How it began: If you're reading this then you are ..."special" like me and my family and if you're reading this then you are the one person that we've been looking for. You followed the clues and you haven't died yet, YET. You have been able to live on your own and you have survived the tests we gave you. But you still have two options. You can put this down book down and believe it's just a story, that it doesn't exist and you and that it doesn't matter. And you can go back in the world and try not being the freak you are. Or you can keep reading and choose to become part of our world; you're not even in that deep. And once you start there is no turning back. Your part of this story once you turn the first page. It will become your world like it became ours. You'll realize what you have put yourself into, that there is no turning back. That you're just along for the ride. However, if you put this down it will disappear, "poof" gone. No "Wait I change my mind" or "Wait, I should read one or two pages, find out what will happen, then make my decision", nope doesn't work that way. Once you open this up we know you're in, Nibbs will know that's how she is, and once you open this book your number will be put in your arm, forever. And you'll be one of us. You will make the right decisions. We know it. RAVEN
Part 1 NO More Summer No More Freaks'
Chapter 1 The Institute I love the fact that normal kids get mom and dad's, the same bed that they get to sleep in every night, and get homemade cookies. Well my life doesn't work like that. We live if no one knows who we are or what we do. We are always on the run and things are always blowing up in our face, literally. My name is Raven and as you can guess I and my "family" aren't normal like you. You're right because, well, for one thing we grew up in cages and test tubes. My family consists of nine year old Amelia, ten year old Zeak, twelve year old Nibbs, fourteen year old Bone, Linn and me, Raven. All of us have grown up in the same place, the Institute. Nice name right, no, not really. Well nice name means nice place, bad name means bad place. Works well if you get it if you don't well not so much. I guess I should tell our story from the beginning, and that puts us at our "home". Well not really home, more like evil, awful, never going to be nice... Well you'll see what I mean.
"Amelia what are you doing up there? Get down!" I yelled up to the nine year old who was now hanging 30 feet of the ground on a rafter of our holding cell. "What a sec." She called down to me. The next second Amelia let go of the rafter. "No!" Nibbs yelled. We all watched as Amelia fell about half way down then did a double front flip landing on the balls of her feet in a crouched position. "Show off," Zeak, her ten year old brother mumbled. I smiled and went over to the siblings and ruffled their silky black hair. My family, not what you would expect because, for one thing we look nothing alike. Amelia had silky black hair and forest green eyes that stood out against her pale skin. Zeak, being Amelia's older brother, had the same silky smooth hair, and pale skin, the only difference was that he had piercing light blue eyes. Nibbs probably stood out the most between us all. She was very tan and had frizzy silvery hair. Oh yeah, and she's blind, we don't know how it happened, but we think the creepy "scientists" experimented on them, so now her eyes are a beautiful milky white. Linn has fair skin and celery green eyes, and his hair is golden, as like wheat or something, with streaks of silver in it. Bone's eyes are ocean blue and his hair looked like melted Swiss chocolate. Now my hair was just as golden as Linn's but it didn't have the streaks in it. I had fair skin and deep, dark brown eyes. "Wait... that gives me an idea on how to get out of here." Bone said looking at each one of use in turn. "Well... what is?" I asked becoming irritated about being the leader and being left in the dark. "What if we all climbed up to the rafters and let the guards see that we're 'gone'..." "...and when they open the door we jump them and bust out of here" Linn finished for Bone slapping him a hi-five. Everyone looked at me of my answer. If we get out of her them what? Where are we going to go? And when we're there what are we going to do? I thought looking at each face that depended on me. Well I guess we'll find out when we get there. "All right let's do this." I said giving Nibbs a quick hug. We were all positioned up on the rafters crouched down waiting for my signal on when to spring the grads. Then one of the grades passed by our cell glanced in and dropped his coffee that he was holding. "Quick the holders 1245 through 1268 are gone!" the grad yelled loudly. Three other grads went and unlocked the cell door. When the door opened and the grades piled in the cell I put up two fingers and swished them down twice. I swished them to Bone, Amelia, and Nibbs. All at once they jumped down landing on the grads as I pointed to Zeak, Linn, and then I jumped down with a blowing kick to the grads nearest to us. "Bone, Linn get Amelia, Nibbs, and Zeak out of here." I yelled to them punching a grad in the nose just to feel it crunch under the force. I saw them both nod and pull up the two littler kids as Nibbs opened the door and ran out. "Who's next?" I asked as I turned to the ten advancing grads, and threw myself into the middle of the group fists and feet first.
"Where's Raven?" Zeak asked Bone as he cut the bandage off and tied it around his arm. "She'll be here soon. She's probably hooking up some explosives and is about to blast that place to high heaven." Bone replied moving to Amelia and started to bandage her wounds. "Yeah, except when she gets stupid and ends up blowing herself up and you have to go and save her sorry butt." Linn said and Nibbs giggled under her hand. "Oh please, when is she not stupid?" Zeak said shifting a grin. "Alright that's enough Raven may be stupid, and motherly, and annoying, and ..." "Bone you're point?" Amelia interrupted. "Oh right, listen she does a lot of stuff for us and we should be glad we're out of that place at all." Bone said "Yeah, I hope she's OK." Amelia said "Where is she? She's usually here by now." Nibbs said looking at Bone with wide scared eyes. "I wish I knew Nibbs, I wish I knew" Bone said looking back at the Institute.
"It's Raven, is it?" Mr. Vlad asked me leaning down to my level on the ground where I had been placed. "What's is to you?" I sneered at him making sure some of my spit landed on his face. "Charming." he glared at me wiping his face and nodded to the guard closest to me. With a swift movement the guard clicked the remote button and I was zapped violently from the collar that was shoved on my neck. Gagging for air I looked up at him and cursed under my breath. Mr. Vlad gave me an evil smirk and said "Well then, do you want to tell us where your friends are or would your neck rather tell us?" "Good luck with that Mr. Vlad, but sir she's very pain tolerant. You won't get her to tell us anything with pain." a voice had said behind us. Vlad turned to look at the person who had spoken. "Ah Dr. Clay, and your apprentice Shane. What do you mean? I'm sure she will tell us what we want if we use force." Mr. Vlad said as the two men came into view. Dr. Clay was a short, thick man with gray hair, dull blue eyes, and a pointed mustache, while Shane was the opposite of his teacher. Shane was about as tall as I am and his hair was the color of melted caramel, which made his bright green eyes look like there were glints of blue in them. Wait, what I was I thinking? Why did I care if he was cute or how he looked? I don't, he's an enemy you don't like an enemy I reminded myself shaking my head to clear my thought. "We have tested on her as you told us to and she will barely flinch under needles being shove into her back and then having them blasted with shockers." Dr. Clay told Mr. Vlad as he stabbed a finger at me. "That is interesting, but I wasn't thinking about dealing the pain to her. Oh no, not at all actually I had a better idea." Mr. Vlad said as they all turned towards me. With a nod to the guards two of them jerked me up and shoved me toward the door. I had just enough time to glance back to see Mr. Vlad and Dr. Clay giving each other evil smiles and Shane looking at me with a very sad look before my view was blocked by guards shoving me forward.
Chapter 2 Into the clouds.
"Breakfast guys, eat up" Linn said dropping three boxes of donuts, chocolate, glazed, and sugar, on the ground next to the group. "When do you think Raven will be back?" Zeak asked grabbing four of the glazed donuts and cramming one in his mouth. Linn and Bone glanced at each other. Bone opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by an extremely loud voice booming across the grounds. "To the friends of Raven Black please listen. We have capture her and is holding her in a cage above Glamour Drop. If you wish to save her life then you will turn ourselves in at once. Do not delay. You have one hour." As the voice ended a video appeared in the sky. It showed Raven in an old rusted cage handing off the edge of the cliff. Her shirt and jeans were shredded and her shoes were gone. A collar had be placed on her neck and were it laid the skin under it was bleeding and raw. Under Raven was a timer that was counting down the minutes. "What are we going to do? Raven isn't going to be able to get herself out of this on and we can't turn herself in." Amalie said looking a Bone with wide forest green eyes. "We can't save her, and we can't turn ourselves in." Bone said "I don't know guys. I just don't know." Bone said looking up to the image of Raven.
I felt horrible, like going on a roller coaster after eating a Coney hot dog, two sodas, and four slurries horrible. I was faint, and I had been shaking for hours. At first I thought it was something they had done to me at this awful place, then I realized it wasn't the tests, it was me. Something was happening to me that wasn't normal, well my type of normal. I was changing from the inside, and it was going completely wrong.
"Your time is up watch as your friend dies" the voice boomed over the land and I knew my time was up, for living and stuff at least. The cage gave a creek and it suddenly it was turning upside down opening the door and sliding me out. I tried to grab the bars of the cage, but then I just found myself hanging over the cliff with the door of the cage wide open and my fingers were slowly letting go. I looked down to see in my amazement that my Freaks were running to my cage. "NO!" I yelled and I saw my Freaks looking up at me. I didn't want them to see me die, or worse them get captured. "Raven hold on." Bone yelled up to me. "Do I really have a choice!?" I yelled back, and soft laughter reached my ears. I was hanging there for about ten minutes when Mr. Vlad came to look at me. "This has gone on long enough, I want to see her falling to her death." He razed the remote, but before he could press the button my body jerked and an awful pain exploded in my head. Letting go of the bars my hands flew to my temples. Then I was falling. I'm pretty sure I screamed, well... everyone was. My friends out of horror, Mr. Vlad of joy, and me due to having my brains blew out of my head. And then we were all quiet, the pain had stopped and the wind had become quiet instead on screaming in my ears. I looked down and gasped. I was flying, hovering in the air. "No way." I said amazed that I had never been able to do this before. "No that's impossible! You told me... she... they... wouldn't be able to have powers until a few more years." Mr. Vlad screamed at Dr. Clay. "They are developing these powers faster than I could have imagined." Mr. Clay said This is awesome, I thought, hmm I wonder... I then flew up to Mr. Vlad and tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned around my fist came up and slammed into his jaw. "That's for holding in a cage." I snarled at him and leveled myself out. See the thing with flying is that the way you want to go, fly, and be position is that all you have to do is think of what you want and it'll happen. I wonder how fast I can go? I thought before I was done positioning myself. Let's find out I thought throwing a devilish smile to Mr. Vlad. "See ya you jerk." I yelled at him swiveling around and shooting in to the sky. I went straight up stopped and shot across the sky going way faster than I should be able to. By the time I had slowed down I was half way across the ocean and if you looked up at the clouds there would be a part where the clouds looked like they had been, literally, torn in half. I then wiped around and shot off tearing the clouds once more. "THIS IS AMAZING!" I yelled accidently over shooting my friends by far, but I was able to hear them laughing. I looked down and saw Bone, Linn, Zeak, and Nibbs rolling on the ground gasping for air and laughing at the same time. I heard two things at once. The first was Mr. Vlad screaming at Dr. Clay in so much rage that it looked like his head was going to pop off any minute. The second thing I heard was, surprisingly, Shane. He only said one word, but it was enough to tell me what he thought of me. "Damn." He gasped and I could tell what he saw. Me floating in the air, my toes pointed one lifted ever so slightly. My hair blowing in the wind, my jeans and shirt whipping around me, and my brown eyes looking in his bright green ones. His mouth made an "O" and his hand slipped into his pocket. For a second I swore I felt like zipping to him and grabbing his hand to break it, but I stopped when I saw what he had. It was his phone, he unlocked it and razed it hitting a button. I heard a "click" and I realized that he had taking a picture, of me. "Oh no," I said shaking my head and I flew over to him and opened my hand for the phone. He took a step back and went to put his phone away. Don't ask me why but I flew up grabbed his hands and flew up pulling him with me. "Holy shit!" He yelled as I threw him in the air and he disappeared into the clouds. Signing, I flew up to get him, just to see him coming down, I caught him in my arms pulling him closer to me. "Give me the phone." I growled at him. "Why should I?" He asked looking in my eyes, sending shivers down my spine. I let go of him and catching him by his ankles sinking out of the clouds to show him how high up we were. He let out a small eep and looked up at me "Why is that stupid picture so much to you, is it gold? Why would you kill me to get it?" He yelled up at me. "Because its proof that I exist and that can't happen." I said looking at him letting go of one ankle. His eyes looked up at me. He got his phone out and I saw him hit the send button. "There now it's saved on my phone for forever." He said smiling up at me, I threw my hands into the air, accidently jerking Shane into the air. "No!" I yelled as I saw the phone leave his hands and it seemed as if the world had slowed down. I saw the look of terror on Shane's face as he yelled "Stop... no... No!" plunging down, spiraling towards the earth. My mind disconnected, and I lost my concentration; and then I was falling. I tried to stop my plummet but I couldn't do it. We fell and a though rammed into my head and I pointed myself down. I flew into action and shot past Shane. Spreading out my arms I instantly leveled out enough to catch Shane, and stop the fall, I though. I slowed down with my flight, but Shane had been going so fast that he pulled me down. Groaning I shoved him above me just in time to slam into the ground. I felt as if I had literally exploded. Shane was limp on top of me. My head exploded with pain and a sudden blackness washed over me.
"Raven... Raven..." Bone yelled at me. My eyes fluttered and I shot up to look at Bone. Pain seared through me, from the base of my neck all the way down to my feet. For a moment I wondered why he was sideways, then I realized that he was on the side of the carder that I was in the middle of. "Shane...?" I asked choking on dirt. Bone glanced over to the right. "Oh my god..." I gasped. Shane didn't have a cut on him. He was sitting looking like the only puppy that had been scolded while his brothers hadn't. He looked at me with a sad look and nodded to my left. His phone was smashed into a thousand pieces, it looked like by a fist. "We need to go" I said standing and wincing. Before I could take a step I was suddenly in Bone's arms. "Hey!" I said as he walked up the walls. "You're hurt I'm not, so shut up and let me carry you." Bone said softly, I nodded. "Move out!" Bone yelled to the trees. Amelia, Nibbs, Linn, and Zeak melted out of the trees and walked over to Bone, who was still carrying me. "Let's go." Linn said and started to run back towards the woods. Amelia took Nibbs hand and the rest of our group ran to the woods after Linn. "Let me go." I whispered to Bone "I can fly beside you." He nodded and let me go, but I didn't hit the ground; I laid down on my side and looked over to Shane. Bone was gone and Shane reached a hand out towards me "Raven... I'm" he said taking a step toward me. I looked at him sadly "Shane you're a... scientist... I'm a freak... I... have to go." I said to him spring around and shooting off to find Bone leaving behind Shane. Mr. Vlad, rolling up in a Hummer, yelled to his men "Find them. They will not leave... alive."