Time went slowly over the next few days. I tried not to think about what was going to happen to me, or my aching stomach, or why I was here in the first place.

It had been so sudden.

For the past three years, I'd managed to get by perfectly well on my own.

Well, for the most part. Mostly it was just me jumping around, scrounging around for food and just chilling out. I couldn't go to school—I'd jumped out of foster care when I was fourteen. After a while of being listed as a missing child, I eventually just sort of fell off the face of the earth from the system. I lived my life the way I wanted to.

I'd figured out jumping when I was about twelve. It had happened twice in the time period between five, when I did it the first time, and twelve. After several years of learning the twists and turns of it, I finally got it down. So technically, Owen was wrong: I'd only been really jumping for a few years.

The most important part was—I was always careful. I never jumped in public places, I never told anyone what I could do, and I didn't believe that there were other people out there like me.

Apparently there are.

Or…were.

From what I gathered, these people that were holding me had some moral obligation to wipe out all the people who could jump. Several people they just killed on capture, and then, some they locked up for days at a time so they could see how this whole jumping thing worked.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Human contact was becoming rare in here, and it was only once every six hours that someone came in to give me a bottle of water—but no food.

The last water bottle I had received lay abandoned on the floor. I stared at it for a minute, thinking.

Living on the streets for three years, I assume most people would probably think my book smarts were rather lacking. However, I had a penchant for books. I hate to toot my own horn here, but I am rather well educated for quitting school in 8th grade. I'm a big fan of public libraries where I can read for free. Especially those travel books, because those really let me jump.

The way jumping worked for me, I could jump wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted…regardless of whether I'd been there before or not. I only needed to see a picture of the place.

Though, that wouldn't really help me out here, because I couldn't see what it was like outside, and I assumed nobody could see in.

But I had seen outside the door. It led to a discrete hallway, illuminated only by artificial light.

I stared at the bracelet. If I could get it off or break it somehow, I could jump out to the hallway and try to get away.

The first thing I did was try smash it against the wall.

I learned my lesson quickly—any sudden force against it, and it would send 15000 volts through my body instead of ten.

After calming down from that, I tried prying open the top so I could study the mechanism. That didn't work. It was screwed shut, two lids screwed together, with only a small crack that I could barely get open.

Then I saw it.

In the foreground, while I was staring at my wrist, the water bottle, still half-full because I preserved it, lay on the ground.

I grinned and checked the time on the wall. I had ten minutes before someone came in to check on me, if that.

I got to work.

"How're we going to do this?"

Griffin stood with Davy near the edge of a sand dune, looking down on a small entrance that looked like it led underground. Just seconds previously, Griffin had jumped the two of them, immediately following a plan made to get Jeremy out of there.

"I'll grab him…and jump him back to the apartment," Griffin said. "While I look for him, distract everyone."

He clapped a hand onto Davy's upper arm. "You're good at not being very discrete."

Before Davy could retaliate, Griffin was gone, and soon Davy realised why—someone was leaving the entrance, and he could see clearly into the doorway.

He jumped.

I had successfully short circuited the bracelet—now when I jumped, it only shocked me with about twenty volts. Perfect.

I really had thought they would have been smarter than just leaving me with a transmitter that could be short circuited by a little water.

(Well, actually a lot of water, but still…)

The person who had come in to check on me had suspected nothing, especially since I gave them my trademark 'annoyed/sulk/I'm gonna kill you' teenager look. Cliché, I know, but still. I have to act brooding if I wantthem to leave me alone.

Since I had no mental image of what lay on the other side of the door, I took care to get a good glance outside the door when they entered and when they left. After the door shut behind them, I counted to 120, then jumped.

On the other side of the door was the dark hallway that I had seen before.

I knew I should have jumped away, right at that moment.

But I'm a seventeen year old male.

Curiosity never killed one of them, right?

I wander down the hall, past several rooms with windows, none of which had people behind them. However, just as I was deciding that maybe now would be a good time to leave, I saw it.

There was this big screen that encompassed an entire wall that had to have been something like eleven by sixteen. On the screen were several pictures, some dimmed out, several, though, were still regular colour.

My eyes scanned over the screen. There were two pictures of me, one taken back when I was fourteen, when I had gotten arrested and ended up with a mugshot from the police, and another that had been taken several days ago. Underneath my name it said 'subject 009 to be terminated' in bold red letters.

There were several arrows that connected me to a network of people. An orange [J next to a name indicated that they were a jumper, I assumed. I was connected to nine other jumpers, seven of which were crossed out.

All of my family's names were crossed out.

I felt sick to my stomach all of a sudden, suddenly felt incredibly weak.

Behind me, I didn't even see the person ready to reach out and grab me with a cord that had twenty thousand volts of electricity running through me—enough to kill me.

Instead, I heard a soft 'Boo!', a crackle of electricity. I whirled around and was promptly hit in the stomach with those twenty thousand volts, and I felt myself fly to the ground, convulsing in what can only be described as insurmountable pain.

I heard that distinctive sound that is made when someone jumps, but I wasn't sure if it was actual jumping or just the sound of electricity in my ears. I saw people running down the hallway towards us when I tipped my head upwards, letting out a small groan.

Someone screamed 'grab the kid!'

And then two people lunging at me, one grabbing me around the wrist, intent on slapping another electric bracelet on me, the other grabbing my waist and….

…jumping?

If I thought ten thousand volts was bad, then twenty thousand volts was my own personal taste of hell. I felt like I had been fried, which, in a sense, I had. All my joints ached and all my muscles were unbelievably tense. I was so incredibly sore.

I was laying down now, and for some reason, I couldn't think of anywhere to jump to. My first instinct was escape. But then I gathered my surroundings.

I was laying down on a rather nice bed, with sheets and everything. I was still in my clothes from the past few days, however, to my left were clean jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie that I assumed were for me.

On top of them lay a note.

dont leave. we're not gonna hurt you, kid. change and come out into the main room and get food to eat.

ps. hope you like chinese because i refuse to go out and get something else.

pps. shower before you change and come out.

ppps. again, promise we wont hurt you.

I checked the label on the pants before putting them on, arching an eyebrow slightly. They were brand new—the pricetag was still hanging off of the belt loop. Same deal with the shirt and the hoodie.

I found the shower adjoined to the room, and a towel waiting.

I stood in the shower for half an hour, just letting the scalding hot water pour down my back, through my hair and pool around my bare feet.

It felt so good to be clean, and, possibly, safe.

After I got out of the shower and had shimmied my way into the jeans, pulled the shirt on over my head and tugged the hoodie on to keep me warm, I wandered out through the door. My dark hair, still wet, tickled and trickled about my shoulders.

When I got into the main room, I was greeted by an…interesting sight. It was two guys, one who was poring over a macbook, randomly typing in a key here or there, and the other who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, muttering at the TV with a game controller in his hand. Finally, he threw it to the ground, apparently a little pissed off, and turned to look at me.

"Finally decided to wake up, yeah?"

I said nothing. The guy on the laptop looked up at me as well.

"Ignore him. He's just mad because he lost."

"If you hadn't jinxed me, I wouldn't have lost. I never lose."

The guy that sat in front of the TV jumped to the fridge and back, returning with a Coke in his hand. I arched an eyebrow. He grinned at me.

"Weren't expecting that, were ya?"

I shrugged. The guy on the laptop closed it and put it down on the table next to him.

"Just so you know, we're not here to hurt you. We're here to—"

"Enlist you to fight against the Paladin," the gamer guy interrupted, plopping himself down in front of the TV again. I looked at the computer guy.

"What?"

He sighed. "I'll explain later. You hungry?"

I nodded. He jumped to the fridge and returned with one of those little Chinese take out boxes that holds food. He held it out to me, along with a plastic fork.

There was a small distance between us. I closed the gap with a short jump, taking the box from his hands. Opening the flap and with my head still downward, I said, without looking up:

"Who are you?"

"I'm David, and he's Griffin. You're at the apartment we use as a control center, so to speak."

"Also known as the Lair," Griffin offered from the sofa. David shook his head, rolling his eyes. I jumped to the sofa and sat down.

"And you guys can…"

"Jump? No, we're faeries that just can magically poof in and out of places. Can't you tell by the fucking wings and pixie dust that Davy's throwing around?"

I cracked a smile. Griffin paused the game and jumped to sit next to me, grinning in return.

"Yes. We can. You didn't think you were the only one, did you? I have to admit, though, you were way more careful than Davy was when he started."

"He's able to be more discreet," Davy said, exasperated. "He doesn't leave a scar!"

"Scar?"

"It's this thing you leave behind when you jump that allows other jumpers and more importantly, the Paladin to follow you."

I stopped mid-chew. "The who?" I said, though, with food in my mouth, it sounded more like 'muh who?'

David and Griffin exchanged a glance. Griffin used his hands as a headrest.

"They're the sons-of-bitches that wanted to kill you, kid. Or, actually, they probably still do. I think we pissed them off when we took you away…"

"They have a name?"

"Have for years," Davy said.

"We've been going after them for years," Griffin said. "And we've been tracking you for years."

I put the box of Chinese down.

"What do you want with me?"

Davy jumped in front of where I sat and sat down on the coffee table.

"We need your help, Jeremy."

Reviewsdrug.

xx. lsh.

I've found the perfect place to put Mily into this story, now. )