circulation was being cut off. She looked serenely up at him, not betraying anything. He went harder.
"What're you gonna say now, sweetheart?" he said sarcastically.
Cam just looked up at him and smiled sweetly.
That was the first time that I remember ever witnessing Cams 'issues with higher authority' as she liked to call it.
"Daman," I heard a voice say out loud, no longer in my head. "Hello, Daman are you there?" I hear Cam's expectant voice.
I shook my head a couple times, pushing the memory to the back of my mind.
"Yeah?" I looked at her.
"What just happened?" she asked, "you completely spaced out there for a minute. What were you thinking about?"
"How in the world we're going to bust out of this place." I tried to sound convincing, but I'm a bad liar.
"Liar," she snorted, "oh well, you'll end up telling me sooner or later."
I just shook my head, slowly this time. "You just think you know me so well," I turned and looked at her, "and…you do." I laughed lightly. "I was thinking about the first time we met, in the back of that truck and you smarted off to that security guard."
"Ahhhhhhh, that time," she said slowly, "that was a good time," a smile crept up her face, "one of us had to not be a wimp and say something."
"Hey don't you even-"
"Oh, hush, you know I'm teasing," She laughed lightly, "I think you might of proved yourself and regained a shred of you dignity back since then. Maybe."
I was about to respond when the huge metal door at the end of the room swung open. In walked my favorite person in the world.
"Hey Dr.V," I looked up at him, faking excitement, "how do you plan to torture us today?"
He grinned back with a not-so-friendly look in his eyes. "Oh just the usual, but at the end of today I have a special surprise for both of you."
"Oh Dr.V you shouldn't have," Cam says sarcastically, "You know how much I love surprises!"
The smile left his face. "Up," he jerked his chin, "both of you; let's go."
- (Cam POV)
I'll spare you the gruesome details, but the good doctor put us through some more tests and gave us some more 'enhancement shots' and such till about eleven at night, then we were sent to our cells. From what Daman and I have gathered, these doctors have captured around fifteen to twenty kids, we're still not sure why we were the ones picked but we're trying to figure it out. The doctors put us through training everyday…karate, judo, kenpo, hand-to-hand combat, stealth…the list goes on. Then at night the doctors give us our 'shots.' We've been in this prison for about 2 years now. We've been through, hmmmm let's see, 15 different escape plots, none of which worked to date.
"Come here," I hear Daman whisper through his cell bars.
I crawled over and could barely make out his silhouette in the dark.
"Ok, so I have this new idea for an escape," he said quickly, "except this time we're going to take everyone with us."
I frowned. It was hard trying to just get the two of us out.
"Everyone?" I said, my voice skeptical.
"Yes, everyone…" he said firmly, "here's the plan…"
- Present Day
My heart is pounding; I can literally hear the blood rushing through my ears. I can't think about what awaits us at the end of the tunnel…whether or not our people are waiting for us. If they're not waiting for us…well they had just better be there or this whole plan is screwed.
"Head up, Cam!" I hear Daman yell, "Look!"
My head snaps up and there at the end of the tunnel is a light swinging back and forth.
"Praise God," I mutter, "they made it."
I can barely make out the silhouettes of our 'outside contacts' aka, Nika and Rory Ryann.
Were getting closer and closer, I know some of the kids have got to be tired by now, but we've only got about 200 feet till were free.
"Come on!" I angle my head back and yell, "Almost there you guys!"
Only 100 feet now. Everyone is running at top speed, all of that training and running is finally paying off.
50 feet. Only a few more seconds.
Come on; Come on, almost there….
10 more little feet.
Suddenly I am blinded by golden sunlight spilling out all around me. And a gun aimed right at my face.
Well this is just the intro chapter, and I got some mucho help from my good friend Taylor, who is also a fanfic author (ArcherdaughterofApollo). This is my first story and I'm mucho excited, I guess we'll just see where it goes! Please Review!(: