As I eased into the long gravel driveway of my family’s old lake house, I could hear the rocks crunching under the tires. The place needed renovated, with the shutters hanging off the outside and the rotted roof.  I parked the car in front of the shed and let Max, my dog, out of the car so he could run around. He was wagging his tail and jumping up on his hind legs. I could feel him, his happiness. I had the ability to feel things, emotions of the beings around me. I can feel their heart pounding again and again, I can feel the way the air fills their chest. I can hear their thoughts, hear when they speak, sense their mental and physical reactions. I can see their whole story, their memories, sometimes even a very short glimpse of their future.
     I came up here to walk around the woods, mostly to get away from all of that chaos. The way the wet terrain is slick under my sneakers tunes out everything else completely. We made our way through the woods behind the lake house. There were no neighbors here, but babbling and gibberish suddenly begin filling my head. I turn swiftly and I raise my wrist so that I can get to my watch. I found it secured to my arm after waking up in the hospital a few years ago. I can't take it off. They told me this would happen, when I was in that hospital. They would extract my ability and kill me. Now, they are close and running is the only way out. I press the flashing button on the side of the thick black watch. A hologram appears. My mother. She died years ago. She knew too. “Don’t be afraid, you knew they were coming, Dakota. You have been prepared for this. They can’t find you if they are unable to locate you. Find the hospital, it's a safe haven. They will tell you where to go from there. Run.” The hologram snapped shut and I kicked it in high gear.
     I pumped my arms back and forth and I could feel the wind burning my cheeks. I reached up for the bouncing zipper of my parka and dragged it down. I ripped the sleeves off my arms, one by one, leaving it behind. I can run faster without it. I fly past trees, taking short breaths and zipping through trails of past walks taken with Max. A large branch in the middle of a path causes me to trip. I whip my hand out in front of me, but my reflexes were too late. I smashed my head on a large boulder.

     I woke up in a van, gauze wrapped tightly around my head. My left temple was throbbing. I try to bring my hand to my head but my arms are strapped down with the seatbelts.  “How did I get here? “ I think. Someone was driving . I moved my head the slightest bit, “ugh” I moaned. The driver turned around, he looked seventeen, my age. “Hey, your awake!” he exclaimed. “Nice fall by the way, you really hit that rock hard.” He was cute, really cute. He had small brown curls that formed at the ends of his hair, deep blue eyes, and he was buff. “Have we met before?” I managed to get out a sentence without making my headache even worse. “Kind of, not really. I'll explain later, Dak-kota" he stuttered as if he wasn’t sure of my name. The light was bright through the window and it was beginning to hurt my eyes just as bad as my head. “Kind of?” I questioned him. I don't remember ever seeing him before. He looked strangely familiar though, the way his jaw line was shaped and the way his cheekbones were perfectly sculpted. I couldn't remember him. It was that moment when the van sped over a pothole in the dirt road that all of his thoughts and emotions hit me like a ton of bricks. His name was Hanley. I could tell he wasn't going to hurt me by the cautious and caring aura that enveloped him. I was getting a glimpse of my mother somewhere in his head but before I could see anything else, everything I saw in him and all of his emotions were slammed shut. That had never happened before. No one had ever been able to keep me out, he knew about me.

"How did you do that?" As soon as the words left my mouth he looked over his right shoulder to stare at me as I gawked at him in confusion.

"Lots of practice, and I've had more training than you." He reached up and tucked a few loose curls behind his right ear as he flashed me his charming smile. "I will let you see what I want you to see, and as for everything else, well, we all have our secrets. Don't we, Dakota?" I looked down to realize I wasn't restricted by the seatbelts anymore and as I sat there wondering when I got the restraints off, I got more images from his mind. The restraints were never there. Hanley had an ability, more than one.

     There was a blur of a white coat and a bright light shining in my eyes. I brought my hand up to shield my eyes. There was something tightened around my wrist. It was round at the top, like a watch. It was thick and black. I studied the foreign object locked on my arm. Someone was shouting and there were voices in the background.

"Move people, Move!" A man in a white coat shouted. Everything came into focus, I was in a hospital.

"Where's her brother?" The man shouted at a nurse rolling my gurney down the hallway.
I tried to speak "I don't have a brother." I squaked, my throat was dry and my voice was scratchy. And just as quickly, everything faded to black again. 

“Dakota?” Hanley’s voice snapped me out of a memory.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” My head was still foggy. This was one of the first times I wasn’t on sensory overload. I wasn’t used to it being so quiet.

“Relax, supergirl,” he chuckled. My eyes widened at the term. Not one time have I ever thought of myself as any kind of super anything.

“Excuse me?” I asked in bewilderment, clearly not understanding the point of that nickname. I sat up and buckled the seatbelt across my lap in fear of the speed Hanley was driving at.

“Supergirl? You wouldn’t coin the phrase?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled, almost comically.

“No, I wouldn’t,” I scoffed, “there’s no reason to.” I crossed my arms.

“You don’t know what you just did, do you?” The car slowed to a stop as we pulled to the side of the road. Hanley turned around in his seat to face me. I looked on, confused. The last thing I remember was slipping and hitting my head. “What’s the last thing you remember?” I thought back to before I had fallen. I remembered walking with Max, I remembered the watch, I remembered running from the nearby voices, and I remembered falling.

“I was in the woods behind the lake house.There was someone after me.” Although I did not recognize the voices, nothing I heard from them sounded admirable.

“Does it look like there’s a lake around here? No one was after you,”  he shook his head, “that was the false image your brain relayed so you wouldn’t remember what you were actually doing. You just stopped that car. That family almost died. You stopped the car.” I held my breath. I remembered no car. I remembered no family. I remembered no saving. “I now introduce ability number two, if you zone out, if you ever zone out, you’re going to end up doing something you won’t remember. That’s why mom gave you the watch. It’ll help you remember. It’s not just the random holograms. If you hit the square button on the side it should restore your memory.” It all sounded like lies.

“Yeah, well that button doesn’t do anything, I’ve pressed it a million times and nothing has ever happened. Where are we? How do you know my mom?” I froze. The hospital, the mention of a brother, the funeral. That’s where I had seen him, my mom’s funeral.

“We’re in the middle of Oklahoma. You and me, we have the same abilities, passed down from the same parents,” Hanley let out a breath, “right now, nothing is as it seems.”