A freak accident at Chloe's seventeenth birthday party reveals her psychic abilities, and the community responds by condemning her as a witch who must be burned alive. As she attempts to escape across the dystopian, war-ravaged territory of her home...
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SHIVERING IN DARKNESS, CHLOE'S EYES fluttered open. She realized she'd been stripped down to her bra and panties and was now laying upon a cot, exposed to the chill air. Her instincts sent a wave of panic through her brain. Where am I?
As she struggled into a seated position, her muscles revolted in agony. The room temperature had made them as inflexible as a half-frozen piece of meat, and her flight of the previous night had drained them of all their energy. They caught me. Her throbbing brain reeled upon remembrance of the night before. The nausea caused from the exertion of her forbidden power had subsided, leaving her with a growing fear.
Her eyes adjusted, and she could make out a window with bars. She got up, stumbled toward them, and put her slender hands against the frigid metal. A prison cell... the fate of a witch... She wanted to deny her sudden realization. I'm the witch! Even though Chloe had kept her power hidden her entire life, she'd never identified herself as being a sorceress. She wasn't even sure what being a witch entailed, except for the universal loathing the people of her town people professed for witches, and that this moral transgression required that the sinner be burned at the stake. In the distance, a soft blue light glowed upon the horizon. Only an hour or so, and it would be dawn. Walking back to her cot, she trod over a blanket that must have slid off her body during her troubled sleep. Prone on the cot, she pulled the rough, woolen cover all the way up to her eyes. Her teeth chattered as her thoughts drifted to Wayne. What would he think of her now? If only she hadn't interfered with the bottle, then she would've had a chance to see him again. No! If I hadn't used my power, Lillian would've gotten him.
But the truth dawned upon her. Now Lillian would have her Wayne anyway. Chloe rued the fact that her foolishness had destroyed any possible chance of a life with him. One kiss. Would that have been enough for Lillian to finally seduce Wayne? His parents preferred Lillian's social standing. Everyone in town considered Lillian to be his perfect match even though Wayne had been Chloe's best friend since childhood. But it would've been more than one kiss. Sometimes when the couples went to the closet, they didn't come out for another ten minutes. She shuddered with revulsion at the thought of Lillian kissing him. Yes, it was worth it. Wayne was the only person who made life in this miserable town worthwhile—the only person who knew how to make her laugh.
She lay in her cot ruminating until she fell back asleep. Her dream of running from a pack of wolves was brutally interrupted by the deafening clang of a steel door swinging open. The sun was beaming through the window and the room had grown comfortably warm. Chloe guessed that it was already midafternoon.
"You've got a visitor," the deputy snarled. It was the same deputy she'd vomited on the night before. As he stepped aside, a balding man decked out in the priestly red robe of the New Faith, with its characteristic stiff black collar, marched into her cell. He had a silk sash draped around his neck, embroidered with flames and flying dragons. Her father.
