California

“What. The. Hell!” I yelled after taking a few minutes to realize that I had just been taken by a group of random people.

“Are you California Matthews?” The guy who grabbed me said.

“You didn’t ask before you took her!?” The girl, who was driving, screamed. “Valen you idiot! What if we got the wrong one!?” The guy rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

“She was going to run. I didn’t have time to make sure who it was. Sorry.” I moved farther away from him and noticed that there was another guy in the passenger’s seat staring at me. When he caught me staring he held out his hand.

“I’m Leon.” He smiled down at me. I stared at him like he was crazy and he pulled back. “So, you are California. Right?” I almost said it was Callie, or Cal. Not California. But I just stayed silent and stared down at my legs. “Are you mute?” Valen scoffed and Leon looked towards him.

“She’s obviously not mute. Idiot. She yelled like two minutes ago.” He rolled his eyes.

“Well sorry. I didn’t hear her earlier and she hasn’t said anything since.” He looked towards Valen, then back at me. “If you’re California nod.” I just kept my head down and didn’t do anything. Maybe they wouldn’t believe I was the right person if I didn’t do anything. “I don’t think she’s California Amarida. She didn’t do anything when I asked her to nod.”

“Well, she’s not going to do anything, Leon. She probably thinks we’re kidnapping her or something.” The girl, driving, said. I bit my tongue and stopped myself from screaming that they were. I wasn’t going to say a word to them. The other guy sitting beside me scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Amarida, technically we are kidnapping her.” He voice was very, I don’t even know, beautiful. “I mean we did take her without asking and just drove off.”

“But it’s so different. We’re not going to hurt her or anything. We are only trying to keep her safe, Kale.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t realize that, she thinks we’re kidnapping her.”

“Well, she obviously realizes it now, since she can hear us talking.” Valen interrupted.

“Valen, just shut up. If you’re going to be all snippy then you can just find your own way back to the place.” Amarida looked at the mirror towards him.

“Fine.” He snapped as he stood up from his seat. What is he going to do? Jump out of the van, is he crazy? He’ll probably kill himself… actually that’s okay. He needs to hurry up and jump already. Kale snorted, like he was trying to hide a laugh. I looked at him for a second then looked back at Valen. Holy shit! Are wings growing out of his back?! I stiffened up and continued staring at the wings on his back and the markings that were appearing on his skin. I blinked and then there was a hole in the roof and he was gone.

“Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. OH MY FUCKING GOD! What the fuck just happened?” I screamed as I continued to stare at hole that he just flew out of. “What are you people? Let me go!” I said as I tried to open the door and jump out, but Kale grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back.

“Amarida, can have the stuff, so we can calm her down?” He said loudly over my continuances screaming.

“Leon has it.”

“Leon, give me it. Now!”

“I, um gave it to Valen.” He mumbled.

“What was that?” Kale snapped, he sounded very angry right now.

“I just thought that he might need when he grabbed her earlier. I didn’t know that he was just going to leave.”

“You are an idiot sometimes.” He then turned my body around and put a hand over my mouth. “Shut the fuck up!” He yelled. He made me jump slightly and I stopped screaming. “If you try to jump out of the van again I won’t stop you, and you will be killed from the impact.”

“Okay.” I whispered. I had already started losing my voice.

“Good. Now, as we asked you before, are you California?” I nodded quickly. “Thank you.”

“You could try to be nicer to her.” Leon said as he turned to face Kale and I.

“You could also shut the fuck up, but it probably won’t happen. Now will it?” Leon turned back around without saying anything.

“Kale, you need to take the stick out of your ass and calm down!” Amarida snapped. “You’re being an asshole.”

“Well, I didn’t want to be doing this in the first place. You guys just came and grabbed me out of my bed and made me leave. Why the hell can’t I be angry about it?”

“Because, it’s part of your job to do this, you could just shut up and stop complaining. You’re already here, so you can’t do anything about it.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“Good, now you’ll be quiet.”

---

“Um… can- can I ask one of you a question?” I said quietly after a while of silence.

“Sure, what is it?” Leon said as he turned around and looked at me.

“Um, why… why are you taking me?”

“We can’t tell you that, you need to wait till we get to the location.”

“Oh, um can I ask another question?”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Yes.” Kale mumbled under his breath. Leon rolled his eyes.

“No, don’t listen to him. He finds it funny when other people are scared. We’re not planning on killing you.”

“You know if you took me for money, I- I can call my parents and they’ll pay you whatever. You… you can just let me go know.” I said, starting to get scared.

“We’re not kidnapping you and we don’t want money. We need you.”

“Why?”

“We can’t tell you yet, I promise when we get where we’re going you will know.”

“Um, where are we going exactly.”

“We can’t tell you that.”

“Can you tell me anything?”

“No, not really.”

“Ask away though, because you know it’s not annoying as fuck.” Kale scowled. Leon rolled his eyes again.

“Do you have any more questions.”

“No, yes. Kind of, but I don’t think I want to know the answer to it.”

“Well, just ask it. It might be something I can answer.”

“Uh… how did Valen, that’s was his name… right?” Leon nodded. “How did he fly out of here… what is he?”

“Um, yeah. I can’t answer that, but um when we get to the location he’ll be there and he can answer that… probably.”

“Oh… alright.” We went back to silence and I stared down at my hands. I wonder if I tried to jump out right now, if they would stop me. I mean, they probably wouldn’t expect it, and I could get a-

“Don’t even try it.” Kale said as he grabbed my wrists so I couldn’t move.