I slowly stepped off the ramp descending from the plane, my eyes trained on the couple watching the sunset. My mouth is dry, and my eyes water. They look so peaceful, so happy. Would it be wrong of me to barge into their lives? Would they send me away again, or…. Would they be relieved? Happy even? I take another long stride forward, the front of my shoe scuffing against the rough grains of sand. The bright sun shines down on the ocean ahead of me, hitting it in such a way the water shimmers. As I near them, I clear my throat loudly. Their heads turn to look at me in sync, and I extend my hand with a nervous smile…

A year and a half before

I let out a yelp and Adalynn sprints over to me and grabs my hand. She drags me along as we stumble around blindly to the other side of the room. We head toward what we hope is the door when a cold hand grips my shoulder. I kick my feet and thrash around in the arms of my captor. The warm palm in mine loosens before it is pulled away. 

“Adalynn! Help!” I continue to struggle as the lights are flicked on, and my eyes adjust to my surroundings. I whip my head around and notice a tall man dressed in black holding me. My gasp catches in my throat when I recognize him. He’s… He’s the same guy who murdered Kaylee. I try to focus on escaping his grasp but all I can do is stare at his face, his cold, unfeeling gray eyes. I begin to hyperventilate, sharp intakes of air scratching in the inside of my throat but doing nothing to help my need for oxygen. Kaylee’s murderer takes my moment of hesitation to kick the back of my heels, making me fall to my knees. I feel my arms twist backwards as strong hands grip mine together, refusing to bulge. 

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” I look to my side and see Klarisse in a similar position as me, help captive, her face seething. “Let me go! What are you doing?!”

“Shut up and stop struggling if you know what is good for you.” 

I gasp and slowly raise my head to see Adalynn standing over me sneering, two black clothed men standing next to her with their arms crossed.

“What- Adalynn what’s going on?” 

She bends down to my level and glances at Klarisse. “Well I guess there is nothing stopping me from telling you, since you won’t live to tell anyone else anyway.”

I stop struggling and stare into her gray eyes. She is dead serious about her last statement. I swallow and quickly look back to the ground, my eyes tracing over the pattern in the rough wood floors in an attempt to calm myself. Adalynn chuckles lightly at my reaction to her words, then continues. “These men here behind me, they work for the school. I’m the headmaster’s daughter, Adalynn Eastview. I was brought in by my parents to make sure no one tries to figure out the real purpose of this school. When Klarisse began attending this school I looked into her, since we normally don’t get new students at this age. I quickly discovered that she works for an organization that was founded last year to save the students at this school and return them to their original families who have been searching for them. I befriended Klarisse and replaced her men with my own. I was caught by surprise when she placed us in that cell. Luckily you formed a plan to help me escape. Thanks for that, by the way.” 

As her words sink in, I’m filled with a cold dread of what she has yet to tell me. I open my mouth to ask a million questions, but only one surfaces, the most important one there is to ask. “And Kaylee?” 

I search her face for any signs of sorrow, regret, anger, any emotion at all. But I’ve provoked nothing. Her face is blank, her eyes unfeeling.

“Collateral damage. I needed to make sure you didn’t suspect me, and I could tell Klarisse was beginning to.” 

I gritted my teeth and willed my tears to not come pouring out of my eyes. I needed to be strong at this moment. For Kaylee. For myself. I sucked my cheeks in and spit at her with as much force and hatred as I could muster. Adalynn is taken aback, and she freezes before calmly wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. But that single moment of hesitation has given me what I need. I could see her mask crack for an instant before hardening back into place. 

“I trusted you!” I refuse to look away from her, and straighten up so I’m no longer bending down. “Kaylee trusted you.” A muscle in her cheek twitches. 

“Maybe you should have listened to Klarisse.” 

Be careful who you trust.

The words from what seem like a lifetime ago echo in my head. Words from a time when Adalynn was my friend. When Kaylee was alive. When Klarisse was the villain and I had no doubts about it. 

Adalynn straightens up and the look in her eyes shifts to boredom. “Guards,” the guard’s attention switches over to her, and I can feel the grip on my arms loosen. “Would you please—”

I quickly spin around and jab my elbow into the stomach of Kaylee’s murderer. He groans, and his hands drop to cradle himself. Just like that, I’m free from my chains. I push myself off the ground with my hands and sprint out of the room. Sounds of struggle and yelling are heard in the distance, but the sound isn’t approaching me, which I take as a good sign. I hear the soft padding of bare feet on the rug behind me, but don’t stop to turn around. I turn a corner and throw myself into the recreational room. I hear the door slam behind me, and I whirl around to come face to face with Klarisse. I warily watch her as she starts to take a step toward me, then thinks better of it and plops down on one of the couches. I slowly take a cautious step forward, then another, and another until I’m standing right beside her. I lower myself onto the couch, and bury my head in my hands.

“I’m sorry about Kaylee” 

I look up to see Klarisse fiddling with the skin around her fingers, obviously nervous. 

“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” she continues. “I was trying to help you.” 

My leg bounces in turn with each thump of my heart, steadily growing faster. You’re safe, she isn’t the bad guy, remember what Adalynn said. The voice in my head tries to reassure me, but I’ve spent too long viewing Klarisse with fear to stop instantly. And can I even trust Adalynn’s explanation for her actions? My mind immediately jumps back to those five words. 

Be careful who you trust.

“Yeah… is everything Adalynn said true?” I asked

“Mostly. The less you know the better.”

I sighed at that. I hated having questions, not knowing what is going on around me, not knowing 100% what is true and what isn’t. “Why did you knock us out and put us in that cage then?” 

“It was only supposed to be a holding cell. You were only going to stay there another day before others from my organization came to retrieve you. I was trying to get you out of the school, and I believed having you guys know nothing was better than to risk telling you.” 

I nod, not quite understanding, but I knew she wasn’t about to give me any more information. 

A crash interrupted my thought process, and I jumped up from the couch to peek out the window. I crouched down so only the top of my head was visible to anyone outside in the hallway. 

I saw the black clothed men running furiously past the door, their faces bright red with exertion. Behind them, a sweet sounding voice barked out orders. 

“FIND THEM! I SWEAR IF YOU LOST THEM THIS WILL BE THE END OF YOU!” 

I dropped below the window and turned around, my back leaning against the smooth white wall below it. Klarisse mimicked my actions. 

“On three, we run. Follow my lead,” Klarisse says with a focused expression.

I raise my eyebrows. “What, are you crazy? We’ll get caught!” 

“Just trust me. I’ve done this before.”

I open my mouth to protest, but she silences me with a pointed look. I most certainly don’t trust her; I’ve learned my lesson with trusting people. But right now she’s the best chance I’ve got at surviving. 

“One.”

The minute hand on the clock on the wall across the room turns with a click. It slowly moves toward what might be our doom, or our success.

“Two.” I take a deep breath and swivel around to face the door, my fingertips brushing against the rough carpet. To my right, Klarisse pushes open the door.

“Three!”

I dart through the open door and run just inches behind Klarisse. She turns corridor after corridor, and I place my faith in her sense of direction. After a few long agonizing, petrifying minutes, she reaches the back door.

“It’ll set off an alarm if you open it,” I whisper. 

“Doesn’t matter. The chaos that’ll cause might just help us get away anyway.” Klarisse pushes on the heavy door, and grunts. I move forward and push it with all of my strength, and the door inches forward just enough for us to slip through. As the door clicks back shut behind us, I hear the loudest screeches. The alarms wail inside, and I look back to see a kaleidoscope of flashing red lights to accompany the sound.

“Lets go, lets go!” Klarisse grabbed my hand and dragged me along behind her. 

Minutes later, I collapsed on the soft grass. Klarisse sighed and sat down next to me. 

“I guess it’s time you knew everything.”

Epilogue

Klarisse told me everything. How the school kidnapped their students and gave them back to families who would pay millions of dollars illegally for them. I joined her organization, and helped save multiple students, and successfully return them to their original families. Later that year, multiple members of the organization were captured by the school. We all went through a procedure in which we lost a lot of our memory from the past few years, but for some reason I didn’t. I never got another chance to escape that school, until the reunion day, the day we are reunited with our family. And while I wished that the family I saw before me was really mine, I knew they weren’t. On the car ride “home” we stopped for gas, and I took the opportunity to run. I spent a few days in the woods before I stumbled upon the main building that the organization ran. A few months later, my original family was found. I was nervous about what their reaction would be, but they welcomed me with open arms. Soon I started at the public school near their home on the beach. I was a new girl now, a new girl with my past haunting me.