Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome Read Free Page B

14 embroidered on their shoulders. A number whose significance Amanda and I knew all too well.
These men weren’t average foot soldiers; they were the “military” from Barracks 14, and I could think of only one reason I would be dreaming about them.
    There was light coming through the door on the left, silhouetting the central figure, the object of their pursuit, a girl crouched in the dim light. Her back was turned to me, but I didn’t
need to see her face.
    It wasn’t the first time I’d dreamed this scene. The chances of it not coming true were disappointingly slim. My drawing was only a vague sketch, and the girl in it was looking away.
But the girl was Amanda. Even if we weren’t blood relatives, we considered ourselves sisters. If my dreams told me Amanda was in danger, we
both
had a problem.
    Still, I couldn’t exactly call her up on a hunch. Amanda was generally accepting of my so-called gift, as she had one of her own, but we both knew I could get it wrong when I was
attempting to come to grips with what the dreams represented. I had no evidence the faceless girl was Amanda, only a gut feeling expanding from a pit in my stomach. Calling her in the middle of the
night, Eastern time, me being all paranoid, would only freak her out. Hardly fair. If she’d been across my room in the bed where she belonged, she would have likely flashed me an eye roll and
mumbled, “Go back to sleep.”
    I tried to heed that advice, but the more I thought about my dream—the girl, the uniforms—the more jittery I got. It was like I’d had a triple-shot espresso. And though the
barrage of images—“visions” still sounded too strange—had subsided, I felt like my heart was going to burst. My dreams rarely came with an indication of
when
(or even
if) they were going to take place. For all I knew, what I’d just seen could be happening right now. Or it might never happen at all.
    My stomach was knotted and tight. After everything we’d been through in the past eight years, Amanda was the closest thing I had to family. I missed her. I hoped she was safe.
    I knew she’d only gone to Orlando for a few days, a week at most, but in light of the dream, it felt like forever.
    Sitting in the dark, empty room, I felt alone in a way I hadn’t felt in years. Amanda and I had been together longer than we’d been with anyone else. Amanda-and-Jess,
Jess-and-Amanda. The team. Like twins, one and the same, never without the other. While that connection could feel smothering at times, it was also reassuring to know that she was there for me.
    Now she was off in Orlando on an adventure of her own. I felt the panic set in. Every wind was Maleficent’s chill blast; the trees outside seemed bewitched to grab me from my bed. In my
overactive imagination, even the jovial kids downstairs were OTKs plotting evil deeds.
    I understood the signs of paranoia. I also knew when I was right.
    MATTIE
    I wasn’t always this way. Maybe I inherited it, but I don’t know because my parents aren’t around to ask. I can’t exactly say it feels normal. I remember
not having it.
    The first time it happened was strange because everything seemed so…normal. My godmother didn’t understand, or she didn’t want to. At the time I truly thought I was being helpful.
We both loved her dog, so why was helping him wrong? Those were the sentiments of a twelve-year-old girl, innocent feelings before things took a turn for the worse. I was running my hands over
Rex’s glossy fur, and strange thoughts trickled in. The mix of emotions was hard to place, but hidden beneath it, I sensed that something was gravely wrong. Rex peered at me with sad brown
eyes, and I realized with a start that they were
his
thoughts. His stomach hurt.
    My frantic pleas didn’t seem to sway my godmother; she only seemed concerned for me. She didn’t believe me when I told her that her dog was sick. I begged and begged until she came
to her senses, and sure enough, the vet