Previously: When would my parents realize I was missing, and what were they going to do about it?

When I woke up, the room was pitch black, the door was closed and I could see my hand in front of my face. I realized that I had fallen asleep in my clothes and I could feel the knife still in my pocket. I sat up and leaned forward, feeling around for my bag at the end of the bed. I touched the smooth strap and grabbed it, pulling it foreword. I felt for a pulled at the zipper and when it was opened I rummaged through the bag and took out a watch. I lit the screen up and read the time. It was five o'clock. It was early, but not too early. I normally go up this early and stretched for an early morning practice on top of roof of the apartment building. The glow from the watch lit up the room a bit. I bent over the railing, leaving my head upside down, my hair spilling over my head. One hand held me steady and the other one kept the watch lit and shined it at Dylan, who was dead asleep on the bottom bunk. His face looked ghoulish with the light, his mouth hung open and his head slung back. Quietly laughing, I whipped my head back and poke around my bag again, and pulled out a little reading light.

"Look who finally decided to show up," I heard a voice say from outside our door. I jump quietly down from bed and crept near the door. I carefully turned the knob and opened it so a sliver of light seeped into the room. I looked and saw Dylan's uncle and another girl standing in the hallway, she wore a red sleeveless shirt and had her pale blonde hair in a ponytail at the top of her head.

"Look I know what I did was wrong, but I needed something to wake me up. I already spoke to Faith. We had a really good talk, I really hoped that I could come back," The girl said. Her face was hard, like is was carved from stone, but her eyes were drowned with desperation.

"I don't know Celeste," Merc hesitated. "Tell you what, I don't know about you coming back, I'll have to discuss it with Drake and some others. But I do need help. I got a few new runners that need to be trained. They start tomorrow," Merc told Celeste.

"Merc, you have no idea…" she started. Merc raised his hand.

"Don't start," Merc cut her off. He then returned to his computer. Celeste exhaled deeply, then walked away, vanished from my view. I turned back and climbed the ladder that lead to the top bunk. I fingered through my stuff, taking out a pair of black shorts and a white and red shirt, the red stretched across my chest for support. I often wore this shirt then I practiced for gymnastics and the shorts were the most comfortable for me to stretch and run in. I figured Dylan should be getting up, it was five thirty now. I shoved socks on my feet then grabbed my shoes by the laces. I jumped back down on the floor and walked over to the light switch and flipped it on. The single light bulb offered more light than I through it would, but Dylan's head was still hidden in the shadows of the bunk bed. I walked over to him and poked his forehead. He groaned. I poked him again and he scrunched his brow. I poked him really hard.

"FINE! I get the idea, you want me to get up," He groaned. He always slept in.

"Okay then. Hey do you know who Celeste is?" I asked him. Maybe he had some background info on her.

"Kinda. I know of her, she betrayed Merc a while back when there was a big fight between the Runners and the Blues. I think she also assassinated Pope a while back . But I don't know any more than that," He explained to me, rubbing his eyes and speaking in a really dead toned voice. I nodded then stretched my back.

"I'll leave you to get dressed," I smiled, he groaned then tried to go back to bed, but I whipped the blanket away from him, revealing his black striped night pants and his white shirt. "Hurry," I told him. I opened the door, then walked out. I entered the main area to see Merc and that other guy, Drake I think, sitting near the computer. I took a clip out of my pocket and pushed the sides of my hair back, clearing it out of my face, then secured it behind my head with my silver clip. The light shone through the manhole that lead into the lair.

"Hey, kid," I heard a voice. I turned as something was thrown at me. I caught it in a startle and jumped a little. I opened my hands to see a little intercom earpiece. Merc looked at me, he was still sitting in the chair in front of his computer, and he was talking to someone through his intercom. Once he was done he looked at me. "Just to tell you, that intercom… is your life, don't lose it. You're going to meet another runner here," He said, pointing to a spot on a map that was mounted on the wall. I never noticed it before, but it took up the entire back wall. He pointed to a specific spot, and what I could see, it was a group buildings about a quarter of a mile west of here, about in the center of the city. In fact, it was just a few rooftops away from here. His point was vague, so he could of pointed to the several other clusters of building that were around there too. I dug in my pocket and took out my laser pointer.

"Do you mean here?" I asked him, pointing to one cluster with the laser pointer, "Or here?" I asked again, shifting to the other group of buildings. He looked at me, eyed the laser pointer and smirked.

"Here," He told me, pointing more directly. I make the 'okay' gesture with my hand. "Hey is the boy up yet?" Merc asked. I guess that when he said the boy, he meant Dylan. Before I could say anything else, a half conscience Dylan walked out, one eye was down the other was barely open. His hair was completely messed up. I forgot that he wasn't a morning person. He had black pants and a red shirt on. His left arm showed a circuit like tattoo stopping at his elbow. When did he get that?

"We are going here," I told him, using my laser pointer to point to the little bundle of buildings that Merc had pointed to earlier. Dylan looked at the laser pointer.

"You still have that?" He asked me. I laughed. I remembered when we were younger, I would carry the pointer around with me everywhere. I elbowed him, hoping to get a smile out of him, but his face was stern.

"Let's go," I said. Dylan and I walk over to the opening. I grip the edge and swung my legs up over the edge and hoisted myself up and out. I stood straight, soaking in the suns rays. I turn to see Dylan, already out, standing next to me.

"That way," He told me, pointing to the left.

"I know directions. I'm not blonde," I point out, tapping my head. I looked to the west. I smiled. "Race you there," I said, breaking into a run. I kicked the door open leading into the building and ran in, Dylan followed at me heels. I dashed up the stairs and through the hatch that Hera left open. I jumped past the gaps in between the buildings. I spotted the next rooftop, the one that Merc told us to go too and leap from the edge, landing gently

"Hahaha I win I win," I sang, dancing in a circle. I saw Dylan land behind me and his face was cold. He looked pissed.

"Desiree," He said sternly. I raised an eyebrow.

"What?" I asked back.

"You can't do this," He said. His voice was low and like a growl. He always did this before he blew up.

"Can't do what?" I asked again. His green eyes were ablaze.

"You can't keep thinking of this as a joke. This is not a game. I can't believe you are taking things so lightly!" He yelled. I shrunk back. He never yelled at me like this.

"Hey! Don't yell at me! Just… calm down," I snapped.

"You just don't get it. I have a reason to be here. I don't know why I allowed you to come along. You don't belong here! You don't have a reason to be here!" Dylan glared at me.

"You have no idea what you are talking about," I scowled at him.

"You have always complained about your life, but it can't be bad enough to run away to what your family is fighting against," He barked.

"Like I said, you have no idea what you are talking about. Don't yell at me for following you. I have my reasons, and I don't feel like explaining my family life," I said calmly. "And we shouldn't be yelling. Someone might hear."

I turned around, my back facing Dylan. Why was he acting this way? I shook my head and flipped backwards, making my body into an arch. Gently lifting my feet off the ground, I went into a handstand. My hair rested against the ground and I saw an upside down Hera and Celeste coming towards me. I flipped back, doing a couple of back flips before setting upright.

"Looks like we got ourselves a cheerleader. Those skills will definitely help you," Hera laughed a bit.

I huffed. "I am not a cheerleader. I am a gymnast."

Celeste nodded and Hera shrugged. "Celeste and I are going on a run through of the course. Dylan, you'll follow me. Desiree, you'll follow Celeste," Hera explained. "Come on boy." Hera and Dylan ran off to the left and to the adjoining rooftop.

Celeste turned to my and smiled, making her solid face soften for a moment. "Okay, we are running the course and go through obstacles. Just try to follow me and don't fall. You're a gymnast, so I don't think you'll have a problem. Let's go," She said, starting off into a run and leaping from one small roof to another, and crawling up and over a fence. I followed her, almost not making the jump. I slid and jumped up, grabbing and crawling over the fence, just like Celeste. She smiled and ran sliding under pipes and jumping over a vent, then kicked open a door. I tried to do everything just like she did, but it was difficult, I could feel blood running through every part of my body.

The sun rested on the horizon. I laid on my belly, looking over the edge. I was across the street from my house, watching intently, for any sign that my family even noticed that I was gone. I has a perfect view of inside my bedroom, though the windows.

My bed was gone. There was only one bed in there, covered in a pink bedspread.

Not even a missing persons sign, nothing from them, they just excepted the face that I was gone.

"Hey," I heard a voice say behind me. I turned by head sharply and saw Dylan, who went and sat right beside me.

'What are you doing here?" I asked him. Anger boiled in me still from earlier.

"After practice, Celeste said that you just left, and I wanted to apologize," He told me. I kept my gaze on our, or now Fran's, bedroom window.

Then I scoffed, "Yeah right."

"What?" Dylan asked, confused. I rolled my eyes.

When we were younger, I had learned that I was one of Dylan's only friends. He had a few other friends, but I was the one he always hung out with. Then there were sometimes that he and I would argue and fight. He couldn't stand losing me as a friend, so he would apologize, take the blame, just so than we could be friends again. He apologized and sometimes he didn't even mean it.

"You don't want to apologize. Even if you do, you still don't want me here and in your mind, you will basically do everything you can to make me go. And I understand that you just want to protect me and you are doing it out of love, because you don't want to see you best friend shot or killed. But you seriously don't understand my situation," I explained.

Dylan looked at me, speechless. "I'll see you back at the hideout." Then he left.

I looked back through the window, then my gaze fell on the main door. A girl with curly blond hair walked up to the building. It was Fran. I dug into my pockets and found a small one-eyed binocular. I looked through it and saw Fran with her hair in a ponytail and a black bag around her shoulder. A black sleeve came out of it. That wasn't the bag that Fran used for soccer, and that wasn't a sleeve for her soccer uniform. I couldn't figure out what it was.

A few minutes later I saw Fran and my mother through the large living room window. They sat at the dinner table together.

A tear escaped from my eye. They were laughing. I had disappeared, and they didn't care. Great. I was about to leave when Fran got up and did something weird. She got up from her chair and punched the air. Then she did several round kicks in the air. It was almost like a martial arts move.

Normally I wouldn't of cared, but now…

Fran didn't fight physically. She always said it would mess up her hair. So why was she using martial arts. Fran was more of a 'mentally disarm your opponent' kind of girl. She tore you out from the inside using mental tactics.

I sat there in wonder. What the hell was Fran doing?

AN: What is Fran doing? Haha.

I don't own anything except for Hera, Desiree, Fran, Dylan and all of my other wonderful ocs