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  The True North soldiers secured the perimeter and quickly corralled the girls into a neat little group in front of the Mustang.

  “Who are you people?” Candace asked meekly.

  “That’s not for you to know,” I growled and grabbed Fiona’s trembling arm, dragging her away from her friends.

  “What do you want with her?” Candace asked.

  Alexis was simply a blubbering mess of sobbing and pleading, most of which wasn’t coherent enough to understand.

  Trent spoke up. “The real question you should be concerned with is what are we going to do with you?”

  “Please just take our wallets and cars. Just let us go. Don’t hurt us,” Alexis finally managed to say.

  “We don’t want anything from you,” Finn said. He grabbed Alexis, then Trent snatched Candace.

  “No, no, no—what are you doing?” Candace screamed when she saw the first syringe.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll just feel a small prick,” Trent said and snorted with laughter. He loved that line.

  Candace’s screams ceased a moment later, Alexis’s shortly after that.

  “What are you doing to my friends?” Fiona cried.

  I loosened up on her arm a little. She was no longer fighting to get away, knowing there was nowhere to run and no one left to help her.

  “They’ll be fine,” I said, forgetting the terror act for a moment and speaking gently. “The serum will knock them out for four to six hours. The worst part will be the hangover when they wake up. These last fifteen to twenty minutes will be a complete blur, a common side effect of grossly overdrinking. You’re the only one who’ll remember we were ever here.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Someone sent to collect you,” I said.

  Finn and Trent were now sliding the limp bodies of the girls into the back seats of their cars. Then Trent hopped the gate to put out the small bonfire.

  “Everything good?” I called out.

  “All secure,” Finn said.

  “Then you know what to do.”

  “Sure do.”

  “That’s our cue to leave, sweetheart,” I said and walked Fiona to the Land Rover.

  “Why are you doing this?” Fiona cried, tears now streaming down her face. “Please, just let me—let us go home. We’ll forget this ever happened.”

  I swung open the back door and pushed Fiona in. She fought at first, but when she saw the final syringe in my hand, she quickly deflated, knowing her time was up and there was nothing she could do about it.

  These types of things had never bothered me before. Many of our operations were designed and put into practice because of me, but what we were doing suddenly began to feel… barbaric. But it was as it had always been. You can’t change the past and you can’t change the future. This was just how things had to be.

  “I know you’re scared and I know this is disorienting, but I need you to listen to me carefully. You are not going to be harmed tonight, and neither are your friends. Before we go, I am extending you an exclusive invitation—one that doesn’t need acceptance quite yet. You’ll understand more soon enough.”

  “Where are we going?” Fiona sniffled between each drawn-out word.

  “North,” I said before sticking her with the syringe.

  7

  Fiona

  Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I awoke. It simply didn’t make sense. My new surroundings felt more surreal than any dream I could remember.

  I was in a round room constructed entirely of glass—walls, floor, ceiling. This was then connected to what looked like a giant machine by a glass tube that bisected the space, continuing all the way to the floor. It was like I was in a glass cylinder, one hundred feet wide, suspended in midair. But as strange as the room was, it was what lay beyond the glass that really took my breath away.

  The expanse of black open space seemed endless. Millions of stars brighter than I had ever seen before, surrounded me on all sides. The full moon shone like a brilliant sphere many times larger than it should have been—like it was right here and I could almost reach out and touch it. Then below me, through the floor, I saw a vision only previously seen in pictures or movie screens—the giant blue and green marble of Earth. White clouds swirled over its surface and I could make out the outline of North America.

  What the hell am I looking at?

  I couldn’t believe anything I was seeing. I’d been kidnapped from Black Star Canyon, drugged, and had woken up in outer space. I supposed the machine above me was some kind of space ship or station. There was no way this could be real. Unless…

  How long was I out?

  I looked myself over and confirmed I was still in the same clothes I remembered wearing when taken. My pockets were empty, my phone, gone.

  I was on all fours now, arms and legs shaking as I felt suspended in space, my hands and knees pressed against the thin glass separating me from the rest of the universe. I couldn’t even appreciate the beauty outside because of rising nausea in the back of my throat.

  “What’s going on?” a voice asked.

  That’s when I noticed I wasn’t alone. I had to count them several times to make sure I wasn’t imagining them. Three others—three other people were waking up on the glass floor, just as I had.

  “You know just as much as I do,” a man said. He looked to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, but already balding. He wore silver-rimmed glasses and unflattering khakis.

  “I know nothing,” the dark-skinned woman said. She also looked like she was in her twenties, possibly approaching thirty. She was super petite with defined wiry muscles and thick black hair no more than a few inches long.

  “Then we’re even,” the guy said.

  “Where are we?”

  When I heard the third voice, I thought my ears were playing tricks. But my eyes were just as treasonous as I realized the voice belonged to Mallory Fiennes. She’d been wearing capris and a scoop-neck top when I’d seen her last, but was now in a flowery sundress. I knew she could have gone home to change after visiting the coffee shop, but her change of clothes was still disorienting.

  “Fiona?” Mallory asked suspiciously.

  “You two know each other?” the guy asked.

  “Mallory, what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Somebody better start explaining something,” the other woman insisted, getting to her feet. She had a hard time finding her balance, like the floor was uneven.

  But before anything more could be said, a low humming sound came from the glass tube in the center of the room. Lights somehow built within the glass illuminated the general enclosure. A group of cloaked figures slowly descended from inside the tube—which appeared to be a glass elevator with a glass floor, making it look like they were floating.

  Nearly transparent doors in the tube opened and seven cloaked figures in an odd assortment of masks stepped into the glass room. All seven of the cloaks contained hoods that were also up, and the combinations of hoods and masks hid their entire heads. Each of the figures wore black gloves, so there wasn’t a single inch of visible skin. Behind the cloaked figures appeared a man I had seen before—from the hospital—Matthew something. He had given me a business card for a psychiatric hospital, along with a cryptic message.

  Your search is over. I was more afraid than ever to contemplate what that meant.

  The seven cloaked figures walked further into the room and examined us quietly. Matthew remained inconspicuously behind them.

  A cloaked figure with a mask sporting a long, crooked beak-nose stepped forward and addressed us.

  “I speak for everyone here today when I say welcome.” The voice was that of a woman. “I know you’re scared and confused and want to know what you’re doing here. The fact is, you are here because you have been chosen. Though you may not believe it now, your invitation should be considered a great honor. There are very few people in this world who will have the opportunity that you now have right now if you choose to accep
t this invitation, and not many will learn the truth until it is too late.

  “The True North Society does not exist. It is a myth, an urban legend, just another story that’s been told for decades. Or so we would have you believe. The True North Society is nowhere and yet it is everywhere. As far as you know it is still a myth, yet you are here this evening before us. I will neither confirm nor deny our existence to you here tonight. With all that you have heard and what you have now seen, you must ask yourselves—what do I believe?

  “I am not here to convince you one way or another. I am here to offer you an opportunity to learn the truth. But the truth will not come easily. To be granted access to learn the secrets we defend with our very lives each and every day, you will have to complete rigorous training and prove you are worthy. This training will be the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. It will test your loyalty, honor, strength, and sense of sacrifice to see if you have what it takes to defend the secrets yourselves.” The cloaked woman stopped and took a breath. She turned her head to both sides to glance back at the accompanying cloaked figures behind her, who all nodded in unanimous approval.

  Every moment of this experience was growing stranger and stranger. We were in a transparent room overlooking the cosmos before a clan of grownups in Halloween costumes, giving us the “opportunity of a lifetime” speech. It was all too much. What do I believe? I had no idea. I had heard of the True North Society before, but equated them to the Illuminati. I’d seen their compass symbol randomly on the internet, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t know if they were real or not and never did any research on them—conspiracy theories had never interested me. How had my search led me here?

  “Why should we believe anything you’re saying?” the woman asked. She was the first to speak up.

  “Because you can look out these windows and know there is something very special about this place, and as an extension, something very special about us and what we have to offer,” the speaker said. “You will have the choice whether to accept or to go back to your ordinary lives. The choice is yours and the opportunity is yours. I am not here to tell you how to live your lives. You have seen something this night that very few people in the world have ever seen, or will ever see, and may choose what you will do with this newfound knowledge. Are you the type of person that lets an opportunity slip through your fingers? Or are you someone who can recognize a great opportunity for what it is and seize it?” She dramatically held out her arm and clenched a gloved fist.

  “I think of myself as a pretty proactive woman,” the female captive said. “But all this—well, I don’t know what all this is. You’re not convincing me of some great opportunity I’m missing out on. Kidnapping me in the night does not earn my trust. How can you convince me any of this is real? I see this more as an elaborate soundstage. Is that what this is? Are we in some hanger in the middle of the desert?”

  The speaker shook her head. “If you can’t see the opportunity, then you will never see the truth,” she said and stepped back in line with the other cloaked figures.

  “Why were we chosen?” I asked, and I cringed at the sound of my own soft, mousy voice.

  “Each of you was chosen for a specific reason, by a specific person,” one of the other cloaked figures said, this one bearing the deep voice of a middle-aged man. “Each of you is special, which is the first thing you must know.”

  “Who chose me?” I asked.

  “And me?” the woman repeated.

  Mallory and the man were both oddly quiet—almost like they knew something.

  “If you choose to accept your candidacy, then you shall find out,” the original female speaker said. “If not, then your question will remain unanswered and all of this will become a distant memory, like trying to hold onto a fleeting dream after being woken prematurely.”

  I was chosen… By whom? All I could think of was my father…

  “I understand this is frustrating,” she continued, as if reading my mind. “But this is the way it has to be if we want to protect ourselves. We must be extremely cautious with whom we let into our inner circle. We have remained a myth since 1949 and will keep up that guise until the end of days. Every group must take precautions. Now think of the precautions it takes to defend a group that claims not to exist.

  “I understand this is a big decision and I urge that you not take it lightly. And that is why we will not be asking for your acceptance or abnegation here this evening. You will have exactly one week to reflect and decide.”

  One of the other masked men stepped forward and pulled small black cards from beneath his robe. They looked like thick business cards. He approached me first and handed me one.

  Once he moved on, I examined the card, which contained nothing more than a phone number. I flipped it over, only to find the other side blank.

  “Take the next week to reflect on what you have seen and heard today, and if you want to know more—if you desire to know the truth—then call the number on the card and your candidacy will begin,” the original speaker said. “Show it to no one. Tell no one what you have seen here tonight. Once you’ve made the call, instructions will be provided. If you do not call within the week, then consider your opportunity gone.”

  Once the four of us had our cards, and the cloaked figure was back in line with the others, the primary speaker continued. “I speak for my fellow members as well as myself when I say thank you for your time tonight. I apologize for the dramatics, but they are integral to the mystery of our identity as an organization. I do hope for your full consideration and potential acceptance within one week’s time. My name is Janice Bolt, the president of the True North Society and the United World Coalition. I look forward to welcoming each of you to the Society and shaking your hands. You may not have known that you were searching for your True North, but you were—and you’ve found it.” And with that, the cloaked figures stepped back into the glass elevator and ascended into the station above.

  The only person left with us was Matthew. I could see him more clearly now than when he visited me in the hospital. He had steely gray eyes and fair skin. Even in the light, he looked as youthful as before, not much older than I was. But there was a hardness to his eyes that suggested more experience than his appearance suggested. Matthew was not in formal clothes like in the hospital, but black military-style fatigues—like the men who had attacked my friends and me in the canyon.

  “Was it you?” I asked, my fear turning to anger.

  “Me who took you?” Matthew asked.

  “Yeah,” the lady said accusatorily. “You’re dressed like the men who snatched me too.”

  “I can’t be everywhere at once,” Matthew said, suppressing a slight grin.

  “Is this funny to you?”

  “My job has its moments. Now, I’m going to be putting each of you under again, then you’ll be brought home.”

  “What if I’m ready to say yes now,” the man said.

  “You’ll still need to call the number,” Matthew answered. “Protocol.”

  The man looked severely disappointed, but didn’t put up a fight. Matthew decided to start with him, sticking a syringe into his neck, then gently guiding him to the floor.

  Mallory was also oddly quiet and went next without an argument, though she gave me a vicious glare before her eyelids shut and she lost consciousness as well.

  “I am so calling in sick tomorrow,” the lady said as Matthew approached her. “I need a drink.”

  “A drink is always tempting,” Matthew said with a chuckle. “Hold still. I don’t want this to hurt.”

  A few seconds later, the woman was out, and Matthew lay her body on the glass floor.

  “Your turn,” Matthew said, now standing before me with one more syringe in his hand.

  “Is this what you meant by my search being over?”

  He nodded, his expression looking conflicted—or pained in some way. I felt myself shaking again.

  “What do you know about my s
earch?”

  “I know a great deal about you, Fiona Winter,” Matthew said.

  Gooseflesh prickled throughout my body from the combination of his intense gaze and unsettling words. “You’re not a trauma counselor,” I said, stating a fact.

  “No.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “Make the call and you’ll find out,” he said, bringing an empty hand to my neck.

  I wanted to flinch, but was suddenly frozen in place, even when he tucked my bangs behind my ear and exposed the long scar running down my cheek. He tenderly brushed his thumb over the scar—something I never allowed anyone to do—but couldn’t move. Then he raised the needle to the opposite side of my neck and injected me with the clear serum. Matthew’s face faded from view as I felt myself falling. Everything went black.

  8

  Fiona

  I was so relieved to awake in my own bed and still be in my clothes from the night before. The only things taken off were my shoes, which were set neatly on the floor by my nightstand. My purse that had been left in Alexis’s car peeked out from around the nightstand’s corner.

  I felt groggy, but not overly sick. Sitting up, my head began to spin, coaxing me to return down to the pillow.

  The sun was up behind the curtains, the same sight that lit up my room most mornings. My door was closed, and the ceiling fan blew steadily overhead, its soft hum lulling me to sleep at night. Quickly surveying my room from the bed, everything appeared in order.

  I thought back to the events of the night before, which now merely felt like a vivid dream. It was hard enough to process the information, not to mention what I’d seen inside that glass room. Then there was the strange presence of the man from the hospital.

  Matthew.

  And Mallory. I couldn’t imagine how we were related in this messed up situation. While my mind reeled, grasping for any kinds of theories or potential answers, I remembered the card given to me by the cloaked figure. Immediately, I searched my pockets and found the black card with the white phone number.