It must have only been a couple of seconds before I opened my eyes. Everyone else in the room other than Claire was unconscious and slumped against the various walls of the room. I could feel warm liquid flowing down my neck and back.

I touched the spot on my head that hit the door and was rewarded with a sharp stab of pain. I pulled my hand away and looked at it. My fingertips were painted red as if I had been drawing with them.

I took a few seconds to use my power to try to heal my wound. Without being able to see anything, I did my best to clear up any traces of the concussion I probably had. It was worth it because when I was done, the room stopped twirling, and everyone else was still on the ground. I slowly rose to my feet, just in case I didn't heal myself well enough.

"Go that way to the prison. Your friend and her brother are there," Claire signed and then pointed to the doors that Sergeant Michael had come through.

"Come on, let's go," I said, waving. "You can still come with me." She just shook her head and looked down at Colonel Baxter. "This can't be what you want, not after what you just did." I looked pleadingly at her, but she didn't budge. Not knowing what else to do, I left.

I bounded to the door and rushed through. On the other side were roughhewn stone stairs going down. The stairway smelled like mildew and sweat, and I had to plug my nose in there. I reached the bottom, went through another set of doors, and then found myself at the end of a short hallway that ended in a T-intersection. I ran to the end and peered around the corner in both directions to ensure the way was clear.

After stepping around the corner, I realized I was in a hall a short distance from the prison where I was previously held. There were only three cells, and I peered in each as I passed them. Melody and her brother were in the last one. They were both lying down, and Melody's arm was draped over her brother protectively.

"Melody!" I yelled. She jumped up, clearly startled. She ran forward when she recognized my face peering through the small barred window.

"Aidren," she exclaimed. "Get us out of here."

The door was locked, but I quickly unlocked it with my power. She stepped back as the door swung open.

"No problem," I said, grinning.

Melody jumped forward and wrapped her arms around my neck. "Thank goodness," she said. We hugged for a moment before breaking apart. "I was so worried about you. How are you here?"

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I stopped pretending," I said.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"Get your brother," I instructed. "I'll explain on the way. We have to get out of here, fast."

She woke up her brother, who got up silently but smiled when he saw me. I smiled back and led them out. As we traversed the halls, I explained as much as I could. I told her I wasn't a Carpenter, and everyone always assumed I was because they saw me manipulate wood. I also discovered Melody and her brother had just been captured and taken to the cell after I had left.

I led them up toward the garden where all the Carpenters escaped from. I paused around every corner, expecting to find more guards patrolling the hallways or loyal Welders out for vengeance. Luckily, we didn't encounter anyone else in the camp. Before long, we were in the garden and about to go through the hole I had created.

We paused to catch our breath, and I looked out the opening, scanning left and right. I didn't see any signs of movement or danger.

"Okay," I said. "I'm pretty sure the way is clear for us, but we need to sprint to those woods, just to be safe.

"Are you sure that you want to leave this place?" she asked. Her question threw me off. I knew I wanted to, but no one until then asked me what I wanted.

"I told you about me, but I haven't told you about them." I pointed the way we came. "I just found out they lied to me about so many things, and they might be the worst camp out there." I stopped and smiled at her, but then an image of Claire's betrayal flashed in my mind, and I frowned. "If there's one thing I know, it's that there isn't anything for me here. Besides, the others already left this way, and I want to catch up with them." I didn't know why but she looked a little sad when I told her about the other Carpenters, but she just nodded. I gave one last look across the open space for danger, then we sprinted across the clearing.

We made it to the trees without any incidents, and as we stopped to catch our breath, I looked around for any signs that Sarah or the others left for me to follow. I didn't see anything, so we kept walking deeper into the woods. After a short time of searching, I finally noticed a small carving of an arrow. It was embedded in a tree.

The arrow pointed west, and we started to follow it after I erased it with my ability. I found a few more signs as we walked along the way, so I knew we continued to be on the right path. But even so, after about thirty minutes of walking, I started to get worried that something was wrong. I didn't think I was back in the camp for such a long time that we wouldn't have caught up to them by now.

With such a large number of people, they should have been going at a slower pace. I considered that they were running to make it as far as possible, and I tried to adjust my assumptions. But before I could give it much more thought, I heard loud pops reverberating through the hills and trees.

We had been walking on a small rise, and the pops sounded as if they had come from down the hill. We stopped and listened. After a few seconds, we heard a few more pops. The place I thought the sounds were coming from was confirmed when Victor pointed in the same direction.

We started off in that direction, trying to use as much cover and concealment as possible because the only people I knew who had guns were the base cadre. It only took a few minutes of jogging downhill to find the source of the pops, with more of them going off than before and the decibels increasing with our proximity.