The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Thirteen: Hello? Anyone There?

Even though it was early May, I had a new New Year's resolution: stop passing out. Coming back from unconsciousness was not a pleasant experience, and I was starting to make a habit of it. The recovery room would not become my second home if I had any say in it.

And apparently the cosmos agreed because this time I woke to a tangle of branches overhead that intersected a perfect blue sky. The branches were more green than anything I had ever seen. Moss almost the color of limes draped from the bows and new leaves peeked their unfurling heads out. Someone must have been force feeding me dirt because that's all I tasted. And the smelled. Pure nature. Nothing like those artificial tree shaped car fresheners. This was the real deal.

I couldn't get enough of it. Lungful after lungful of the rich air while I tried to get my ducks in a row.

I was laying on my back. Beneath me was a surprisingly comfortable forest floor. I now understood why it could be called the carpet of the forest. There were still dead twigs and pebbles that ground into my shoulder blades, but the dirt was unpacked and the moss soft.

The air and dirt were both cold. Not cold enough for me to worry I had frosted over the whole world but cold enough for me to want to sit up and curl my arms around my knees to keep my warmth to myself.

Sitting up proved to be a challenge. Worse than the challenge of getting out of a warm bed on a cold morning. Then it was Anna versus Anna, a battle of wills. Now it was Anna versus Anna, a test of not passing out again.

As soon as I tried to right myself, my head started to swim. I remembered the Nothing syringe that had been stuck in my arm at the assembly. How long ago had that been? It had been past dusk then. Now the shadows were shrunk to nothing. Noon the next day, then. Or the day after that. How many syringes had they stuck me with?

I sat up in slow increments to make sure I didn't find myself unconscious on the forest carpet once more.

Around me stretched the same thing as far as I could make out. Trees so green they hurt my eyes, brown dirt grown, blue sky. There weren't many varying shades. This was a trichrome sort of place.

"Hello?" I called out as loud as I could. It was a relief to find my voice was still working, barely raspy from disuse. So I hadn't been out for months.

There was no answer so I tried again. "Hello!"

In hindsight, shouting into the woods after apparently being kidnapped by my school may not have been the safest option. But what was I supposed to do? Run and hope I found civilization to help me. There was no telling how far safety was from my foresty bed. And no telling if the nearest city was full of good Samaritans or employees of Paramount Lake.

It turned out that, although dumb, shouting brought about the best results because someone shouted back. "Anna?"

"Stitch?"

The boy in question stumbled through the brush twenty yards to my right. "You're alive." Stitch was a pretty cool guy. Not just in the he's a swell guy without even trying kind of way. He was level headed in the worst of situations, collected during conversations, one step ahead of the rest of us. I expected him to have a fully formulated plan by the time he found me.

But when he came into view I remembered that he was just a kid.

Stitch was a mess. Twigs and leaves were tangled in his bowl cut--yes, he was rocking a bowl cut somewhat successfully. There were dark circles under his eyes like he had been awake for three weeks straight instead of under the influence of the Nothing syringe. When his voice broke as he called out, "You're alive," I beat back the dizziness and got to my feet to meet him.