"Heather Raleigh," Ms

"Heather Raleigh," Ms. Miller yelled at her. "What the hell do you think you're doing sneaking around here at three in the morning!" She'd heard a noise outside of her first story window, and seen Heather's very distinct red-gold hair bobbing by. There wasn't going to be a scandal at Haywood like there was at last year Greenwood, its sister school. Not while Janice Miller was a chaperone. She'd gone out and followed Heather to the woods. She wanted to catch whom Heather was meeting, but Heather had just stood out there alone for a while. Maybe the boyfriend had seen Heather's shadow and ran away.

"Ms. Miller, it's not what you…" Heather hissed, but was cut off.

"Who are you meeting?" Ms. Miller demanded, not lowering her voice. She'd yelled out Heather's name. Heather could hear the people in the woods coming for them now. They hadn't been too far off, and even a norm could hear Ms. Miller's shout.

"Shut up!" Heather snarled, glad to see Ms. Miller's mouth snapped closed more from shock than obeying such an order.

Heather had such an odd look on her face, like she was listening or something like that. She looked into the woods, scanning back and forth like she could actually see something in the pitch-blackness. Janice could make out about the next six feet, but that was all. There was no way Heather could see any better. Heather's eyes widened, and her mouth formed the words "oh, shit!" With surprising strength from a young girl, she grabbed her teacher and threw them both to the ground.

A microsecond later there was an explosion of gunfire peppering the tree behind where Janice had been standing. If Heather had been a second slower, Janice would have been riddled with bullets. Heather was on her feet a split second later, dragging her teacher up. How did a girl get so strong, Janice wondered as Heather yanked her off the ground. Heather suddenly made a fist about an inch from her throat. She opened her hand, and Janice almost fell down again to see the tranquilizer dart in Heather's palm. She caught that?

"Run!" Heather yelled, and took her own advice. She had to get out of there. So did Ms. Miller now. The norms had been wearing night vision goggles when she had spotted them. They had to know what Ms. Miller looked like and would kill her too now. In exploring earlier, they girls had gone down to the motor pool and found some snowmobiles. They were big enough for two, and could get them around better where Heather wanted to go.

When she was younger, her mom used to teach her stuff about getting away from people. She knew her dad didn't like it when she was taught "Manticore Stuff" but her mom just said in their case, you never knew what you were going to need in life. Now, she was grateful to have had it. Roads are dangerous, her mom had said. Norms don't have your abilities to move, so they have to use roads. They'll be blocked first because that's what they'll think of. You have the ability to use alternate means. Alternate means here meant going into the mountains. Night vision goggles were only as good as the batteries in them, but her vision was good as long as she was conscious. She should be able to lose them up there.

Why hasn't this girl been put on the track team? That was all Janice could think as she raced after Heather. Janice could run fast, she knew that. She could beat most men she knew, but this girl was leaving her in the dust. Whoever was chasing them meant business, and she wasn't going to let them hurt Heather. Janice knew they were after her, and she knew why, but she wasn't going to let an innocent girl get caught up in the crossfire. She had to get to the cars and get Heather out of there immediately.

The keys were all inside the lodge, but that wasn't a problem. When you wanted to learn something useful you asked Mom or Dad. When you wanted to learn something cool, like oh say, how do you hotwire a vehicle, you asked Aunt Max. Max was a total hellion when she was younger, which was why Janna couldn't get around her mother at all, and knew all sorts of neat tricks. Uncle Logan said he had to give her a key to his apartment because he got tired of replacing locks that got picked so many times they fell apart.

Ms. Miller was just getting to the door as Heather made the wiring connection, and the snowmobile growled to life. She pushed it to the door, already seeing men coming towards them at a sprint. "Get on!" she yelled.

Janice had no idea how this child was doing all this, but there wasn't time to find out. Several more gunshots killed the protest in her throat, and she jumped on behind Heather. Heather hit the throttle and tore off into the night. Janice ducked low, ignoring the freezing wind that was tearing into her face and choking her. At first, she could tell Heather wasn't heading towards the road, but in the total darkness, she couldn't see where Heather was going at all.

"Lights!" she screamed in Heather's ear. Obviously the girl had forgotten to turn them on. She was going to get them both killed.

"Don't need 'em!" Heather yelled back. She had the throttle all the way, tearing away from the mysterious assailants. This was like being on Aunt Max's motorcycle really. If they weren't being shot at, this would be the coolest thing ever. But, she knew they had to get away, and go somewhere where they could make a phone call. There was a ranger station in the mountains. In the lodge, there was a big map of the mountain area, and the ranger stations were marked. They had satellite phones, she remembered from the information on the map. That seemed like the best place to be.

The station she wanted to go to was a good ways into the mountains. It was unmanned, so there wouldn't be anyone asking questions, but the map said even the unmanned ones had phones in case of emergency. She couldn't think of a better emergency than this. She'd inherited her mother's natural sense of direction, and sped off towards the heart of the mountains.

The ride was a couple of hours long. Heather was glad there was enough gas in the tank to make it. Dawn was starting to streak across the sky, changing the shadows from black to gray. She knew Ms. Miller had to be close to frozen, but there wasn't time to slow down. At least she was wearing a heavy coat and boots. Heather was cold, but she was far more immune to the elements than a norm.

The cabin suddenly appeared over a small ridge. Heather skidded up close to it, and finally turned off the engine. She jumped off immediately, ignoring the stiff muscles. She was still jumped up on the adrenaline rush of escape. So this is what her parents did at Manticore. Talk about a blast! Well, except for that whole loss of freedom thing. Still, being able to sharpen your skills all the time that had to be fun.

Janice took a considerable more amount of time to get into the cabin. She thanked whatever watched over them that she'd actually gotten dressed before going out than just throwing on her sweats and a coat. There was Heather, bouncing off like a little mountain goat. She wanted answers from this kid, and she was getting them before they left. Heather had zoomed around ridges, and invisible turns like it was noon instead of night. She rarely released the throttle, and acted like there was no problem at all with her tearing through the pitch-blackness.

The cabin was marginally warmer than the outside. At least the wind was blocked off. There was a gas fireplace at least. Janice grabbed the sparker off of the mantle and turned on the gas, lighting the sparker. The gas caught and started to burn off, bathing the cabin in warmth. Janice knew it wasn't the smartest thing to do, burning straight gas, but it was either that or freeze to death.

"Hello?" Heather said into the phone. She punched a couple of buttons. "C'mon you stupid phone, you're supposed to work anywhere in the world!" The frustration in her voice was evident.

"Heather," Janice said, trying to figure out what to say next. With luck, someone would have noticed them missing by now, but a search party could be in danger by whoever was after her. Not to mention, she was going to have to be careful of anyone who looked like a search party because they could be the enemy.

"It's not working!" Heather declared, looking at her finally. How was she supposed to get a hold of her parents? There was someone looking for a little Manticore technology, and she needed her parents. Nobody would come after them knowing they would have to go up against two real Manticore soldiers, would they?

"How did you catch that dart?" Janice asked. She'd been thinking about it most of the ride. They had wanted Heather down so she couldn't tell what she'd seen, but they only wanted to kill Janice. She understood them wanting to kill her, but if it were whom she thought, they wouldn't have problems killing a young girl either. Maybe they were going to interrogate Heather to see if she knew anything. That sounded right, after all they did see her with Heather alone in the woods a t night. It didn't explain how she caught the dart though.

Heather knew she had an instinctive ability to use her telekinesis. She couldn't help or control it; it would just pop out sometimes. Like when she was sparring with her Dad, he said sometimes his arm would swing out of the way, or he would be slowed down a little. She wasn't consciously trying to do it, her mind just took control. She'd heard the dart, and her mind slowed it enough so that she could grab it. But how do you tell your teacher that you're telekinetic, and have reflexes no mere mortal could ever hope to have?

"I heard it," she said. Time to change the subject. "But the phone's broken!"

Janice took the phone. Regardless of Heather's interesting abilities, she needed to get off of this mountain in one piece. Janice examined the phone. "This model is hardwired to a satellite uplink which is probably on the roof. The transceiver is probably broken, or the cables to the satellite have come loose. If it's a cable, I can fix it."

Heather was now the one giving the strange looks. "How do you know some much about telecommunications equipment?" she asked. Janice just smiled.

"Give yourself another ten years," she said. "You'll be surprised what you pick up. I'm going to go up on the roof and…" Her words were cut of by a shushing gesture from Heather. Heather was looking like an animal hearing something she didn't like. If she were a cat, her ears would have been all the way forward.

Heather could hear something. Something like a slithering. It was barely there, but it was there nevertheless. She didn't like it one bit. Then she could hear her mother's advice in her head once more. Use your abilities, she'd been told. There were two unmanned cabins that she could have gone to. One was much further away. In this weather, it would have frozen a norm to go such a distance, but it wouldn't have been too much a bother for Heather. Norms do what they would do, like block the roads, or go to the closer cabin.

Before either of them could move, there were movements of white as snow-camouflage blankets were thrown off, and about a dozen guns suddenly broke through the glass windows.