Femme Fatale:

A Hidden People:

Shadow was searching out her people, using her mind to do it, when she encountered a mind she had nearly forgotten about. River and her had always been able to touch each other's minds and now was no different. In the Academy, they had kept each other sane as well as calm. Shadow could feel River in her mind and though she tried to block her out, she knew that her friend had found her and was never letting go again.

Like River, I had been placed in fighting courses, where a trigger phrase could activate us. Unlike River, I didn't need a trigger phrase to activate me. It was a talent and gift I had honed from my birth people, those I had been kidnapped from. Aaron and I were searching, so many times, always searching for someone that could keep us safe and help us make the journey to my home planet. It wasn't that we couldn't get there; it was the fact that if we were caught, they'd kill us on sight and we would have no way of warning people what was coming.

I knew how to reach out to my people, using my mind. I knew how to tell them that I was coming with friends. But I also knew that if I wanted to reach out to my people, that I needed to be a lot closer to home than we were at the moment. Aaron was driving now, moving away from some of the more FED populated planets and heading for the not so FED populated planets. If anything, we could find a ship that would take us as well as our cruiser and head back into deep space. We just hoped that they would take on a FED and a girl who'd escaped from the Academy.

A Place of Urgency:

As I slept and Aaron maneuvered the cruiser towards Persephone, I dreampt of my home world, of what my people would be doing right now. I knew that if I wanted to get in contact with them, we needed to be away from a populated planet and though we were headed to one, I got the feeling that nobody would care that we were even there. I knew that as soon as we touched down, I would have to stay in the ship for fear of being caught by any FED on the planet so I made sure I would have enough to do while Aaron was out on the surface, getting permissions from a Captain to board his ship with a cruiser in tow.

With so much at stake, if it came right down to it, Aaron would have to use her authority as a FED to get onto the ship, bringing Shadow and all of their belongings with. If that happened, and the Captain decided to call her commanding officer, then she knew that she would have to explain herself. She'd kept her ID on her just in case she needed to use it but at the moment, there was no need to use it. She kept it hidden on a throng around her neck, so no one would be able to take it off of her. She moved about the ships, barely looking at the highly secured ships. She was looking for a ship that was barely secured so she could force her way on to the ship if necessary. She knew that Shadow was growing weaker everyday. Without a doctor to look at her soon, Shadow would slip into a coma and most likely die. She needed to find someone and quick.

A Flight Not Seen:

Back at the Academy, the alert had gone out that the missing girl might have had an accomplice and everyone was being scrutinized. Shadow had done her best to make sure their flight was not seen by the FED's but she knew that sooner or later, they would track the cruiser to Persephone and would find her and Aaron out. So far as Shadow could tell, Aaron was not yet under scrutiny because she was not at the Academy. The Academy had been her last mission before she was to get out. If they missed her, they could always look to the new homestead that Aaron had lied to her commanding officer about. But they were not looking in that direction at the moment.

Shadow got moving about the cruiser, gathering up all of hers and Aaron's belongings, mostly the books (plus electronic dictionary), the music Shadow listened to to calm her mind, the writing materials they used to keep track of the days as well as play games on, their clothes, the food and the water. She even grabbed the rest of the money that Aaron had left in the cruiser just in case Shadow needed to make a quick escape. She packed all of their things into a large suitcase and then the food in a smaller suitcase and put that one on top of the larger one. She kept the money in a pouch hanging from a throng around her neck.

Last but not least, she grabbed the small knife she had managed to find in the cruiser that Aaron had either forgotten about or left it for her to find. If anyone besides Aaron came through the door, she would use it to fight to death if need be. But when it was Aaron who came through the door with a few people behind her, Shadow relaxed, but not by that much. The people behind Aaron grabbed their belongings that Shadow had packed up and Aaron helped Shadow stand then the two walked outside to the waiting quad and Aaron made Shadow sit sideways covered in a blanket being held by a man she did not know.

More to come in the next chapter…

REVIEWS PLS…