Hidden (Book 3 of the Immune Series)

Behind the Darkness

Athena

"Jay, it's freezing. Can we please start a fire?"

Isaac's whine cuts through the silence in our camp and forces a half crazed giggle out of my lips.

"You've already asked me that fifteen times, Isaac. Ask me one more time, and see what happens," Jay growls from underneath her thin blanket.

"Can I please light a fire?"

Isaac yelps as Jaelyn's foot appears out of thin air, kicking him square in the chest. He gasps for air, clutching his abdomen.

"You kicked me!" he hisses, glaring at the smiling face that appears from under the quilt.

"Well! I warned you," she says, shrugging and rolling back over.

Isaac grumbles something incoherent and looks at me with a pitiful apology painted on his face.

"Honestly, I'm fine," I say as I hold back a body wrenching shiver.

I'm used to the cold temperature of late fall nights in the North. Neither of them are, since they're from the South. Isaac has it the worst, being from the warm coast of Florida. At least Jay's seen snow before, in moderation.

Luckily, the sky hasn't opened up yet. We're safe from the white precipitation, but the wind makes it feel twenty degrees colder than it is.

On Monday morning, we arrived in Compound 2 and tore the place apart looking for Sakir. We checked his house, his father's lab, the school, the food kitchen, and the orchard. No one had seen or heard from him since he had stormed out of the kitchen Friday afternoon, flanked by four strangers in leather.

When prompted to why they haven't started looking for him, the head of our wall guards just shrugged.

"We don't normally look for people who run away, Athena."

Arguing with her was pointless. There was no sign of a struggle, a break-in, or a kidnapping. It was as if Sakir had just disappeared into thin air, run away in the middle of the day.

"Wouldn't you have seen him run out of the compound in broad daylight?" I ask the head guard. She shook her head and tapped her pen against her clipboard.

"We can't possibly watch all corners of the wall at all times."

"That's your job!" Jaelyn had screamed, held back by Isaac as her face grew redder with every passing second. "If you did it correctly, they wouldn't have gotten in and taken him in the first place!"

Isaac pulled the five of us away before the woman, heavily armed, kicked us out.

After searching every corner twice, we decided to call Dr. Patel.

"Ashford must already have him," Dr. Patel said, his face twisting in the small frame of the tablet. We sat in his living room. It was dustier than I remember it being months ago when I had spent so much time here. I dragged a finger across the short table, leaving a clean trail in my wake.

"How are we supposed to find him, though?" Jaelyn asked, running a hand through her messy waves.

"I suggest you head towards Compound 1. Ashford would have either taken him there or somewhere in between."

"And the last warning didn't give you any clues?"

"No, but it came from an old colleague of mine- Ava Julien. Sakir was attempting to research her location a few months ago in order to track down the last two original Immunes. As far as I know, he discovered that they were dead."