10.

Piper woke with a startled gasp, eyes wide as she found herself staring up at a stark white ceiling. She sat up in the small bed, movement restricted from the IVs hooked to her arm. Her head was spinning from the sudden movement, her body aching with a tremendous amount of pain.

"Ben?" She called. Her throat was sore, her lips extremely dry and cracked. Her jaw was all but stiff from days without movement.

She was in a hospital room, nothing but the apparent car accident weighing heavily on her thoughts. And she had no idea where she or her brother were for that matter.

"Ben?"

The machine that monitored her heart rate began to beep rapidly, the numbers climbing steadily as she began to panic. Piper could only recall fragments from that day. The car ride, their laughter, the music they were listening to, shards of glass cutting into her skin.

"Benjamin!" Piper all but screamed.

"Don't you know there are rules when being in a hospital?" A deep, baritone voice suddenly said. A voice she clearly didn't recognize.

The door opened slowly, a boy, probably around the same age as Ben, stood in the entranceway. His long arms were folded lightly at his chest.

"Who… who the hell are you? Where is my brother? Where am I?"

"You and your brother were in an accident." He gestured towards her wounded arm in a cast and sling. "Your brother is fine, stable, he just hasn't woken up yet. You are in a hospital here, in Wayward Pines."

"Wayward Pines? Where is that?"

Piper got by barely when it came to geography and knowing what city was in what state, so needless to say her knowledge was limited.

"Idaho," He replied. "My name is Camus."

Camus sat at the foot of the bed, keeping his distance as Piper regarded him cautiously. He had the liberty of reading her file and knew from the information gathered that she was more than equipped to protect herself. With an impressive knowledge of the human body, Piper could've easily attacked him, cut into a arty, and had him bleeding out in minutes.

She was alluring enough; bewitching.

"Where are my thing? I need to call our parents. They must be worried we haven't made it by now. I need to let them know where we are so they can come and get us."

"We actually managed to get in contact with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They know you both are here and the condition you both are in." He gave her a kind smile of reassurance.

XXX

"Isn't this breaking and entering?"

"Not when I'm an invited guest."

"And who said I invited you?"

Thin, pale lips tugged at the corners, "You can never give me a break, can you?"

"Never." Piper glanced up, eyes gleaming playfully. "What's up? Your boss know you're sneaking away again?"

Camus pulled a chair out from under the small dinette table, "No but it's so dead in there that I just had to get away." He spoke as he sat down. "Word around town is you've chosen a partner again."

Every so often Piper found herself in the company of her old partner. It was never planned, the man picked times and locations different from the previous visit- a poor attempt to cover his tracks. There were rules concerning old and new pairs, and Camus had long since be re-paired (a few times in fact). His newest mate, a young First Generation girl by the name of Maria Conners, lived by the rules and felt it a headache for them to be broken.

Though According to Camus, Piper Smith was worth it.

Camus normally kept to himself, he did his job and then went home. But there were times when he felt the need to sneak away and check in on Piper, and this was one of those times. The feeling was mutual, Piper welcomed his company. She cared about his well being despite the pair not being together anymore, and wanted to make sure he too was taking care of himself. Camus was prone to small bouts of depression steaming from their past, and so she turned her attention onto him. Looking for any signs of the spiraling pit he tended to dig for himself.

"I have," Piper mused. "Did you come to congratulate me?"

"Not necessarily," He turned up his nose in protest. "Did you tell him that we were paired?"

"Yeah, he knows."

"Did you tell him about her?"

Piper stiffened, the cutting knife slipping from her grasp ever so slightly. She laid it against the cutting board quietly, her appetite suddenly gone. The look she gave him spoke volumes, a whirlwind of emotions flashed behind her blues. Memories of things she tried desperately to bury surfaced almost immediately, from a wound that would never heal.

"No," She answered softly. "That's not really something you bring up right away. Besides, no one knows about her except for us, Ben and Holly, and Ringo. Why are we even talking about this? I promised myself that I wouldn't talk-"

"You can't brush it off like it never happened and you sure as hell can't ignore her like se never existed. Look at us, we don't even use her name!"

"I know my child existed, I know Sophia existed!"

Camus hummed, a soft smile curving his lips. She hadn't seen him smile like that in two years.

"She was beautiful, just like her mother."

Piper blushed, turning her stare away from the man in her kitchen. Feelings she had spent more time than she would like to admit burying showed themselves as clear as the sky outside.

"I think about her every day… what she would look like, how her voice would sound, what would her personality be like… but I don't sit here and dwell on the past, if I did I would'velost my mind a long time ago." Said Piper. "IS this why you came over? To talk about the past?"

"No," Camus admitted as he stood. "I came because I want you to be careful."

"What?" Golden brows furrowed in confusion.

"There are rumors going around that some townsfolk are trying to start a rebellion. Apparently someone doesn't like the way the show is being ran. Holly has been seen talking to a few of the suspects.Either it's because of her job or because she's part of the issue itself. You spend a lot of time with her, and I don't want you getting wrapped up in her mess. Same for your brother, so… be careful."

XXX

Piper sat in front of the small window, waiting for her brother to finish dressing so they could finally leave. After spending an extra four days in the hospital, in addition to her own week's stay, the Smith siblings were finally being discharged. Clouds hung over head, and stray droplets of rain clung to the glass.

"Glad to see you're doing better."

Piper didn't even bother to turn around, she had gotten used to the boy's presence by now. Camus had made it a habit of stopping by to check in on her. A nice yet unneeded gesture. She didn't want any connections to the small town, she just wanted to see her parents and go home.

"Yeah…" She murmured, keeping her eyes forward on the mountains of into the distance.

"Well, whenever you both are ready I will escort you to the hotel."

"Hotel? What hotel? I thought my parents were coming."

"They haven't made it yet, said it could be a couple of days. Flights are delayed due to weather."

Her brows knitted as she sighed. Piper supposed she understood, but she couldn't help but feel anxious and annoyed. Here was something about the town that just caused all the hair on her body to stand on end.

Everything was just too perfect to be real.

Piper missed her room, her own bed. Hell she even missed the old creaky mattress she slept on back at her dorm. She missed the normality that was her well thought out life.

She missed her school work, the smell of the classrooms as she and her classmates were the first students to use the rooms at the start of a new day. The cheap coffee baristas passed off as high quality, sandwiches on stale bread that were still surprisingly delicious. Piper missed her neighborhood, the neighbors that had been around since she and Ben were kids.

The oddly shaped bushes her mother insisted on cutting, the oil stains on their driveway. Aside from his career, Mr. Smith loved working on cars. Something he and his son had in common. The lake she spent most of her summers at, collecting all types of plant and aquatic life for science camp- a faithful tradition she upheld every summer since elementary school.

She missed Jackson.

The way he laughed when they were together, and smiled. A wide, toothy smile that broadcasted all thirty-two of his beautiful teeth. The way he always seemed to smell so sweet, like a bakery, every time she saw him.

Piper couldn't shake the nagging feeling in her gut that something wasn't right. Ben had always teased her about how quickly she got home sick. How the smallest of things had her all but running back home to their parents. But this was different.

Completely different.

Piper just wanted to go home, and no matter how much she tried she couldn't ignore the small voice in the back of her mind. The voice that told her she'd probably never see her home and loved ones again. That all her hopes, dreams, goals, and hard work towards a promising future suddenly meant nothing.

"I don't have my cellphone." Piper voiced suddenly, turning to face the stoic boy. His skin appeared even more pale due to the navy colored sweater he wore. His icy stare studied her closely as he watched her mindlessly fidget. "I want to call my parents."

"When you arrived you didn't have one on you," Said Camus. "But there's a phone at the hotel you could probably use."

"Oh of course my phone wasn't there," Piper said, sarcastically. "I guess my wallet wasn't there either. Or the bag with all my clothes in it, not my money, school books. No, the only things in that car were me, Ben, and the clothes on our backs." She rolled her eyes, tightly folding her arms.

Well, folding them as best she could.

Camus huffed an annoyed sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was just trying to do as he was told, that's it.

No more, no less.

But the task itself was proving to be more difficult than he was intending it to be for reasons unknown to him.

Sure this Piper Smith was the first non-native he'd ever dealt with personally, and he had been warned in advance that they could be wearisome. But Piper took things to an entirely new level. She was the most exasperating person he'd ever met, with an attitude that wasn't much to brag about. And that was saying something because his own personality left much to be desired.

"Look," Camus finally said. "I don't know where your stuff is. I'm just here as an escort."

Piper simply scoffed, turning her back to him. "If it's all the same to you, I would like to wait for my brother alone."

XXX

Piper trotted down the long staircase, skidding to a halt when she noticed the empty key bowl beside the front door.

"Ben?" She called.

She couldn't recall hearing him come home the night before from his study session with his American Lit group and she hadn't heard his shower running that morning either.

Piper had grown to expect her parents not coming home at night, they worked horrible hours together so she always knew where they were.

Recently there had been a string of random murders they were both working so the job kept them away from home for days on end. So it had just been her and Benjamin for the last couple of days. But not finding Ben when she woke up wasn't the norm. Piper continued her way down the stairs, making a stop in the kitchen before heading off to school. She made a quick breakfast out of a bowl of cereal, grabbed her bookbag off the countertop, and was out the backdoor.

"Morning, Piper."

Jackson Reed, Piper's oldest friend (and newly acquired boyfriend), joined her on her commute to school. She and the boy were juniors at the local high school, where they had nearly every class together with the exception of their electives. While Piper thrived in forensic science classes geared towards her college major, Jack opted for culinary arts.

"Morning, Jacky. Have you heard from Ben? He wasn't home this morning, or last night I think."

Piper adjusted the straps of her backpack as they continued their hike to school.

"I think he said he was going to stay over at Keith's after their study group dispersed. He texted me when he couldn't get in touch with you."

That's right, Piper had her phone turned off most of the night due to studying. Everyone was used to it by then though, the teen cramming for finals and midterms and shutting out everything around her to prepare. So her parents left various notes all over the house and Ben went through Jackson to get to her.

Piper hummed at the realization, nodding her head.

The day, of course went on as they normally did. Piper going from class to class, and seeing her brother in between. Her ignoring the hushed whispers of the paranoid after listening to yet another podcast of the impending doom of their race and planet.

She mocked the thought, all the logic was there. Humans had been around for hundreds of thousands of years, it just didn't make any sense. The black plague, ebola, malaria, and various other diseases and genetic mutations have yet to destroy the race but some unknown mutation that's never been heard of by anyone except some loon was supposed to?

Her parents, her mother specifically, worked in the medical field for crying out loud and not even she believed a word the quack was saying. Besides, Piper had better things to worry about. Like upcoming finals and college tours, and what she was going to do the first half of summer until science camp started. And then, of course, spend some time with her brother before he left for college.

XXX

"Is she still asleep?" Ben asked as he brewed a fresh pot of coffee.

"She is," Holly nodded as she joined her husband in the kitchen.

"I love it when she's over. It reminds me of old times."

"I know you do." The brunette smiled.

"Things are going great with her and Ren. When should we tell him?"

"Do you think we should? Look at what happened the last time we told him something. He ended up in the hospital."

"True, but with that group with the people we already have? We know we can't take down the walls, but we can get rid of the corrupt and do something about those First Generation brats. Get this town in some decent order."

"That's easier said than done. We've been planning this for over a year now with very little progress."

XXX

Piper stood in front of the full length mirror in Holly and Ben's guest bedroom. She held up the dress Holly had given to her, face scrunching up in disapproval. It was a medium sized dress with two different tones of lilac with celeste pink in stripes. Now where Holly dug up some of the dresses she owned was beyond her, though Piper would never admit aloud that the dress was a perfect fit. It was snug yet loose, and hugged her curves nicely.

Not that she wanted to show off for Ren or anything.

Piper groaned, hanging the dress back in the closet before dropping down onto the bed. It was Ren's idea to attend the festival that night in the first place. Apparently his friends (and she could probably guess who) thought it would be a good idea for them to at least try to meet the rest of the town, and they wanted him to join.

Thus her quiet night alone was being replaced by fake smiles, bright lights, and obnoxious kids too drunk for their own good.

Ren had, of course, been reluctant to agree. His teaching job already gave him enough unwanted attention and the last thing he wanted was to be more in the open. If the town found out anything else about him, hell they could go ahead and live his life for him. But even after two thousand years, Ren still couldn't say no to Haruka.

Or Masato for that matter.

So there Piper stayed for the next hour or so, thinking of ways she could get out of going that night. But with the universe and dress taunting her, nothing legit enough came to mind.