PROLOGUE

I was young and in love, as I recalled while looking at myself in the mirror. Today was the day. My wedding day. I looked at my blue black hair all piled up on my head. The white simple dress drifting all the way to my feet. On my feet there were 2 inch off-white heels. When Eric proposed to me, I didn't need to think twice even though I was 18 and barely out of highschool, he, 19. I smiled and the mirror reflected my smile back at me. I saw my ocean blue eyes twinkle. When I was younger, I never imagined myself marrying a scientist intern. I imagined myself of marrying a prince, being rich, but fate had a different path for me. This I knew when I first laid my eyes on Eric White. The only thing about him that irked me was that he was too quick to respond to something. He never thought it through. I twisted my lips into a frown. I sighed deeply. That, was something I needed to change about Eric, I thought. I saw the door open in the mirror. I turned around and hugged my mother and father. All the bridesmaids came in. An hour later, it was time to become Mrs. White. My dad stuck his head through the door frame.
"Honey? It's time," he said quietly, his eyes red and puffy. I smiled at him.
"Daddy! Have you been crying? On my wedding day?" I asked surprised. He stood up a little straighter and then slouched down again.
"Yeah, my little girl is all grown up," he said sniffling. I laughed.
"Daddy, I'll always be your little girl. You know that," I said. I wrapped my arms around my dad. I smiled.
"Let's get this show on the road," I said.
After the wedding, came the honeymoon. I remember every touch, every kiss. And then nine months later came little Zoey. My little Zoey.
But then, one day, Eric came home from work. He was finally a scientist but he was looked down upon. He was starting to scare me. Eric was turning cold and unfeeling. But tonight he was a little happier. He had more life to his step. After I put little Zoey to bed, I asked him what was up? Eric smiled his lopsided smile at me.
"Everyone was talking about those supernatural kids, that the government wanted to put away? That they think is a danger?" said Eric excitedly. I nodded. He had no idea how much I knew.
"Actually Eric there's something I need to tell you about-"
"Well I thought of this great idea!" cried Eric as if he was uninterrupted. I sighed. I'll tell him afterward, I thought.
"How about we capture them, suck the power out of them, and put them into a regular human being to make the most super human being on the planet! Which we could use for armies and stuff!!" cried Eric. My face turned ghostly white.
"Doesn't that...kill them?" I asked him slowly. He nodded.
"Yeah, but it's ok. I mean whats it to us?" he asked. I gulped.
"Well Eric this may be hard to believe but-"
"So, when everyone agreed I was like well we could do the experiments on my daughter since she's little and everything!! Now I get to be in charge of the whole thing!! Isn't that great?" He asked clearly excited. I felt my face turn hot and fuzzy. My little Zoey? My

little Zoey? I shook my head violently and got up.
"No, no, no! You are NOT using Zoey!!" I shouted at him. He looked hurt for a little bit but his brown eyes started to harden and glaze over.
"Oh really?" He asked cocking his head. He inched towards Zoey's bedroom door. My eyes turned wide. I couldnt speak. He opened the door while keeping his eyes on me the whole time. I saw him reach for something in his belt. A gun! I shouted in my brain. No, no, no, no!! I started to follow him, like a cat hunting its prey. Eric grabbed my baby, Zoey. Her eyes were wide and blue. A beautiful Carribean blue. Her blue black hair was wavy on the top of her head. She was the mirror image of me.
"Eric," I said cautiously, "put Zoey down." He laughed maniacally.
"Put her down? Not until you let me use her! You don't understand Heidi! She's vital for me to get on top! The government totally agrees with it!" he said getting all excited again. I closed my eyes.
"No, I can't let you Eric. Put her down before you hurt her," I said slowly, my eyes drifting to the gun in his hands. Why did I believe he was so perfect? He's obviously crazy! I thought to myself. We haven't even been married for 2 years!! Eric smiled showing all of his white teeth.
"Why would I kill my ticket to the top?" he asked cocking his head. I gulped.
"No," I said.
"Oh, yes," he said back.
"But, Eric, you love me!" I cried out. He looked at me with glassy eyes.
"Do I?" He asked unfeeling. Thats when I turned to run. I heard him put Zoey down and run after me.
"Heidi, don't do this, don't do this," he said.
"Your the one going to do this, Eric!" I screamed at him. I stopped to look at him.
"But I don't want to," he said pleading with his dark brown eyes.
"Then don't," I said searching his face. His eyes seemed to soften for a second and then they hardened.
"But you won't let me use Zoey," he said like he was choking.
"No, I won't," I said half turning to run again. He smiled crazily.
"Ah, don't do that, dear Heidi, for the hunt has just begun," he said. I started to run again but then I heard the gunshot and a baby crying. Oh, and then the pain, the pain! I saw Zoey's face come into my mind. Zoey, I thought, I never got to tell your father. I never got to tell your father how special you are. Maybe then he would've acted differently. Then I felt myself slowly slip away.

Chapter 1

I slumped down in the swively chair at the meeting table. There had to be at least a dozen scientists there with me. My father was at the end of the table. I had just turned 15 and I, also, had failed my mission. I remember exactly what happened. It was a Thursday night, and I was trailing Trudy like usual. She seemed impatient, anxious. She kept looking back but not in my direction so I knew she hadn't seen me. We were at the bridge. I have to keep her safe, I thought to myself. I was about to run to her when she stepped down from the ledge, so I stayed where I was. I thought I was fine, where I was. She wasn't going to get hurt, I remember thinking to myself. But then I saw her look back again, this time with fear and surprise in her eyes. I looked back as well, which later I knew was a mistake. I heard the gunshot before I saw the man. Then I turned to look at Trudy. Oh God, if there is one, please let her be okay, I kept thinking in my head. She was falling, off the bridge. I winced when I heard the deadly splash of her dead body hitting the surface of the water. And that's how I ended up in the meeting room with my father and a dozen other sick scientists. I hated hearing gunshots. It was the only thing that made me show any feeling. I heard a gunshot when I was younger, then the sounds of a woman's gurgled scream that would forever haunt me. I put my long blue black hair into a quick bun. My father turned to look at everyone. I mean from his chair turned so he could swivel around and stare us down with a neglected gray cat in his hands. The cat used to be white. My father was and is a lunatic, a mental patient, he was out of his mind. He was the one who thought of all this. He was the one who shot the only woman he's ever loved. And he was the sick scientist that thought hearing children scream was like waves crashing on a beach. I hated that man with a passion. My father, Eric, started to pet his gray cat who was pleading with me to get him out of my father's hands. I gave a little shrug towards the cat. I was a neglected animal to him as well. Everyone, except the scientists, were. We haven't been fed for two days now!
"Now, Zoey, what are we supposed to do?" asked my father looking at me with his glazed over brown eyes. The eyes that never softened or glowed. I'm sure they once did, I thought, before he went all mental patient on everyone. On my mother. I winced. I hardened my eyes toward him.
"I don't know," I said boldly. No one ever speaks to my father like I do. But I can get away with it. I'm his "ticket to the top" even though he's already there. He just stared at me. His mouth muscles twitching.
"It was a rhetorical question, Zoey," he said. I smiled fakely toward him.
"Right," I said with fake cheerfulness. The new scientist, Robin, raised her hand. My father turned his glassy eyes toward her.
"Well, we could assign her to someone new in the area," she suggested. My father nodded.
"Yes, I already have that covered. Again, it was a rhetorical question," he said with a scowl. Robin blushed and turned her head away. I saw her write, "don't answer questions unless someone has first." I snickered and she looked up and glared at me.
"Mr. White," she started again. My father turned to look at her once more. He looked annoyed.
"I understand you use that bacteria, on the kids here, if they don't obey any of us, that makes you feel like your being eaten alive," she said with a smirk.
"Yes, we do," said my father alarmed. Robin gave me a quick smug smile. My father saw it, though, so he gave me a confused look. I shrugged. He turned back to look at Robin. She gave him a flirtatious smile. Yes, I know my father is very handsome, but it seems to me that every woman doesn't care whether he's crazy and sick. They try for him anyway.
"Well, I've noticed, on my few days here, that you never do anything with this girl," she said pointing a finger at me. I raised one finger.
"Um, I have a name," I said. Eric looked at me.
"Zoey, is my daughter," he said. His eyes never leaving my face as he said it. Then he turned toward Robin.
"I'm sure you can see the resemblance," he said slowly. I scoffed. I didn't look anything like my father except that I had wavy hair like him. I knew I looked more like my mother. Actually, a mirror image of her except the eyes...
"Oh I see," said Robin defeated. I gave her a smug smile. Another old scientist said something about trying to inject one of the strength powers into Poppy since the other one worked so well. But not on me. They never worked on me. I sighed. Poor Poppy, I thought absentmindedly. Her older sister Michelle turned sixteen a month ago and now she was gone. She disappeared, leaving a 5 year old to tend to herself. Sometimes, when she got scared, I let her sleep with me. When Eric caught her sneaking into my room one night, I explained she just missed the comforts of an older person scaring the nightmares away. Even though I couldn't scare my own nightmares...the horrific screaming only to be cut short with the gurgling of blood choking her, filling her lungs with blood. Drowning, drowning-
"Zoey!" my father shouted my name. I woke up with a start. I realized I had fell asleep during the meeting. All the scientists were gone except my father and I. He let his cat go and just stared at me. I looked back at him.
"What?" I asked. He cocked his head in a child-like way.
"You fell asleep," he said but not in an accusing way. More like in a curious, amazed way.
"Yeah, humans do that," I said yawning. His eyes softened. Wow, I thought, I haven't seen his eyes like that for a long time now. Everytime he was uncrazy, he actually seemed to be a real cool guy. The only problem was, he thought this whole thing was just a bad dream, that it had never happened. My father looked at me sadly.
"I really did kill her, didn't I?" he asked choking on his words. When he looked back up his eyes were full of water and his face was streaked with tears. I nodded, on the verge of tears myself, even though I never knew my mother. I wish I did. I wish he never pulled the trigger. And if there really was a God, like Poppy believed so, I wish that He had never decided to damn me to a place as close to hell as you could get. My father squinted his eyes at me. Under his breath I could hear him say, "I didn't kill her! I really didn't kill her! But her eyes..." He frowned at me. I sighed. He always ended up doing this. He always did think time stopped. Eric got up and put his hands on my shoulders. He started to shake me.
"Heidi! Heidi! Heidi!" He kept screaming at me, over and over again. The tears started to run down my cheeks. I couldn't help myself. This is what happened to the man that was my father. This is what happened to the man my mother loved. And this is what happened to a person when they killed someone they loved and couldn't handle it. They just go into denial and go around in a sleeping state. For my father, he went around in a mental state.
"Dad! Dad! Stop shaking me!" I yelled at him. The shaking was getting worse and it was hurting. He slowly took his hands off of me.
"Dad?" he asked, slowly backing away. I nodded.
"Yeah, you're my dad," I said. He shook his head.
"No, no, no! My daughter-"
"Is right here," I finished for him. I gestured at all of me. I got up and walked to him slowly, afraid he would run, afraid he would kill me.
"Dad, I'm NOT Heidi. I kind of look like her. But I'm NOT her. Can't you tell? Heidi had blue eyes. I don't," I said choking on those last words. My dad's eyes started to glaze over again.
"Dad, before you back into your mental state," I started to say taking his shaking hands into mine. I leaned in towards his ear so he could hear.
"I hope the other you, the you who tortures children, goes to hell," I said hissing through my teeth. His head jerked back. He fell to the ground his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He was shaking, kind of like he was having a seizure. I looked down on him.
"What do you want me to do, Eric? Call the hospital? 911? But then the police would come here and see how you handle us. This little experiment of ours. Sorry, Eric, but I'd rather you die than try to get us all free again," I spat at him. Then I walked away and closed the door. I heard my dad gasping for air and getting up. Mind powers work for me so well. And doing that, was one of them. I walked down the hallway and opened the last door on the end of the hallway. The door opened up to an almost blinding white room that was large and had almost 20 kids in there. Poppy ran up to me.
"Zoey, what happened? Did they use the eaters on you?" she asked worried. I rubbed her little red blond head and smiled.
"You know they never use that stuff on me," I said. She pursed her lips.
"Oh right," she said. We heard a hum then a crackle.
"Poppy Macks? Poppy Macks. Please come to the experimental room immediatly for more tests," the voice of a scientist came on over head. Poppy started shaking. I poked at her calm part of her head with my mind, trying to calm her down. She stopped shaking almost immediatly.
"Thanks, Zoey," she said. Then she grabbed my hand.
"C'mon, come with me please," she pleaded, her green eyes sad.
"I can't, Poppy. You know the rules. Only family members allowed," I said sadly.
"But my sister isn't here no more," she said and started to cry. Robin opened the door and came over to Poppy and picked her up. Poppy started screaming at the top of her lungs and kicking her little legs. Robin was yelling something over her yelling that sounded something like, "WE TOLD YOU IMMEDIATLY!! DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT IMMEDIATLY MEANS??? MAYBE WE SHOULD SIC THE EATERS ON YOU! WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, HUH? WOULD YOU LIKE THAT MS. MARKS??!!" Poppy started screaming, "Nooooo!!" and tears started to ran down her cheeks. Then back up came. Poppy was throwing them off her like they were just flies. Then Robin got a glass bottle with bugs that looked like leeches. She threw one of them on Poppy and then she started screaming bloody murder and fell to the ground. The scientists picked her up and hauled her out of there. The giant door shut with a deafening sound. The rest of the little kids looked pretty shaken up. The older kids were used to it, though. It always happened whenever someone was going to get some more tests.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 08.11.2010

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