A/N: So far the reception on the last chapter has been good, hopefully that's, ah, a good thing! XD I'm really enjoying working on this story so my updates will probably be on a daily basis until I either get stuck, or get swamped with updating my other fanfictions, something I hope to do now that I know how to upload Microsoft Word documents to this site without it getting clumped together. (A problem I had that made me stop writing for a while.) Thanks for all the reviews, and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: The Darkest Powers series does not belong to me.

Reckoning
EilayAdnayVolieay

Chapter IV - Runaway Part 1

Tori's words froze me in place temporarily as I stared back at her in shock. It was possible - quite possible, actually - that she had been mistaken. Tori was the last person on earth that Derek would have told if he was running away.

I groaned inwardly at the realization that Tori being the last person Derek would want to tell might be precisely why she would know. She wouldn't care if he ran away, but Simon and I - we would.

"What makes you say that?" Simon said quickly, interrupting my thoughts. Tori shrugged.

"I was walking up the stairs and he shoved passed me. He had a backpack strung over his shoulder and he headed out the door. What would you think?" Tori retorted, crossing her arms. "I'm not stupid, you know, and I really hate– " Whatever she hated, neither Simon nor I gave her the chance to say. Both of us moved toward the entrance to the library and went to the front door. Simon looked at me, his hand on the doorknob.

"You should go find Andrew – tell him what's happened." My response was an ice cold glare, which soon melted to plain shock. Did Simon honestly expect me to just sit here and wait for him to come back, with or without Derek? Yet I reminded myself that Simon and Derek had been looking out for each other longer than me, and that Simon would have a better idea of where Derek might have gone. Maybe he even knew a spell to track him down. I wasn't sure. What good was the girl who saw dead people?

"Right," I muttered. "I'll just go on ahead and find him, then." I hated feeling like I was being ordered around. Still, I knew better than to object - every time I would decide to rebel and not do as I was told, I got into trouble. Before I got to Lyle House, the stunt that landed me there happened because I had skipped class and coloured my hair in the girl's bathroom. Derek told me to stay, I chose not to stay, and almost always got attacked or in some kind of trouble. This time, I was going to listen. I couldn't afford not to.

Tori was strolling down the hall behind me, glancing at her nails distastefully before noticing me staring at her.

"What?" She snapped. After I heard the front door close and knew Simon was gone, Tori's gaze softened. "Sorry," She mumbled an apology, stopping in front of me. "I know you're probably worried - though I'm not sure why." Derek was the superhuman werewolf. He could take care of himself - usually. But now, when he was feeling sick because of his change rapidly approaching . . . I wasn't so sure if he could or not. And had he really run off and abandoned us here? I couldn't see him doing that. Something didn't sound right.

The others weren't sure we should trust Tori, either. I wanted to; my inner instincts were telling me that I could, completely. The last time I had doubted her and thought she'd ratted us out, it turned out to be one of the people I thought I could trust most: Rae. My sense of character and my judgment of people didn't seem to be as good as I needed it to be.

"Do you know where Andrew is?" I asked her, beginning to search the first floor for any sign of him. She shook her head, and followed me. "Great," I muttered. "Why does this place seem so empty?" It was creepy. It was supposed to be a safe house of sorts, and Andrew had told us that there were people here that wanted to help others with supernatural abilities. Why was it, then, that we had only seen Andrew so far? Or at least, I had only seen Andrew. I wasn't sure what the others had seen while I was sleeping.

"Did you guys ever see anyone else in this place? Or just Andrew?" I asked Tori, turning down a narrow hallway. She waved my question off.

"Never saw anyone else, but apparently they all came while we were sleeping. Andrew left breakfast early to go talk to them once they'd arrived. It was like they knew we'd be here. Creepy, right? I don't know if there's anyone amongst them with the power of premonitions, but it would make sense if there was." Premonitions… I didn't envy anyone who was cursed with that ability. I found it hard enough seeing dead people wherever I went – seeing the future, and the awful things that happened, wasn't something I wanted.

Then again, if I had the ability to see into the future, maybe I could have seen Derek running off. I could have stopped him… but thoughts like that would get me nowhere. We had to focus on finding Andrew. Surely he would know what to do – why else would Simon have seemed so insistent on me getting to Andrew and telling him what had happened so urgently?

Faintly in the distance I could hear shouting. It seemed to be coming from a hallway that branched to the left of us, so I motioned for Tori to follow. The lighting was dim - there were no windows in this section of the house - and I found myself edging closer to Tori, a little frightened. The last thing I needed was for another ghost to jump out at us.

"Do you hear that?" I asked her, as I tried to make out the words. She nodded.

"Down there," She mouthed, pointing at the door straight ahead of us. There was a thin crack of light to show us that the door was partially open. I edged closer until we were just outside of the door, and listened.

"So what you're trying to tell us is that the Edison Group planned to kill these so-called "harmless" kids?" One voice - an older man's, I guessed - cried out. He didn't seem to believe that the Edison Group would harm us if we were harmless. Which naturally meant, he didn't believe we were harmless. Lovely.

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," I heard Andrew say, exasperated. "I'm informing you of the facts. These kids have been on the run from the Edison Group. We've been waiting for years to have a valid reason to stop them. Blake, haven't you said yourself that you had your doubts about their experiments?"

"That may be true, Andrew, but I also recall an important little detail you've been keeping left out: one of them is the result of a union between a Sorcerer and a Witch. Victoria, I believe her name was?" I looked at Tori, whose hand was now covering her mouth. I already knew that she was the product of a Sorcerer and a Witch, because of what the demon in my room at the Edison Group facility had told me. Of course, I hadn't known for a fact if the demon had been telling the truth - but I'd had a hunch. This was something Tori's mother clearly never told her.

"Dad," She whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. Having a sorcerer for a father meant that the human man she'd thought was her dad, really wasn't. I knew it had to be a hard blow - I thought of my own father, and how much I missed him. He still believed that I'd been kidnapped.

"She was at the Lyle House because her powers were out of control, and from what we've been told, they weren't getting better." The man Andrew had called Blake continued. "I may not like what the Edison Group has been doing - nor do I like their experiments. But they conducted these experiments, and so it is their sole responsibility to do what they see best with their subjects. Why should we risk ourselves for them? What proof other than the word of a bunch of out of control supernatural teenagers, do we have?"

Weren't we enough proof? They weren't trying to help us. They were lying to our faces! They tried to make us believe we had mental disorders, and if we bought into it, great! We got to go home to our families. If not, we were killed. They knew all along that we had supernatural abilities, and instead of trying to help us control them, they tried to stamp them out of us. Why? We were their experiments, weren't we? Their subjects? Were they so afraid of us that their only solution was to try to turn us into normal humans or murder us?

I looked over at Tori and saw that she was already heading down the hall. Should I stay and eavesdrop more, or follow her? I wanted to stay and see what more these people would say, but at the same time I knew that Tori needed a friend. I was the closest to that she was going to get, whether she liked it or not. Whatever this group was talking about, would have to wait.

I followed Tori until she spun around and shoved me against the wall, fresh tears flowing freely. I could see the anger in her eyes, but I knew it wasn't directed at me.

"Go away," She seethed, before letting go of me and running up the stairs to where our room was. I followed her, more slowly this time, giving her a few moments alone. She slammed the door shut in my face, and I didn't open it. Instead I turned around and leaned against the door, sinking down until I hit the ground.

I listened as she cried and shouted, heard the crashing sounds as things surely got out of control with her powers. After awhile, I heard her quiet voice at the other side of the door.

"Chloe?"

"I'm here," I told her.

"I think I know why… w-w-why Andrew wanted to talk to Simon and I." I blinked rapidly, impressed. I still had no idea myself, but that Tori had figured it out was a little on the shocking side to me. Still, it hadn't been that long ago that it had come out she was a bit of a computer geek – something I'd have to remember to ask her about at a better time.

"Why?" I asked her cautiously.

"I… I'm the result of a sorcerer's and a witch's union, right? My mother, she was always adamant that I stayed away from Simon. I just thought it was because she wanted me away from all distractions from getting better, but now… Chloe, I think Simon might be my brother."

A/N: I actually had something completely different planned for the end of this chapter, but I deleted it because I thought it was lame xP So, this was the new result that came from it. I like it better, personally. Before I had them get found out for eavesdropping on the group, and some other stuff I'm saving for later now happen, but it didn't seem to fit right. Hopefully this chapter is okay. ^^ Don't forget to review!