Split - A.M. Bryker (top 10 books to read TXT) 📗

name is—"

     But then she was interrupted by a large herd of deer trampling through the underbrush. I cursed under my breath. The girl gazed up at me with her beautiful dark jade-colored eyes. She then leaned forward, swiftly lowered the cloth on her face, and kissed me on the cheek.

     Then she backed away, covering her face once again, her hands slipping from mine. Stunned, I reached for her, but I was too slow.

   She turned and ran again. I didn't follow her this time. I knew it was hopeless.

 

     Then I had woken up.

     I gaze up at the "roof" above me. I listen to the rain hitting the leaves on the forest floor and think about my dream. For a moment I feel content.

     Then I'm attacked.

     A long stick arcs above me and strikes my stomach with tremendous force. For a few seconds, I can't breathe. My lungs gasp for air. Finally I'm able to catch my breath and jump to my feet.

     Big mistake. My head breaks through the roof of the hut, since it is only three feet high, and rain and sticks fall through the new opening. Oops.

     "If I were an enemy you would be dead." A man ducks through the entrance and crouches on ground that has not been touched by rain. "You should always be alert for these things," he says unsympathetically as I rub my head. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

     I shrug. "You've already told me a thousand times," I reply. "One more wouldn't hurt."

     The man scowls and says sharply, "But that's thing: I shouldn't have to tell you a thousand-and-one times. You should have it drilled into your head by now. And by the way, it's time to get up… two hours ago."

     Oops.

     Sighing, I say, "I know, Kadon, and I apologize. It won't happen again. I was just really distracted by the dream I had last night." Seeing his look, I add quickly, "I know I shouldn't let those things get to me, but this dream was different than all the others."

     I sit down on a dry patch of ground and recount my dream to Kadon. He sits across from me and listens patiently as I speak. I kind of skip the parts that betray any attraction I have toward the girl. How embarrassing would that be?

     When I finish, Kadon just sits there silently. After a few moments he says, "Her eyes were green, you say?"

     I nod. "Kind of like a jade. It looked like they were dark green and black, like one of those cool jade stones from the mountains."

     "Hmm," he mumbles. "Peculiar…"

     "What?"

     He ignores me and asks, "Did you see only her eyes?"

     "Well, at some point she lowered the cloth she had on her face, but I didn't really see what was underneath," I reply.

     Kadon's eyebrows furrow. He always does that when he's deep in thought and I want to know what's on his mind.

     "What are you thinking?" I ask.

     He glances up at me and shakes his head. "Nothing."

     I scowl. I hate it when he does that.

     Looking around the three-foot-high hut, I spot a long branch lying on the ground a foot away from where I'm sitting. I go over my options quickly and then spring into action. Ignoring the branch, I throw myself at Kadon.

     He falls on his back and kicks his legs up just as I'm about to land on him. Expecting this, I hit his legs aside with my hand before he can kick me away, which results in me falling on him like I wanted to. Next, I flip him over onto his stomach and pin his arms behind his back. I grin when I see that Kadon is breathing heavily from struggling so much.

     "Alright, alright," he groans. "You win. Now let me go so I can tear you apart."

     I release him and we both laugh. He slaps me on the back good-naturedly as we duck out of the hut. It has stopped raining, and Kadon saunters over to where we keep our wood so he can build a small fire for breakfast.

     I smile. He won't be attacking me for the rest of the day. At least, he shouldn’t.

     An arm wraps around my waist, and I look down at Mayla. She smiles up at me and says, “Morning, sleepy head.”

     Wrapping my arms around her, I reply, “Good morning. When did you get up?”

     She shrugs. “Earlier than you did.”

     I raise an eyebrow. “How much earlier?”

     “To be honest? A few minutes before Kadon woke you up,” she replies, grinning.

     I laugh.

     She laughs with me, but suddenly gets serious when she asks, “What took you so long to get out here?”

     “We were talking.”

     “Ooh, what about?”

     I shrug. “A dream.”

     “Oh.”

     “Yup,” I say, smirking. “C’mon, let’s get some breakfast cooking.”

   Mayla looks back at Kadon and the wood he’s set on fire, then nods, walking over to the food storage.

     I watch her go for a few moments, thinking about the fact that I didn’t want to tell her about my latest dream. It was a little confusing—I never usually had any trouble telling her my dreams. Something stopped me this time for some reason that I don’t understand.

     Mayla has grown. She’s almost as tall as I am. Light hair sways across her back. She inherited the color from our father. I got my black hair from our mother. One would hardly recognize the fact that the two of us are brother and sister if they didn’t see the resemblance in our eyes. We both have the same dark blue shade as our mother did. I feel a pang of longing when I think about our parents, even if I barely remember them. They were executed for supposed treason when Mayla was five years of age. That was ten years ago. I took my sister to the person I was closest to, aside from my parents. We were endangered because we were the children of traitors. We couldn’t be trusted. Ridiculous. Anyway, that person was Kadon. He pretty much adopted us as soon as we knocked on his front door. He left everything he had so he could take us to the safety of the forest, making him a traitor for helping us.

     All three of us are outlaws. I’m okay with that, though. It’s exhilarating.

     Mayla’s voice brings me out of my thoughts. “Any word from the others yet?”

     Kadon glances up at her, answering with a short, “No.”

     Mayla was referring to the other outlaws in the forest. We all allied with each other when we thought it was prudent. Recently, however, none of them have called on us for anything. Very unusual. I searched for them once, but every campsite was abandoned.

     Our food rations are getting low. Either we’ll need to forage on our own or starve. The former would be nearly impossible, despite our skills. All over Lethien, people have taken extra precautions to keep their resources safe from bandits. And the latter is unthinkable. If we don’t have backup soon, we might be in a bit of trouble.

     Somehow, I’m certain that they won’t show up in time.

Three

Jadelynn 

 

I wake up in the morning (again) to hear my alarm clock buzzing the crap out of me. Groaning, I hit the SNOOZE button on the top of the clock.

     Suddenly remembering that I have to meet up with my best friend Alexis before school, I leap five feet into the air, land nimbly on my feet, and promptly throw on a pair of black jeans, a green tank top, and a thin white jacket. In the bathroom I apply the smallest amount of eyeliner and eye shadow (no mascara for me—my eyelashes are thick enough).

     I am super excited, even though I have to go to school. Actually, I don't necessarily mind it that much. I always get good grades (thanks to my freakishness), it's an excuse to get out of the house, I get to hang out with friends, and Justin King is usually there. (Yes, I did say that I don't like him anymore, but he's still good-looking.)

     After brushing my long black hair—making sure it covers my slightly pointed ears—I run out of my room and hurry downstairs.

     As soon as I walk into the kitchen I'm hit by the smell of bacon and eggs cooking on the stove. My mouth waters.

     "It's about time you got up."

     I barely spare a glance at Cassandra, one of my adoptive siblings. She sits slouched over the table, her plate of food momentarily forgotten. It seems like all she wants to do is make my life miserable. However, I've never let her get to me for the almost-seven years I've been here. Interestingly enough, she's the only one who hasn't accepted me.

     My history is pretty boring in the beginning. All I really remember is walking the streets of California at ten years old—remembering only my name and age—being picked up by an old lady, and then being dropped off at my first orphanage.

     That was when things started going downhill. The first few days of living in that place had been a nightmare. The children weren't especially nice, and they were the first ones to call me a freak. Because that's what I was.

     You'd think that my abilities would be amazing to young children, but no. Not these ones. Looking back now, I'd have thought that they must have been hardened criminals or something judging by the way they behaved. I guess I can understand why.

     But anyway, the title 'freak' was given to me when I accidentally bumped into a girl around my age in the hallway of the orphanage. She got upset at me and I apologized a hundred times. As she was about to hit me, I lifted my hands and said something that sounded like a different language. The next thing I knew, the girl's wrist had been snagged by a long green vine that seemed to have sprouted from the wall. It pulled her away from me, toward the wall, and began banging her against it.

     Terrified, I had lowered my hands and yelled at it to stop. The vine had shriveled up. The girl, as you can imagine, was traumatized for a few minutes. When she finally looked at me, she and a few others who had witnessed the incident had told me that I was a freak and I should leave. So I did.

     I was found on the streets again and taken to another orphanage. I ran from that one as well. I went from orphanage to orphanage, learning how to hide my emotions. I learned how to lie, although I hated it at first. I learned how to keep my weirdness hidden. I learned how to sneak around without making a sound. And I stayed fit, even as a ten-year-old.

     Finally I was taken to an orphanage with trees. Lots of them. I had always run from the other orphanages because I didn't have any privacy and nobody liked me,