In this Darkest Minds-inspired AU, Tessa Brennan finds herself escaping Thurmond, the largest of the camps for PSI rehabilitation, and into the group of four other teenaged runaways.

Pairing/s: N/A

Warning/s: N/A

Word Count: 1276

Tessa flew through the forest, her feet moving as fast as she willed them to. Twigs and snow meshed beneath her feet, and the dark-haired girl stumbled as she ran. But she kept moving forward through the trees, through the snow, towards whatever awaited her beyond.

As she ran, Tessa found herself dwelling on the fact that she'd actually escaped. The extraction plan had worked, but after three years in Thurmond, she couldn't trust anyone but herself and those like her. Everyone else was out to get them by this point. They were no longer children, but freaks with bounties over their heads.

Tessa dodged a low-hanging branch and veered along a creek, her heart pounding in her chest. She staggered across the stream, daring a glance behind her as she did so.

Somehow, no one was following her. There were no distant shouts and commands, no sounds of footsteps crunching the snow beneath them, just the eerie silence of a forest in early winter. A squirrel darted down a tree, an acorn in its mouth, and Tessa couldn't help but to eye the animal as it moved. She knew what it was like to somehow be targeted for abilities she couldn't help, traits she couldn't remove, and constantly leave in fear.

Tessa shook her head and continued along, although keeping an eye out for any form of an ambush. Eventually, the snow-coated grass turned into slick obsidian pavement, and Tessa ducked behind a tree as she scanned her surroundings.

She'd ended up in a small parking lot in the middle of the woods, where a road cleaved the forest in two. A small strip mall of buildings sat to one side of the parking lot, and there, in the lot, sat a black mini-van.

Before she could even think about it, Tessa neared the van. It seemed to be empty, which was to her benefit. Maybe she'd find a spare key for it, and somehow teach herself how to drive her way to safety. It couldn't be that hard right?

Tessa was ripped from thought at the sound of a door opening, and with wide turquoise eyes, she spotted a group of people emerging from one of the buildings. She needed a place to hide, and it seemed like the only place to go was inside the van.

Biting back a curse, Tessa leapt into the van, hurrying to the back. Maybe if she stayed quiet, they wouldn't even know she was there—

"Dude," A voice shook her out of her panicked reverie, and Tessa begrudgingly peaked out over the row of seats. "What're you doing in my van?"

Both middle doors of the van were open, and four teenagers looked back at her in a mix of confusion and amusement. The source of the voice, a blond boy with curious blue eyes and a soda in his hands, eyed her expectantly. The other teenagers included a bronze-skinned girl with piercing gold eyes, an Asian boy who seemed to already know everything about her with one look, and another boy with windswept chestnut hair and gleaming emerald eyes.

"Uh," Tessa spoke at last. "I was hiding."

"You're not very good at it," The Asian boy noted. "We saw you leap in as soon as you did."

Tessa scowled at him but took a deep breath, the cold winter air mixing with the smell of the car. "Are you psi kids too?" She asked.

The blond boy who'd spoken before gave her a flat look. "No, we're skip tracers that somehow missed the cut of IAAN. Of course, we're psi kids!"

"Reese, lighten up, she needs our help." The boy with the chestnut hair elbowed the blond boy, Reese apparently. He turned back to Tessa, and she felt his gaze settle upon her softly like a puzzle piece moving into place. "What's your name?"

"Tessa," She muttered, entranced by this boy's charming good looks. She didn't even blame herself; being a teenager in a camp where girls and boys were strictly separated wasn't exactly a breeding ground for hormones.

The boy smiled, "That's pretty."

"Oy, Lover Boy, get with the program." The Asian boy snapped sarcastically.

"Right, well, I'm Kaden," The green-eyed boy said. "This is Reese, Mark, and Dale." He pointed to the blond boy, the Asian boy, and the girl respectively.

"And we're all about to get moving before someone puts two and two together." Mark spoke with haste, sliding into the car. "You sitting in the trunk for the whole ride, Theresa?"

"Tessa, and no, thanks." She corrected, and maneuvered her way over the row of seats.

The rest of the kids got into the car, and Tessa found herself sandwiched between Mark and Dale. Everything her mother had told her about getting into a car with strangers seemed to fly out the window as the van pulled out of the lot and down the road, but then again, did that rule really apply when you had supernatural powers that made you a deer in hunting season?

As the car moved down the abandoned highway, Tessa found herself relaxing. She exhaled, and glanced out the sliver of window she could see. A blur of green and white raced past the glass and Tessa couldn't stop herself from thinking that for three years, she hadn't felt this way, this free. She was leaving all of the labor, all of the testing, all of the discrimination behind.

"So where are you guys headed?" Tessa cleared her throat.

"East River," Kaden spoke from the driver's seat.

Tessa made a face. "Why? That's all the way in New York and frankly, you're not missing much."

Reese groaned. "No, the camp set up by the Slip Kid. It's the only safe place for our kind."

Tessa frowned at that. 'Our kind', it made them sound like they were aliens. They were teenagers with powers, not some sort of extraterrestrial. But in a way, she guessed that they were. In the eyes of society, the psi kids were monsters, freaks that needed rehabilitation or execution. Only they didn't know about that last part.

Mark leapt forward, joining Reese in the middle aisle so he could turn to glance at Tessa. "So, Tina—"

"Tessa—"

"Whatever," Mark waved a hand. "What color are you?"

The colors. Tessa had first been asked that question when she was thirteen, by a man in a white lab coat on her first day at Thurmond. Each color—red, orange, yellow, green, and blue—indicated a certain power; reds could control and create fire, oranges could read minds, yellows could control electricity, blues had telekinetic abilities, and greens had eidetic memories and intelligence that even the military couldn't access. However, at Thurmond, being either a red, orange, or yellow was not a good thing. You were labeled as dangerous, and carted off to either a different camp or a ditch.

And so as an orange, Tessa had pretended to be green for her three years in camp.

"I'm green," Tessa felt the lie settle like a weight in her heart for the first time as the car zipped down the road, on the way to wherever this last save haven was for them.

Mark nodded, and explained what colors the others were. He was a blue, Reese and Dale were yellows, and Kaden was an orange. At that last bit, Tessa's eyes widened in shock. Another orange in the car, only a few feet from her, and as Tessa caught his gaze in the rearview mirror, she wondered how long it would take for those green eyes to rip into her mind and bring her true abilities to light.

After all, it was only a matter of time.

~>�Ti�*