"KAI, GOSH DARN IT, ANSWER ME!"

Kai jolted sideways, blinking in confusion. The darkness that had been surrounding him and the menacing cackle suddenly vanished, and the bright sunlight momentarily blinded him. He closed his eyes again, realized that he was sitting up with his hands over his ears, and covered his face, leaning forward and bringing his knees up into his chest. He was still shaking, but the laughter was gone, and relief was flooding through him as he sat there in silence.

"Can you hear us now?" Linda's impatient yet concerned voice asked to his right, and Kai felt her hand touch his left shoulder gently. He nodded his head quickly, wincing at the stab of sore muscles from a day of walking. "Good," Linda breathed. "Just take some breaths, okay? We'll start asking questions as soon as you've calmed down."

Kai did as he was told, breathing deeply into his arms, trying to still his shaking shoulders. When he finally got his breathing under control, he lifted his head and glanced around him. He was sitting up atop his sleeping bag, inside the boys' tent. The door to the tent was unzipped, and Kai could see that the girls' tent was empty. He looked around him again and found all of his friends and his father sitting around him, confused and worried looks on their faces.

Falte crawled forward and positioned himself next to his son, wrapping his arms around him from the side. He rubbed Kai's back reassuringly, and Kai realized that he was still trembling. He sighed shakily and relaxed his tense shoulders.

"What happened?" Abby blurted out eagerly, then waved her hands with a tiny shake of her head. "Actually, let's let you hear our side of the story first. To give you a little more time to calm down." She gave him a small smile, but Kai couldn't smile back.

Linda took over for Abby. "I've told you that I can see everyone's dreams, correct?" She waited until Kai nodded his head once in acknowledgement. "It's confusing most of the time, because I can see all of you guys' dreams all at once, so there's a lot to see. This time, though, there was only one dream. I knew everyone else had to be asleep, but I couldn't tear myself away from this one. I'll explain what the dream was in a minute," she said, and Kai shuddered, realizing that he didn't really want her to. "I woke up near the end and came here, knowing that it was yours, Kai. But... you were already sitting up. For some reason, you screamed, which woke everyone else up. We all came here and tried to get you to ... listen to us, because your eyes were open, but you weren't looking at us. I guess it finally worked when Falte yelled at you."

That was Dad? Kai thought, glancing at his father. Falte wasn't paying much attention to anyone — he was simply staring at a spot on the tent floor, the worried lines still etched on his face as he listened.

"Let's hear your side, actually," Linda said, pulling Kai's attention back to her. "You tell us the dream."

Kai shivered and hesitated, unsure if he wanted to tell them what he had heard.

How would they take it? What would they think? Could it have just been a nightmare? Would they believe him?

He shoved that aside and told them everything. He couldn't stop himself from trembling again as he explained, but now that his father was there next to him, the shaking stopped pretty quickly.

Everyone but Linda looked extremely unsettled and confused, but Chase looked the worst. He had gone slightly pale, and his arms were wrapped around his torso nervously. Kai figured that if Shintaro were there, he would be asking and asking questions about everything. 

The thought of Shintaro bounced Kai back to reality. He realized that he would have to shove the dream - was it even a dream though? - aside until there was enough time to look into it. At the moment, Shintaro was the most important. They had to find him. 

"We..." he started, trying to swallow his fear and confusion. He stopped, took a deep breath, and somehow forced himself to stop shaking. "We should get going. This can wait. Shintaro can't." He broke eye contact with Abby, who had been staring at him in confusion and sympathy and awe and fear, and got onto his knees to start rolling up his sleeping bag. 

"Kai," Falte said in a tone that made Kai stop what he was doing and glance over his shoulder at his father.

 He didn't try to meet to his father's eyes, just tipped his head back so Falte knew he was listening. 

"Promise me we'll talk about this when we can," Falte said softly, as the others began to stand up. The girls headed back to their tent, both of them glancing over their shoulders at Kai and Falte, while the rest of the boys began to pack up the rest of their belongings. 

"Promise me," Falte said again, a little more sternly this time.

"Promise," Kai said in a whisper. He wasn't sure when that would be, but he knew the moment he promised he wouldn't be able to get much out when his father brought it back up. He never really was good at talking about himself and what he was dealing with. No matter how hard he tried, he would always hesitate, which seemed to set his friends on edge and make them a little angry. 

Even Abby had gotten mad once when he couldn't find the words to tell her that he'd almost freaked out because of a nightmare. That was probably the scariest thing he'd ever seen in his entire life, and he didn't want it to happen again. 

"Please turn around," Falte said, but his voice was no longer stern. Instead, it was quiet and solemn. 

Kai leaned back on his knees for a moment, then turned to face his father again. Falte scooted forward and wrapped his arms around him once more, pulling him into a tight squeeze. He didn't say anything. He simply hugged Kai for a few more moments. 

When he let go, everyone else had packed up their sleeping bags already. Linda and Abby were already pulling their tent down, while Nanami was cheerfully running around, helping them as best she could. Chase nudged Falte, silently telling him that they had to start moving a little faster. 

Kai turned back around and kept packing up his things. 

~

The group had been walking for almost six hours. Kai wasn't sure why, but he had been keeping track since they had left. There was a quick lunch break, but they hadn't even stopped for that. The simply had passed out bags of food and ate while they walked. It was hot and the forest was extremely thick. Every once and a while, Kai would wonder why in the world they didn't just teleport to avoid this misery, but he soon realized that Moon and Shintaro were probably too far away. Even if they did teleport to them, Moon was probably expecting them. She seemed to know almost everything that was happening around her. He eventually concluded that moving through the woods was the best option; though he would have preferred the teleporting. He wanted to get to Shintaro as fast as he could. 

Kai wasn't even paying attention to anything around him anymore. The only thing he was trying to do was keep his tired legs moving. They burned with exhaustion, but Linda hadn't called the stop yet; therefore, he had to keep walking. He knew that everyone else was probably exhausted, and he wondered why they weren't calling it quits for the day. It was already almost evening. 

The bad thing about not paying attention to where you step is that you can seriously hurt your ankles if you step on simply a loose rock. Kai found that out the hard way.

The loose rock that happened to get under his foot wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been at the edge of a small ditch. At first, when Kai lost his balance with a twinge of pain through his ankle, he thought he would be fine. Then he realized he was still tipping, and his foot was slipping down again, but twisting at a wrong angle. 

Then came the snap.

The pain that burned through Kai's leg was so terrible, his vision went dark for about two seconds. He collapsed sideways, literally biting back a yell. He landed harshly on his side, and a moment later, tasted the metallic, bitter taste of blood on his tongue. That was the least of his worries, however. The pain that was spreading through his ankle was fiery and white-hot. His vision returned to him, and he blinked for a moment, realizing that he was curled up on his side with his hands covering his left ankle.

His friends' voices were hazy, like they were far away from him. But he blinked again, and Abby was kneeling in front of him, her eyes full of worry. She was asking him a question, but he couldn't make it out.

Finally, the ringing in his ears subsided, and he could hear his friends' frantic voices. 

First was Falte's: "Kai! Hello? Are you alright?" 

Next was Linda's: "Why the heck does this always happen to us?" 

Then came Chase's: "Um, his foot doesn't look right..." 

Then Linda, Abby, and Falte together: "WE KNOW!" 

"That means it's broken, doesn't it?" Chase asked with a downhearted sigh. 

"Looks that way," Linda said after taking a deep breath to calm down. Kai felt her hands touch his foot briefly, and spots danced in his vision. He nearly bit his tongue again. "Kai, I'm going to take off your shoe, alright?" 

Nanami peeked at Kai from above him, touching his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry you fell," she said in a small voice, but Kai could give no answer. 

"I probably won't be able to do much," Chase said in a small voice, "but I can heal it the best I can. Maybe set the bone back in place." 

Linda untied his sneaker and pulled it off as gently as she could. Kai knew she wasn't trying to hurt him, but it felt like there was lava under his skin that was spreading all the way up to his hips. 

Kai squeezed his eyes shut when Chase placed his hands gently on his foot. He knew that Chase was helping him, and the Light Magic would heal his foot somewhat; but because Kai was a Dark, it would leave him Magically drained and even more physically exhausted. 

Gabriel, who had been quiet the whole time, suddenly shushed them harshly. Kai opened his eyes to find Linda giving Gabriel a "what the heck" look, but he wasn't looking at her to see it. He was glaring around him with a wary expression, and Abby was looking around her as well. 

"What is it?" Falte asked, putting his hands on Kai's shoulders to help him sit up with a hiss through his teeth.

"Shh," Linda said to him. 

"What-" he tried again.

This time Linda only had to look at him and he shut up.

"Who are you?" said a voice from the trees, startling all of them into looking up. However was speaking was female, but her voice somehow mixed to opposites: chipper yet full of warning. 

"Who are you?" Gabriel said back, standing up warily and frowning up the branches above them. 

"Answer me first," said the girl, her voice remaining the same. It was chipper and somehow terrifying enough that Kai wanted to comply, but he knew to keep his mouth shut. It sounded like this girl had lots of experience with making people talk, and she obviously was good at hiding. 

"No thanks," Gabriel said, crossing his arms. 

"Alright, then, I'll come down there and find out," the girl said. This time, her voice sounded menacingly deadpan, and Kai couldn't help but flinch when she moved around above them. 

A tall, skinnier girl that looked to be about Linda's age dropped out of the trees and landed delicately on her feet in front of them, making them all jump back a little (which hurt Kai's foot terribly). She had pixie cut hair that was black at the bottoms and a natural looking orange at the tops. Her eyes were large and playful, but they also had an alert look to them. She flicked her eyes across them so fast before she even landed on her feet that Kai was convinced that she hadn't even assessed what they were wearing. Her left eye was a creamy brown while the other was a bright blue. Her face was thin and she had high cheekbones that somehow made her look even more menacing than she already did. She had large, rosy lips that were pinched into a frown. She was tan and dotted with freckles all along her face, neck, and arms. She was wearing a dirt smudged white undershirt that was tucked into thick camo pants held up by a utility belt rowed with pouches that were full of who-knows-what. Her pants were tucked into camping boots that hardly made any noise when she landed. In her one of her hands - which looked calloused and rough - was a pocket knife held out in defense. She looked like she had years of experience with knifes and sneaking through trees. Kai decided that he didn't want to mess with her. 

"Wait a minute," Linda said in her "wait-hold-on-what-is-happening" tone. She stood up alarmingly fast and tipped her head at the girl. 

The girl's eyes flicked over all of them again at lightning speed, and Kai wondered what she was thinking. He wondered if she'd somehow found a way to take them all out in a few minutes. That surely seemed like what she was thinking. 

"I said 'WAIT A MINUTE'!" Linda said harshly when the girl stepped forward with a small frown. "Just hold on for a minute." Linda held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Who are you?" 

"And I said answer me first," the girl said in the same deadpan-menacing voice, but when she assessed Linda (in a matter of 0.2 seconds), her eyebrows furrowed together a little. 

Kai had to strain to keep listening to their conversation. The fiery pain in his foot had dulled, but it was still throbbing fiercely. 

"Amy?" Linda said, and it took Kai a moment to realize that she'd said a name. When she said this, the girl's frown became deeper, and she took a step back, brandishing the knife higher. 

"Unless I accidentally said my name while addressing you all, which I doubt I did," she added quickly with a huff, "you shouldn't know that." 

Linda reached up and tapped her head. "Being a telepath is only part of how I figured out. I know your mind, even though it's always hard to understand because it moves at a pace of one million miles per hour." She rolled her eyes. "Plus, you're convinced we're friends, and you love to proclaim in annoyingly." 

This made Amy fall silent. She took another step back, but this time lowered the knife to her side. She stood up straight and narrowed her eyes at Linda, angling her head to one side while she looked her over again. "Linda?" she asked, tipping her head to the other side like a puppy. She closed the knife and shoved it into her pocket. "What are you doing out here?" 

"You know her?" Gabriel asked Linda in a lowered voice.

Linda nodded once. "I knew her before Thorn captured me. She and I met when I had to help her fight some Darks that were attacking her. She decided to become friends with me, though I only find her annoying." 

Amy suddenly gave Linda a big grin that Kai wouldn't have expected to see a moment earlier, when she had been holding up a knife like she was going to throw it. "You know you love me," she said teasingly to Linda, who rolled her eyes.

"I don't love you," she said with a sigh.

"But you doooooo," Amy said in a singsong voice, crossing her arms and sticking out her tongue. "You had to have at least missed me a little." She raised her eyebrows at Linda expectantly. 

Linda rolled her eyes again. "Fine, I did. But only a little." 

Amy barked a triumphant laugh and walked over to Gabriel, standing in front of him and looking him over. "So, you've found a boyfriend?" 

Kai was surprised to see Gabriel turn as red as a tomato. Linda simply choked and almost doubled over as Amy broke into maniacal laughter.

"NO!" Linda said once she recovered. "No, he's not my boyfriend. This is Gabriel. The friend I told you about. He is not my boyfriend," she repeated, crossing her arms. 

"Oh," Amy said, cocking her hip and assessing Gabriel once more. "Well, hello there, Gabriel. I'm Amy Turner, a friend of hers." She looked back to Linda, then glanced around at everyone, who were all still kneeling by Kai. "Hey, you made some friends! Other than him, of course." 

"Yes, I'm very capable of doing that, Amy," Linda shot back with an exasperated sigh.

"I thought you couldn't, Mrs. Antisocial," Amy teased, giving Linda another weird grin. She then spotted Kai's foot. "Argh, that looks terrible. Broken?" She walked over and squatted down beside him in the spot between Abby and Nanami. 

"Are we sure we can trust her?" Chase asked Linda. "She was just about to throw a knife at you." He scooted back as Amy clucked her tongue at Kai's foot. 

"It's called self-defense, buddy," Amy said, glancing up at him. Her playful eyes danced over him quickly as she spoke. "I think you'd feel the same way if there was a whole group of campers hanging near your house." 

"You live out here?" Falte asked. "This is the middle of nowhere." 

"That's the point, four-eyes," she said, and Kai felt a stab of annoyance. She didn't have the right to call his father that. But she laughed a moment later, and Kai felt at ease again. "I'm just messing with you," she said. "If you're Linda's friends, I can probably help you out. My house isn't too far from here. What are your names?"

After a short introduction, Amy had decided to help bring Kai to her house to let him heal up. Kai was angry that he had to wait so long, because he didn't want to press Chase too hard to heal it again. But he also didn't want to miss his chance to help Shintaro.

But maybe resting his foot was a better option.

~

Hey, look! I updated!!

I know I've said this before and I took another long while to update, but I think I'm finally slowly getting past my writer's block. I think I'm going to do this, you guys. I'm so excited for this book!! This is probably going to be my favorite. I love writing it!

Thanks for being patient with me, and thanks for reading!! 

Until the next chapter, peeps!!

Peace out!!~~