Hey, there, Loveless readers! For those of you that don't know, this is a rewrite of my story Found. If you're wondering why I'm doing this, basically I realised that it had no development and that my writing style wasn't as good as it is now. Not that it's perfect, now, of course. I'm not arrogant or anything like that.

Sorry, I'm rambling. I do that a lot.

As I was saying, this is a rewrite. And please give it a chance.

Pretty please?

With a cherry on top?

With a thousand cherries on top?

What is it with cherries, anyway? Why is a cherry on top, not another fruit? Like a banana (YUCK!)? Or an orange? Or a mango?

Rambling again. Sorry.

So... give it a chance, and hopefully you won't regret it. I don't think you will.

Disclaimer: Yes, I'm a middle aged man who lives in Texas and makes his money by writing bestselling books. (Note the sarcasm)

Prologue

love noun

a strong feeling of affection: familial love, romantic love. Jenny loved her new shoes. Theresa loves her sister. Johnny loves Margaret.

Agapè

Amour

Amor

Fikir

Ai.

Philedelphos.

Pagibig.

Liebe

Kaadhal.

Cinta.

Techihhila.

Whichever way it's said, whatever country it's said in, it speaks of commitment. Loyalty. Truth. Affection. Protection. Sacrifice.

And, according to Agent Annabeth Chase, or, Owlet, as some knew her, it didn't exist.

What did exist, however, was betrayal.

betray verb

be disloyal to someone: He refused to betray her trust.

Oh, she knew betrayal. It tainted every phase of her life—she was very familiar with it. And it always came accompanied by its sister, abandonment.

abandon verb

leave permanently: She abandoned her son at the door of the orphanage.

The process started with abandonment and ended with betrayal. It was a lesson, or perhaps a course, since it was cut into so many segments, so many steps. So many little bursts of hope, torn to pieces by the ugly truth.

truth noun

the state of being in accordance with fact or reality

The colourful and heartbreaking game that people had played with her had taken its toll. A mother had left her with her father. A stepmother had refused to accept her as her own. A father stood by her stepmother, never intervening, never even offering a word of comfort. A best friend died. A brother left her. And she realised that, if so many people could hurt her so much, then the way they acted showed the same truth: love didn't exist.

After all, no one had ever bothered to show her differently.

show verb

be evidence of; prove

~*/Love\\*~

Unknown time, unknown location, most probably the year 2021

It was hot.

Not the sunny, want to go to the pool hot. Not even the bundled up in blankets on a hot night hot. No, it was the oven hot, the middle of a desert hot.

And it was nowhere near pleasant.

That was the first thing that Owlet registered as she slowly re-entered the realm of the living. Sweat trickled down her forehead, soaking into her messy blonde hair and dripping down her face. Her grey uniform clung to her body, its heavy material only making the heat worse.

The next was the smell.

The acrid stench of smoke burned her nostrils, and she coughed, searing her throat. She held her breath, resisting the urge to cough again. Her lungs begged for breath, and finally she capitulated, greedily drawing in breath again. The air was unexpectedly clear, pure, and Owlet's grey eyes darted open. Everything was white—white walls, white ceiling, even a white floor. There was no door in sight.

Then she noticed that she wasn't secured in any way.

No chains, no ties—nothing. She stood unsteadily, leaning against the slippery white wall. Where was she? The seventeen year old blinked, taking a deep breath as she tried to remember what had happened.

It all came back with startling clarity. And, with the memories, came the sudden realisation of where she must be. Owlet looked around again, going through the list of what protocol stated she had to look for.

Possible exits? The girl scanned the walls again, searching for even a crack. The walls were as smooth as flawless glass, but they certainly felt more solid. She tapped on one, and the sound that resulted was nothing that she had ever heard before. Definitely not glass, and probably nothing that would break anytime soon. The ceiling was high, and the floor just as flawless as the walls.

Hostile forces? She scanned the room again, and the only thing that occupied it other than herself was a tiny device at her feet. Resisting the urge to touch it, Owlet painstakingly lowered herself to the ground, studying it carefully. The black box contrasted sharply with the white... everything. But it was just as smooth as everything else, too.

Suddenly, it released another puff of the acrid smoke- which was bright pink, she noticed, and Owlet drew back, holding her breath. She started to move away from the black box...

... And smacked right into an invisible wall.

It had to be glass, or something much like it. But she hadn't noticed it at all, and Owlet prided herself on her observational skills. Her head was fuzzy, like a blanket had settled over her mind, and she suddenly realised that she had been drugged.

Well, of course she had been drugged. No good operative- government or otherwise- would imprison a hostile force without properly subduing said force. It was in all the manuals, all the guidebook, all the lessons. She should've realised that when she first woke up.

The pink smoke filled the tiny space quickly, and Owlet looked longingly at the room outside it. Before long, black spots danced at the edge of her vision, and the agent was forced to take a breath.

The glass walls slid silently into the ceiling, but the girl was too busy hacking the smoke out of her lungs to notice or care. She collapsed into the floor, greedily pulling in fresh air. She had held her breath for exactly five minutes, fourteen seconds, her newest record. The blanket seemed to have been thrown off her brain as the smoke was expelled from her body, and Owlet wondered if it was an antidote to whatever she had been drugged with. At least that would mean they wanted her alive.

But then the pain kicked in.

It seemed as if every fibre of her being was on fire, burning, shrivelling up and dying. It tore through her body with every beat of her heart and the teen realised that the drug must've been a painkiller. She struggled to breath, to think, to live. Agony overwhelmed her, blocking out every thought but pain.

Suddenly, it stopped, and a pair of stormy grey eyes darted open in surprise. What was happening?

"Have you had enough?" a masculine, very familiar voice asked coolly. The voice of the person that had betrayed her, that had promised her love and torn her heart to shreds.

Owlet stayed silent. The noise was coming from the walls, no doubt from tiny hidden speakers.

"Very well," the voice said. "I suppose we'll just have to try something different."

The glass slid down again, and the device spewed out a thick red smoke. Owlet pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath, though she knew it was no use. The poison was sucked into her lungs painfully, spreading through her body. The blonde girl's vision blurred, colours blending and bouncing, control of her limbs all but forgotten. Noises were distorted, distant.

But, before she succumbed to unconsciousness, Owlet thought she heard the voice say something very clearly.

"How bad are your memories, daughter of Athena?"

bad adjective

harmful, unpleasant

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