Wish

Wish

New Hope Academy, Episode
Four

Scarlett Haven

Copyright
© 2016 Scarlett
Haven

http://scarletthaven.wordpress.com

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

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the hard work of this author.

This book is dedicated to my mom.

Glad you like this
series!

I love you!

This is episode 4 in the
New Hope Academy Series
. It is the
last book in this series.

I highly recommend picking up the
first three episodes,
Fate
,
Luck
, and
Fame
before reading this.

ONE

Where are we?

Katerina.

I wake up in an unfamiliar place, not knowing
where I am or how I got here. My body is laying against something
hard and very cold. My arms are behind my back and they’re
cramping. I go to move them, but I can’t. I open my eyes and jerk
up to see that I’m lying on a dirty concrete floor. My hands are
tied behind my back, and they’re attached to somebody
else.

“
Damon,” I say, my voice hoarse.
It barely comes out as a whisper.

He doesn’t respond, and I pray that he’s
alive.

I pray like I’ve never prayed
before.

“
Damon,” I say, a little
louder.

Memories come rushing back to me of getting in
the car with Matthews and Rafael.

They… drugged us. That part is hazy. In fact,
almost everything after getting in the car is hazy.

Oh my gosh. Matthews! I trusted him! He’s
spent the night on my floor before! He’s had many opportunities to
kidnap me. Why did he wait so long? Why now? And why did he have to
kidnap Damon too?

I try and reach for my phone in my back
pocket, to see if it’s still there. It’s not. Guess they were
smarter than I thought.

“
Damon, please wake up,” I say
again, this time on the verge of tears.

He still doesn’t respond, but I hear him take
a deep breath. Relief rushes through me. At least he’s alive.
Whatever they gave us was strong. I can’t even feel my legs, and
barely my arms. My head is aching, probably because I need water.
Who knows how long we’ve been passed out.

I think about the Glock that Tristan gave me.
It’s sitting in the top drawer of my desk at school. A lot of good
it’s going me there. I should’ve had that gun on me at all times. I
could’ve prevented this.

Tristan is probably so upset right now. So is
Alik. And my dad. I wonder if he’s found mum yet. He will. And he
will find me too, I have to believe that.

It isn’t just
me
missing. Damon Hartley is missing
too. The whole United States will be looking for him. I wouldn’t be
surprised if the military was looking for us right now. I just hope
they can find us, wherever we are.

“
Did we get on an airplane?” I
hear Damon ask from behind me. His voice is weak and he still
sounds half asleep.

“
I don’t know,” I whisper. “I
don’t remember much.”

“
They held you down gave you a
shot. And then me one,” he says. “I remember getting on a jet, but
I don’t remember anything else.”

“
Where do you think we are?” I
ask.

“
I don’t know,” he answers. “Maybe
Russia.”

“
This isn’t good. This could start
a war. You’re… you,” I say. “Your dad is going to do whatever it
takes to get you back safely.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I’m sorry that I dragged you into
this,” I tell him.

“
I’m glad I am with you,” Damon
says. “I’d hate to think of you being here all alone.”

I feel him squeeze my hand, and a very selfish
part of me is glad he’s here too. I would be scared if I was all
alone. Having him here makes it all better. Even though I am
worried about him. I can’t lose Damon. No matter what happens, I
have to protect him.

“
My dad will find us,” Damon tells
me, his voice sounding stronger now. “I know he will. He’s probably
got all of the United States military here, looking for me. He
would’ve been alerted the second that he knew I was
missing.”

“
I wonder how long it took them to
figure it out,” I say.

“
I don’t know,” he says. “I just
want to know where we’re at and how long we’ve been
here.”

I know that the longer we’re missing, the
harder we will be to find. I just hope that they find us soon,
before we’re killed. I’m only sixteen. I still have so much to live
for—so much to experience. So does Damon. This can’t be how it
ends.

“
I bet Tristan is freaking out,”
Damon says.

“
No. I bet Tristan is calm. He’s
unreasonably chill when there is a crisis going on. Alik, on the
other hand, is probably freaking out,” I say.

“
My dad is probably freaking out
too,” he says. “He handles stress well, but not when it comes to
me. He sent me six bodyguards just because he knew you would be at
school.”

“
Apparently six wasn’t enough,” I
comment.

Because, seriously. Here we are, tied up in
some basement.

At least, I think it’s a basement. There is a
staircase leading up and a small window at the top, letting in a
little light. It’s cold down here, but there is a little space
heater close by, making a loud noise. There is a water heater down
here, and a door that leads to something—maybe a furnace. There are
also hookups for a washer and dryer, but there is nothing plugged
up to them.

The door at the top of the stairs creeks open,
and a guy that I don’t recognize walks down the stairs. The guy is
young—not too much older than me. He can’t be older than seventeen
or eighteen. He’s got light blond hair and pale skin. His dark eyes
meet mine, and his step falters.

“
You are
just a kid
,” he says, speaking
Russian.

“
I’m
sixteen
,” I say. “
How old did you think I was
?”

“
Sixteen
?” he looks uncomfortable.
“
What about the American
boy
?
How old is
he
?”

“
Sixteen
,” Damon answers for
himself.

The boy sighs and pulls a knife out of his
back pocket. I stiffen a bit, but try not to let him see my
fear.

“
I’m
going to untie you, but no funny business
,” he says. “
There are people with
guns at the top of the stairs, and trust me when I say they won’t
hesitate to shoot you.
”

“
What
about food?”
I ask. “
I’m hungry
.”

“
I’ll
bring down food in a little bit
,” the boy
says.

“
What’s
your name
?” I ask, and I feel the knife
cut at the rope behind me.

“
Salvador
,” he answers.
“
You’re Mikhail Vasin’s kid,
right
?”

“
Yes,”
I answer, wondering what this
guy is doing, working for the bad guys. He’s too young to be doing
this.

The rope comes undone, and I considering using
my training. I could fight this guy. But I know he’s telling the
truth about there being guys with guns at the top of the stairs.
They won’t hesitate to shoot me and kill me. And then Damon would
be left alone. I have to stay alive and protect him.

“
You know
who my dad is as well
,” Damon says.
“
This is not going to end well for
you
.”

“
Shut up,
American
,” Salvador says to Damon, then
walks back up the stairs.

I pull my arms in front of me and rub my
wrist. My wrists have red marks where I was tied. Damon scoots
around in front of me so I can see him. He looks terrible. His
brown hair is a mess, like he’s been fighting. He has a black eye,
and he looks exhausted.

“
What happened to your eye?” I
ask, reaching a hand up to touch it.

He jerks his head back before I reach it.
“Nothing. After they drugged you, I fought back. I wanted to save
you. But I wasn’t strong enough.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Why? I obviously couldn’t do it,”
he says.

“
But you tried,” I say.

“
I know why you picked Tristan
over me. He can protect you. I can’t.”

“
Damon…”

“
Let’s just not talk for a while,”
he says, then lays down on the hard concrete floor, closing his
eyes.

I hate that he’s mad at me, but I think it has
more to do with him than me. He tried to protect me, and that means
a lot to me. I only wish I had been awake to protect him. All those
months of training and it wasn’t enough.

I hope Tristan finds us soon.

I have to find
Katerina.

Tristan.

I am talking with some of the best trained men
in the United States military, trying to come up with a plan to
save Katerina and Damon. The president of the United States is
pacing back and forth nervously, which is something I never thought
I’d see. I’ve never seen him nervous before. Then again, I’ve never
seen his son kidnapped before.

“
Russia is willing to comply,” one
of the president’s advisors says as he walks back into the
room.

I sigh in relief.

If Russia was unwilling to let us
into their country, it would mean war. Instead, they’re going to
help us, which is good. Maybe we can get out of this with minimal
damage. I don’t know a lot about foreign politics, but I do know we
do
not
want to go
to war with Russia.

By now, the whole world knows that
Damon Hartley and his
alleged
girlfriend, Katerina Vasin, has disappeared.
Katerina isn’t his girlfriend, but that is what the media is
saying. It’s only a matter of time before they dig up information
about her—about her father being a terrorist. They already know
she’s Russian, and people are speculating.

“
Tristan,” one of the guys drawing
up the plans says to me. “Are you absolutely certain that this girl
is not involved. We can’t afford to be wrong about
this.”

“
I am certain,” I say, not
hesitating or wavering. “Katerina Vasin is to be
trusted.”

“
Okay,” he says, putting his faith
in me. “When did the girl’s cell signal go out?”

“
They landed in Moscow early in
the morning,” I answer. “They must have realized that she had her
phone then and they ditched it.”

“
Russia is a big country,” the
president says. “How are we supposed to find them? And how do we
even know they’re still in Russia?”

“
I believe they’re in Russia,” I
say. “Everybody is looking for them. There is no way they can leave
the country. Wherever they are, they’re hiding out. They’re waiting
for us to make the first move. Well, not us. They’re waiting on
Mikhail Vasin.”

“
And Mikhail is willing to comply,
right?” he asks.

“
Yes. Anything to get his daughter
back. Right now, he’s looking for his wife, his son’s fiancé, and
Katerina,” I say. “They’ve pretty much taken his whole
family.”