(Jack)
I paced back and forth clutching the journal close. I couldn't believe she would do that and for me of all the people in the world me! I tried to kill her, her friends, her boyfriend, and she still saved me. I don't get why. The last thing she told me was a riddle.
"Every line."
What does that even mean every line? I checked every damn line in this whole book! Nothing, I tried every form of code, I asked her friends but all I got was help from that perky girl who calls herself Ashely. I sighed and marched to the bathroom out of habit.
As I walked in I couldn't look at the mirror, but I did so anyway. I sighed and placed my hands on either side of the sink to support me. I peered in to see my own reflection, light brown hair like my dead father, grey eyes like him, I had scars on my face and arms. A bruise I got in physical ed.
There was a knock on my door and I didn't want to open but I did so anyway. There stood that Baxter girl. She had her arms crossed as she looked at me. The others were with her and Ashely stepped forward. I looked at what she cradled in her arm.
Another journal.
"Where-?"
"We found it, in a hiding spot where she knew we'd find it. Just found it today." I nodded and she held it out for me. I put my journal down and took the other one gently out of her hands. I gestured everyone in. They came in and Baxter looked around confused.
I know I should have cleaned it, I was never the kind to leave things a mess but I just could make myself take the papers off the wall. There was a map covered in dots, red dots where we had people stationed looking for her. Blue dots were places where there was still no sign of her. White bots for where there were false alarms, and blank spaces for where there was nothing.
I had papers all around my walls except near the map so they wouldn't clash with each other. I had the picture of her pages on the walls, notes, theories, her hospital records, her files, everything about her, everything and anything that could get me closer to finding her.
I sighed and flipped through the pages. Baxter, Orion, and Ashely sat down on my bed and Anna Bree and Daniel found chairs or beanbags. I got up and started to pace as we did what we have been doing all summer and now some of the beginning of the school year. Looking for my twin sister Kana Sheridan Corduroy.
(?)
I sighed waking up again, I hated summer. I didn't want to go back to that hell hole. But I had to, I didn't want to disappoint mom. I got up and out of my bed and shivered as the cold air hit my body after being engulfed by the warmth of the blankets.
I squinted against the sun's light and my feet hit the cold floor. I shivered and they shot back up to me. I hugged my knees close and sighed. I opened my eyes and held out my hands in front of me. They were clear but when I looked outside of the window the red truck mom owned it was just a red blur.
I looked at my nightstand to see my glasses there next to my yet to go off alarm. Like always. Like here has become mundane. Nothing happens on this side of Italy. Sure that should be considered a good thing but I've never liked the calm and quiet, I wanted adventure. But mom wouldn't even let me be out after 11:30. Thinks I'll go out and do something stupid. She even set up alarms on the doors and windows in case I try to escape.
Cameras set up in the yard too that are motion triggered. I let my feet hit the cold floor again and I put my glasses on my face and turned to the window. the truck now visible and as plain as day to my eyes. I looked around for my sandals and walked to my closet to throw on whatever.
I chose a plain green long sleeve flannel and khaki pants. I grabbed my Italia(baseball team I'm really into) cap off the handle off my door and headed downstairs. Mom looked up from the breakfast she was getting ready and smiled at me, she's not really my mom but she's the only one who took me in after they found me.
You see I'm sort of an orphan. By sort of I mean, they don't know if my parents are even alive or not or are even looking for me. In case my mom does come for me this is how I look like. I have golden-brown eyes, brown wild hair that is growing pretty long right now, maybe I had it short before but whatever. I have a scar on the right side of my face, it's not sure how that got there but I have another one on my chin and it goes up to my lips.
My face is a little more tan than what it used to be but I like to spend some time in the sun. I've been looking for you, mom, dad, whoever was with me before. I don't even know anymore. It feels like I'm just chasing ghosts. Look my story is this.
I woke up when someone shook my shoulders, my eye opened and I tried to move but every inch of me hurt, every inch of me felt like it just came back from a fight in the underworld.
"Careful kid! Don't move." A voice told me and I did what it said. I understood them. So if I understood what they said was I from around here? Where is here exactly? With all these questions swirling around my head, it started to hurt and pound badly.
I winced and a soft voice said: "Sorry, did I hurt you?" I tried to shake my head but it was such a small movement I thought they didn't notice. But they did. Suddenly someone's face came into my view and it was a pretty female. She looked in her late 20s. Red lips, pink cheeks, hair a mess and I was lifted off of something that was wet. I looked behind me and saw water. I was in a river.
I blinked. I looked around, I saw nothing but grass, a forest nearby with trees that looked pretty intimidating. The sun was setting and it looked like the night was already starting to take over. I looked in front of me and there stood three people. Two who I couldn't see so well over the glare of their lights, They were the kind of lights you would take with you when looking for someone.
I groaned and the cold burned into my side and I felt the ground on the bottom of my feet. I planted my feet as she tried to take me onto what I think was a stretcher. She looked at me surprised and she shook her head.
"Come on kid, don't stand, you're hurt." I shook my head.
"I want answers first. Now." She let out a grunt then smirked. "How about you get on the damn stretcher before you bleed to death and we'll give you answers on your way to the emergency room." I shrugged. Works for me.
I let them put me on the stretcher and I winced as the cold leather straps touched an exposed spot on my side. Warm goo oozed from there and the woman grunted. "Damn." She muttered under her breath and shook her head. She whispered things to the other men thinking I wouldn't hear but I heard them as plain as the sun setting in the sky.
"Her wound is too close to the strap, we need a bigger one." She told them and I frowned. "What wound?" I snapped then hissed as the cold leather dug into my skin making the goo slip out more. The woman rushed to my side and the others shined a light.
I was taken to a hospital after that. I was questioned after I was okay. I was told that they would find my family soon, they asked around, put up posters. Nothing. Soon I was sent to school but that didn't go so hot. I was kicked out three weeks later after a bathroom accident that totally wasn't my fault. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus, no one could prove I did it, they just blame me since I'm new.
My next school was even shorter. Two weeks. Kicked out for bad grades and my bad rap from the other school really did make me very liked person.
Three times the charm? Not for me. I was kicked out four weeks in after being framed for cyberbullying. They put some pretty well-placed evidence but I knew it wasn't true.
2 months, it had been two whole months and a bit more and I was already kicked out of three schools, all of them not my fault, and my parents still had yet to be found so I was put in adoption. I wasn't the most popular person in the orphanage. In fact, I was hated for my record in school.
Then after four more schools, 37 detentions, 18 referrals, 9 calls to the orphanage, 4 reasons why I was kicked out: I got in a fight protecting a kid being bullied and the bullies turned the tables on me, framed for theft, framed of having a weapon, once in an academy I was kicked out for refusing to agree with what a teacher said. It's not my fault he didn't have his history right! I was helping him to stop feeding us the wrong information!
I slumped in my new room. Oh, and to add a cherry on top of my hell like life I was kicked out of SEVEN orphanages! No one wanted to adopt me, a 15-year-old troublemaker. I was defeated. I gave myself at least 4 days before they get their hands on my record and I was tossed to the curb.
I'm a good kid I swear, I just don't have the best of luck. Everyone in town knew my name and spoke of me like I was trash. That's right, I was the infamous Ashley Katherine. My name, I knew it by heart. It was the name that buzzed around in my head when I tried to remember. They had asked me:
"Do you know your name sweetheart?" I blinked and though. Something with a K in the beginning. K, what names start with-Katherine!
"Ashley!" I blurted and the man nodded and wrote that down. "Do you have a middle name or do any other names come to mind?" I nodded. "Katherine, it's my middle name." They asked me for my last name but nothing came up.
I was just a loner here really. Suddenly there was a knock on my door. I got up with a grunt, looks like the boot came early. I opened up to see not the lady in charge but an agent.
She was young and pretty, she glanced at her clipboard. "Ashely Katherine?" She gave me her hand to shake.
"Ugh, I go by Katie." She nodded and smiled.
"Hello Katie, I'm Ms. Diaz. Come with me." I nodded and that's when the impossible happened. I was taken in.
(Jack)
I frowned, this didn't make any sense. I sighed and tried to put myself in her shoes and I turned tot he first page again. It was late but I had to try.
Page one:
(Kana)
"Oh wait no we didn't,
Everyone was coming back, the cold was stronger than ever and a new mystery was coming. I just knew it..."
