ONE

My name is Celestra Caine. I am seventeen years old, which makes me a senior at Richmond High. I never thought this would happen to me, but it has… I’m one of those people you see every day, go to school with, remember seeing at the supermarket or the mall, and then one day you don’t hear about them any longer. They’re gone, and eventually, you forget them.

Not that I’m easy to forget, as much as I might occasionally wish that I were. I’m tall, about five-seven, and I’m willowy. Built for running, my mom always says. Then there’s my hair. It’s a bright blonde that always attracts attention, from men and women. The women always want to know what I’ve done with it, and some of them won’t believe that it’s simply my natural hair color. The men… like I said, sometimes I wish I didn’t attract quite so much attention. Sometimes I think it might be better if I blended in a little more.

It’s not all bad, though. My boyfriend, Grayson, loves my hair. He loves touching it, and I love it when he’s that close to me. I love it when he gives me that look he has that says, not just that he loves me, but that he always will. That I’m the only girl for him. It’s worth standing out a little for a look like that from a guy like Grayson.

I first met him running track- he’s the captain of the school team, so it’s probably appropriate that I’m at practice with him on the day it starts. Then again, I’m at practice with him most days, so maybe it was always going to work out like that. We finish up, and Grayson invites me back to his place for dinner, but I can’t. I have to be home, so I tell him that I’ll see him tomorrow and get going.

It doesn’t take me long to make my way home, since it’s not that far from the school. The house is nice enough, in a neighborhood where there’s no trouble, and there are plenty of families around. Dad’s car is in the drive, so I guess he must have gotten back early from his work as a biochemical engineer. Mom will be there too by now. She teaches kindergarten, and she’s always home before me. Even as I walk through the front door, I can picture her in the kitchen, working away at dinner, maybe yelling at my brother, Bailey, not to spend too much time online before he’s done his homework. It’s just how things are in our house.

Except today, something is different. I know that from the moment I set foot through the door. I can’t put my finger on it for a second or two, but then I realize what it is. The house is quiet.

“Mom? Dad? Hello?” I call it out, moving through into the living room, then the kitchen. There’s no sign of either of them. They aren’t there when I check the rest of the rooms on the ground floor, either, which is weird. By 6 pm, at least one of them is always there.

Still, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe the sinking feeling I have in the pit of my stomach is just an overactive imagination playing tricks on me. For all that I still can’t help feeling that there’s something wrong, it’s not like the place has been trashed, or anything. It’s not like anything has obviously been stolen, or is out of place. The opposite, if anything. The whole ground floor is neat, tidy.

Maybe Mom and Dad have just gone next door for a moment. I latch onto that thought, heading upstairs. Bailey will know. He might not pay much attention to things that don’t involve computers, but Mom and Dad will at least have told him where they were going.

“Bailey?” I knock on the door to his room, but there’s no answer. Telling myself that he probably has headphones on while he’s playing one of those online games of his, I invoke big sister’s prerogative and open the door anyway.

Bailey isn’t there either. And his room’s neat. Too neat. Bailey is, like little brothers everywhere, I guess, a one boy disaster zone. This looks like one of those occasions when Mom has finally gotten tired of telling him to clean his room and done it for him, which means that Bailey can’t have been back since.

In fact, the whole house has that feel. Like someone has scrubbed it from top to bottom, and no one has been in it to mess it up yet. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me, it’s enough. Enough to send me hurrying around the house, looking for clues as to what might be happening. Because there’s something happening. I’m certain of it.

I go to search every room again, even though it doesn’t make sense. After all, Mom and Dad and Bailey aren’t about to leap out from behind the sofa, are they? There’s still no sign of them. More than that, beyond the car in the drive, there’s still no sign that any of them has even been home.

I check my messages. Maybe there’s an explanation there. There’s nothing. There’s nothing when I check my emails, either. Not even the usual stuff I’d get most days, which only makes me bite my lip harder with the worry of it. I don’t like this. I really don’t like this.

Should I call the cops? That thought springs into my head from nowhere. What would I tell them, though? That something doesn’t feel right in my house, and that it looks like a team of cleaners has been through the place? They’d laugh at me, or worse, accuse me of wasting their time.

I haven’t called my parents yet, so I try that next. I get out my cellphone and call the number for my father. It doesn’t even ring. Instead, I just get this message, saying “Error, number not recognized.”

The same thing happens when I call my mother, and when I try to connect to the number for the cellphone Bailey has ‘for emergencies’. I’ve sometimes wondered what kind of emergencies a ten year old can have. I guess now I know. I’m breathing faster now, and I know I’m starting to panic. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen in D.C. Not that I know what “This kind of thing” is yet.

I punch in another obvious number. That of my Aunt Chrissie. She’s my mother’s sister, and my parents always say that if anything serious happens, and they aren’t around, I should ring her. I’m not sure what good it’s meant to do, ringing a woman we hardly ever see to come and ride in to save the day, but right now, I’m willing to try anything.

“Error. Number not-”

“Stupid thing!” I throw my phone and it bounces off the sofa, coming to rest on the carpet. I stand there seething with anger at it for a minute, my head spinning as I try to make some sense of all this. There has to be a logical explanation for all of it, right?People don’t just… disappear.

Only, I can’t think of an explanation that works. Unless I’m willing to believe that my parents and brother have all chosen to call in on one of the neighbors together right at the moment when a freak fault has developed in my phone, and what are the chances of that?

This is really starting to weird me out. So much so that I can barely breathe with it, while my stomach is tight with the apprehension running through it. Nothing good is happening. I’m certain of that now. I just wish I were as certain about what to do next. I need to calm down. To think.

Grayson. I latch onto thoughts of him like a life preserver. He’s always been my rock; always been there for me. Whenever I panic about not getting good enough grades to make the track scholarship to Georgetown, he’s the one who talks me through it and helps me study. When I’m down about my track times or just annoyed with my little brother, he’s the one who picks me up.

Even though this feels so much more serious than that, I snatch up my phone and speed dial his number. For once, I don’t get that stupid message, either. Now all I need is for Grayson to pick up.

Come on, Grayson, pick up.

He answers on the fifth ring, though given how fast my pulse is currently racing, it feels far longer.

“Hello?” he asks. “Celestra?”

I’m so happy to hear his voice in that moment that I can’t think of anything to say. There’s too much of it, and it all sounds so crazy. There’s the house, and the emptiness, and the stuff with my phone. For a couple of seconds, all I can do is stand there, listening to him on the other end of the phone like some kind of weird stalker.

“Celes, is that you? Are you all right?”

His use of that pet version of my name snaps me out of it. This is Grayson. I can tell him anything, even the strange stuff. He’ll find a way to make all this make sense, or at least a way to make me feel better about it. I open my mouth to explain. To simply say his name.

Before I can get the words out, my cellphone dies. Just dies, without an explanation. There’s no power, even though I’m sure I charged it up this morning. It won’t turn on, it won’t light up, and it certainly won’t let me say anything to the one person who might be able to help me. I stand there, just staring at it dumbly, for a second after a second.

The main house phone starts to ring in the kitchen. It’s an old thing my dad liked the look of and had rewired, even though we all have individual cellphones. The ring is harsh, cutting through the silence of the house in a way that only emphasizes it.

Has Grayson called me back on the house number, guessing what has happened to my phone? That must be it. I rush through to the kitchen, knowing that I have to talk to someone about this, or I’m going to burst. I snatch up the handset, cutting off that sharp ringing.

“Hello?”

“Celestra Caine?”

A man’s voice. It’s not Grayson. It’s not anyone I know. And yet, whoever he is, he obviously knows me. Coming here and now, I know the call has to have something to do with whatever is going on.

“Who is this?” I ask.

“Celestra Caine, you are about to fade.”

TWO

My eyes flutter open, and I struggle to work out what’s going on. Have I passed out? I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything after the strange phone call. I sit up, and find that I’m on a plush white sofa, in a room that definitely isn’t anywhere in my family’s house. It’s more like one of those chic urban lofts you see on TV sometimes. The ones that look like no one could possibly live there, and they could only ever be for show. The furniture is monochrome, with plenty of glass and steel thrown in, only there aren’t any windows, just smooth walls that seem to be made from some kind of metal.

There’s a guy there too, sitting in an armchair across from me with a glass coffee table between us. He’s maybe three or four years older than me, and he looks like he has just stepped off a GQ cover, with his heavily styled dark hair, square jaw, and elegantly tailored suit that does a lot for his athletic frame. Aside from Grayson, he’s probably one of the most handsome guys I’ve met in person. He has one leg crossed over the other, his fingers steepled as he watches me with eyes such a pale blue they’re almost like shards of ice.

I sit up so sharply that it’s dizzying, and for a moment, I have to lean back against the sofa to steady myself.

“Easy, Celestra.”

His accent is British, very carefully refined. Just those words are enough to make me want to know what exactly is going on. I can think of plenty of possibilities-I’ve seen the news before, after all- and none of them are very nice.

“Where am I?” I ask. “Where are my parents and my brother? Where’s my home? And who are you?”

He blinks a couple of times before smiling faintly as though something has just amused him. “I’m afraid you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.”

Wizard of Oz references? I’m somewhere, I don’t know where, and that’s the best I get? Well, I’m not some dumb little girl willing to put up with that, and he certainly isn’t any kind of wizard.

“Where am I?” I demand, my voice rising. “Where’s my family?”

“You still have memories of them?” He says it like it’s not that big a surprise, but like it’s still something to be regretted. “That’s… unfortunate. It would have been better had you forgotten them. They’ve already forgotten you.”

“What?” I can’t help that. The word just escapes. “What are you talking about?”

For a moment, the guy does look genuinely regretful. “They faded, just like you, Celestra. Only they didn’t keep their memories, the way you did.”

I still don’t understand. “Are you saying that my parents have-”

“Forgotten you. Yes.” He raises a hand to stop me from responding. “Don’t worry about them now. They’re safe. They’re just living a different life together as a family. All three of them.”

All three of them, leaving no place for me. I shake my head. “What about me? You can’t do this. I’m a minor. I should be with them. I shouldn’t be… wherever this is. Where is this?”

“We’re still in the U.S. if that helps,” the young man says. “But like I said, you’re not in Kansas anymore. You’re off the map, down the rabbit hole, and so far through the looking glass that going back… well, that probably won’t ever happen, Celestra.”

For a moment, I can’t help the anger that wells up in me. “How about you stop spouting stupid quotes from literature and tell me something useful? I have rights, you know.”

He shrugs. Apparently, my anger doesn’t make that much difference to him. “You’re in an undisclosed location, and it’s better for you to not know where you are right now.”

He stands then, moving across to one of the walls, where there’s a small kitchen area recessed into it. He opens a drawer, pulling out a tray piled high with fruit and bread and returning to set it down on the glass table.

“You must be hungry.”

The food looks good, and my body tells me that I haven’t eaten in a while, though exactly how long, I don’t know. I won’t let myself be distracted by something like that, though. Not when I still don’t have any answers.

“I want to know what’s going on,” I say, folding my arms. “You haven’t told me a thing about who you are and what’s going on. I mean, you dress like some kind of TV spy or something, but you could be anybody. And as for that crap about my parents forgetting me, I’m not buying that. Where are they?”

The young man sighs then. “Look, Ms. Caine…Celestra, in time you will find out what this is about, but right now everything I say will come as too much of a shock to you, and there isn’t time for that. Your parents are safe; your brother is safe. That’s really all I can tell you.”

“Not even your name?” I demand.

It takes him a moment to answer. Is he making something up, or just deciding whether to tell me?

“Jack Simple.”

Making it up then, because that couldn’t be someone’s real name. “Why not just call yourself John Doe and have done with it?”

He, Jack, doesn’t smile. “You need to start eating, Celestra. You’ll need all the energy you can get.”

My thin thread of fear is back. I still have no idea what is going to happen to me.

“Why?” I ask, and he moves around the table, drawing me to my feet. Moving me a little way from the table too, I notice.

“Because,” Jack whispers, and this close, he only has to whisper, “you are in a great deal of danger.”

At that instant, the wall nearest to us explodes inwards in a shower of dust and debris as something plows into the spot where we were both just sitting. Jack is between me and the worst of it, his suit taking a covering of dust as he pushes me back away from the breach. Away from the military-grade Humvee that has just come straight through it.

There are men clambering out of it, wearing black from their roll neck sweaters down to their combat boots. They’re armed, with vicious looking sub-machine guns, but then… Jack has a gun of his own. It’s a sleek, efficient looking pistol, which he has raised even before I’ve finished flinching at the initial crash of the Humvee into the room. He fires three swift shots, and the black-clothed men scramble for cover behind their vehicle.

Jack grabs my arm then, dragging me to one side of the room. The wall seems almost to melt away, revealing a corridor. “Run if you want to live.”

I run. I run so fast that Jack can barely keep up with me. Gunfire sounds behind us in a chatter of automatic fire, and Jack turns, firing another couple of shots back down the corridor behind us. We round a corner and he gestures for me to stop.

“Down there.”

‘There’ is an air duct, whose grill swings open as I pull it. While I’m doing that, Jack is busy firing back around the corner.

“You can’t be serious,” I say.

“Do I look like I’m joking? Now hurry up. It’s only a matter of time before they start using grenades.”

He’s serious. I climb in, and climb down, half crawling, half sliding. This definitely isn’t any normal air duct. Real ones aren’t big enough to climb through, and they generally have things like fans in the way. This is an escape route. Jack planned for this possibility.

The air duct opens out onto a street, where cool air blows around me, and the sky above is dark. The building I’ve just come out of is a large one, like an apartment block. For a second, just a second, I think about running, but then Jack is there beside me, clambering out of the duct. He pulls something from an inside pocket, a device that looks to me like a garage door opener, and presses the button.

The building beside us is rocked by an explosion, several windows crashing outward in gouts of flame. Smoke pours from the air duct we’ve just come down.

“That’s just enough to keep them away for a while,” Jack says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to have just blown up a building. “Come on.”

Thanks to the grip he takes on my upper arm, I don’t really have a choice as he leads me to a small lot behind the building, where there’s an expensive looking sports car parked. I must admit to liking the look of it. Hey, I’m a runner. I like things that go fast.

Jack smiles. He must have noticed me admiring the car. “A beauty, isn’t she? An Aston Martin DB9. Certainly the fastest getaway car I have ever had for an assignment. Now hop in, before our friends come after us.”

I do it, but I also latch onto the key word there. “Assignment?”

“Fading someone.” He puts the car in gear and sets off. I expect him to drive a hundred miles an hour, but actually, he just slips into traffic quietly. “That’s making sure they disappear without a trace, like they never existed. Usually, it’s for their protection, as in your family’s case.” I see him glance my way then. “In yours… I’m not so sure. You’re a special case, something we’ve never seen before or encountered. It’s a privilege for them to trust me with such an important assignment.”

I return his look with interest. I’m not just someone’s assignment. Even the assignment of some good looking guy who’s so confident in himself. I apparently have armed men chasing me, and I need more than that kind of cockiness right now.

Jack seems to get that, because his expression turns apologetic. “Look, Celestra, I think I know what you’re going through…you’re scared, you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you want your old life back.” His hand reaches over to pat mine. “And I wish I could make this easier on you, but you can’t have your old life back again. You’re in a lot of danger, and you’re going to need to trust me if you want to get through it.”

“Trust you?” I ask. “I don’t even know you.”

“I know,” Jack says, glancing at the road just long enough to overtake the car in front. “But you still have to. This danger isn’t just to you. It’s to your parents, brother, aunt…”

Everyone I might care about, in other words. Which raises one obvious question. “What about Grayson? He’s my-”

“Boyfriend, I know.” Jack says it evenly. “I had to watch you for several weeks before all this. I saw you at track practice with him.”

“That’s very… creepy.” Well, what else can I call it when a guy, even some kind of secret agent assigned to protect me, stalks me like that?

“Well, can I say that, as someone who has stalked you, you are a very interesting young woman, Celestra Caine?”

“And that just makes you sound like some kind of pervert,” I snap.

Jack seems faintly amused by my anger. I’m glad one of us is.

“But that’s not the reason why I had to watch you,” he says after a second. “It’s because, Celeste, you could pose a danger to everyone.”

Continued….