I tried to focus my brain. Tried to tell myself to look around and see what was going on. Caleb. Where was Caleb? I popped my eyes open as wide as they’d go and looked up to see two faces over me. One I didn’t recognize but looked slightly familiar, a woman, and the other had my insides screaming.
Marcus.
I tried to move my hands and feet but they wouldn’t budge. My arm hurt. My eyes drifted to see wires and tape around my hand, an I.V. What were they doing to me?
I tried to speak. “What-” My throat felt like sandpaper. “What are you doing?”
“Maggie, finally. It’s been hours,” Marcus said happily.
“Don’t talk to her, Marcus. This isn’t a game,” the person I could only guess was his uncle barked at him. “Get out of here.”
He smiled cruelly at me and left the room. I looked over to see a very heavy looking door slamming shut behind him as he left. The room I was in was small and metal, a box really.
“Now listen to me,” the man said and I jerked my face to look at him instead. “You have medicine in you to keep your heart rate low so Caleb won’t be able to follow you here. You might hear him, he might get through enough to talk to you a little bit, but you’ll just be torturing yourself if you think that he will come and rescue you. He won’t. I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but we can’t allow the Jacobsons to have the power over us anymore. They’ve always had a hand over us and now this? I saw an opportunity and I took it.” He shook his head. “No more.”
He started to leave. “Wait. How long am I going to be here?”
“Until Caleb stops looking for you and forgets about ascending.”
“That’ll never happen.”
He looked at me poignantly and smiled sadly. “I know.”
The slamming door was like a nail in my coffin. I understood him exactly. They had no intentions of letting me go, ever, and they fully expected Caleb to spend the rest of his life looking for me in agony. Which from what I’d heard, when two imprinted Aces are not with each other, may not be long. I could already feel the ache in my back and legs for him which made me wonder how long I’d been here already. In just a couple days time we’d be in so much pain we could barely think from what I’d been told. And the medicine they were pumping into me with apparently didn’t have pain medication in it because I could feel everything.
How had they pulled me away and Caleb not seen or heard them? What had happened to Caleb, had they hurt him? What happened to Beck at the party? My dad would be freaking if I hadn’t made it home by midnight. I couldn’t think anymore. My eyes started to drift closed and I could no longer command them to remain open.
I woke with a startled gasp as something warm and wet was on my face. I looked up to see a girl, about my age, wiping my face and hands with a cloth. She dipped her rag and wrung it out moving to my neck and belly under my...wait a minute. Where was my tank top? I was naked under a sheet.
“What are you doing?” I creaked through the pain in my back.
My head pounded behind my eyes, blood rushing in my ears so loud I could barely hear myself speak. The withdrawals. I needed Caleb.
“Washing you,” she said with a ‘duh’ face. “You don’t want to stink, do you?”
I saw she was being extremely careful with the extra large sponge to not touch my skin with hers. “Who are you?”
“Marla, Marcus’ sister. You’re Maggie, right? Marcus was a little shifty on the details.”
“What are you talking about?” I muttered and tried to sit up, realizing then that I was no longer strapped down. But I may as well have been. My head swam and my arms felt like Jell-O as I tried to use them. “Where am I? What are you doing to me?”
“Well, where you are is the million dollar question isn’t it? If you knew, then your knight could come and rescue you couldn’t he?”
I looked at her, hearing the disdain in her voice. She looked an awful lot like Marcus; dark, wavy hair that hung past her shoulder blades and down her front shoulders. Her face was pale and heart shaped with dark brown eyes. Very thin and looking at me with...envy?
“Are you in love with Caleb or something?” I blurted.
She laughed a genuine laugh. “Uh, no. Granted, that boy is hot, but I would never date a rival clan. That’s like not only forbidden, but disgusting. Why do you think that?”
I tried to shrug, but it came off jerky and very ‘seizurish’. “I don’t know. Your brother kidnapped me and you’re helping him?”“I’m helping him because I have to and he kidnapped you because of exactly why they told you. The Jacobsons have always had better abilities than us, always. So I’m told. I guess back in the day, like sixty years or something, they used to be friends, but then there was this girl. Almost sounds romantic doesn’t it? This girl was beautiful and of course everyone prayed they’d be the one to imprint with her. She apparently wasn’t waiting for that though. She secretly dated two guys from different clans without the other knowing it. They were of imprint age already and knew what they were doing but for whatever reason, kept seeing her. So, one of them finds out about the other. Guess who they were? A Jacobson and a Watson. So, they’re furious, right? They somehow all wind up together out on the cliff with the old well behind our complex. The guys fight and as she’s pushing them apart in between them...she imprints, with the Jacobson. Well, you can imagine how pissed the Watson was and was so enraged at what she had done, using him until she found her significant. Word is they even had sex which is just dirty without it being your significant.” She visibly shivered like it was gross to think about. “So, he pushed them both over the cliff while they were too wrapped up in each other to notice.”
I waited. Was there some punch line I had missed? She stayed silent and looked at me expectantly. “That’s a terrible story.”
My headache was only getting worse by the minute.
“I’m just giving you a history lesson.”
“So, because your ancestor pushed Caleb’s ancestor over a cliff, I’m supposed to feel sorry for you and Marcus?”
“No, you’re supposed to see why we hate the Jacobson clan.”
“I still don’t get it. That was so long ago. Three stupid people, that has nothing to do with any of us.”
“Oh, but it does. She imprinted with the Jacobson. Though she had used them both, the Jacobsons always won when we battled for something. He won the girl then, and the Watson never imprinted. He was the first in our clan to never imprint with anyone and therefore never to ascend.”
“It was probably punishment.” I couldn’t help but spout the first thing that came to my mouth and I wondered if they’d slipped me something to make me speak the truth into my medicine.
“Probably. I’m not saying I condone what he did. I’m saying it wasn’t fair that the Jacobson won twice. Not only did he imprint with the girl they were both in love with but then the Watson didn’t imprint at all. A double whammy. It was bad enough that the Jacobsons always have better abilities.”
“What are your parent’s abilities?”
“My mom is an empath. She can feel what other people feel, totally useless in a clan of vicious bitter people and my dad is a weather man. He can tell you what weather is coming our way which is also totally useless.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Their words, not mine. They hate it. The Jacobson’s can move metal and do things in each other’s minds. Our gifts are lame and have been for a long time. They think you are gonna solve that somehow.”
“How?”
“Not sure. First, they are going to see how long we can keep you from Caleb. And if you live through that, I’m not sure, but I guess my uncle has some experiments planned.”
“Experiments?” I squeaked.
“Yeah, like blood work and other stuff. My uncle said you have to have come along for a reason. He wants to see if we can find out what that is. You’re a celebrity, you know. Every clan from here to London is talking about you and Caleb.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the youngest to imprint and no clans have imprinted in a really long time. I’m sure they explained this to you.”
“They did. I just wanted to see if you’d lie.”
She laughed again. “We could so be friends if you weren’t the enemy. Sorry, I gotta go. Here are some clothes. They aren’t going to tie you up anymore, but you will be pumped with meds often so don’t try anything. Someone will be down to check on you and feed you. I put a couple magazines on the nightstand and the bathroom is in the corner. But soon, you’ll be in so much pain, I’m sure you won’t care about any of that.”
I looked over to see a solitary toilet, with no walls sitting in the corner. No sink, nothing else. Great.
She stood to leave and I panicked but once again my body didn’t respond, just my brain. I decided to plead.
“Please help me. I didn’t mean to imprint with Caleb, we can’t control it. I have nothing to do with your fight. I love him. It hurts so bad. Please, please help me. I can’t stay here.”
“Sorry,” she said, but didn’t look a bit sorry to me.