The Search for Artemis - By P. D. Griffith Page 0,33

roommate was missing in action.

After getting ready but before leaving for breakfast, Landon stood in the middle of his room, staring at the floor, mentally searching for anything he’d forgotten, but he soon realized he had no idea what to expect on his first day of training, and he didn’t have a clue what, if anything, he needed. He left the room still a bit anxious and headed to the cafeteria to meet Riley.

Landon’s heart fluttered in his chest when the smell of bacon and warm maple syrup floated down the hall and into his nose. He couldn’t wait to eat his favorite meal of the day, but the moment he walked through the door, he realized he wasn’t going to enjoy his morning. As the door closed behind him, everyone’s gaze in the cafeteria turned to him. He tried not to pay attention, keeping his eyes on the floor and lankily moving to the back of the breakfast line, but before he even got a single pancake on his plate, Riley was sprinting over to him.

“Landon! Why didn’t you tell me?” Riley blurted out. “Quick, come with me. You have to tell us everything.”

Landon was yanked out of the line and was dragged behind Riley as he made his way to a large group of people circled around a small section of a table.

“Riley? What are you talking about?”

Riley never responded. He just continued to hold Landon by the arm and pull him closer and closer to the crowd.

“All right, guys, I got him!” Riley yelled as they reached the group.

The crowd divided, revealing a small section of available bench, and Riley plopped Landon onto it.

“Okay, Landon, we have to know. . . . Is this really you?”

Riley grabbed a sheet of paper from off the table behind Landon and placed it in front of him, but it took Landon a moment to focus. The number of people surrounding him made him claustrophobic, and he couldn’t figure out anything he had done to warrant such an exuberant audience.

Landon honed in on the sheet of paper, attempting to discern what was on it amid the distracting bombardment of inquiring and affirmative voices. He realized, once he’d gathered himself, that it was a poorly-printed photograph—but it wasn’t any random photograph. It was a photo of him crouched down in the middle of the street wearing his dirty yellow shirt and grimy old jeans with a fully occupied city bus floating ten feet overhead. If he squinted, he could see the scared, screaming faces of people through the bus’ tinted glass.

“Where did you get this?” Landon asked, freaked out and blindsided. His pulse raced as he erratically searched the faces around him, hoping for someone to answer.

“So this is you?”

Landon recognized Katie Leigh’s voice, but he couldn’t find her anywhere around him. Before he could answer, the crowd roared with another deafening phase of incomprehensible curiosities. Still reeling, Landon sat on the bench with his forehead pressed into his hands, wondering how he didn’t realize one of the tourists at the museum had captured a snapshot of him that day. But now, he was having a crisis of conscience. He had hoped not to draw any extra attention to himself, to live in the background as he figured this whole psychokinesis thing out, and this photo of him was obviously enough to insight a near riot. He feared he might have already given himself away by his reaction moments earlier, and he could hardly guess what might happen if he affirmed his identity outright.

“Come on, Landon. . . . Tell us. Is that you in the picture? Was that your debut?” Riley egged on.

“Yeah, is it you?” someone hidden in the crowd screamed.

“Seriously, stop stalling and tell us already,” an unknown girl yelled from behind him.

The berating questions and forceful commands continued incessantly for what Landon thought was a lifetime. He was made. There was no denying he was the one in the picture, and unable to withstand the pressures of the mob any longer, he begrudgingly nodded. It was a small gesture, but served as more than enough to confirm the crowd’s suspicions. Instantly, the entire group erupted in a cacophony of conversations, but no one spoke directly to Landon. They became too engrossed in their own speculations surrounding Landon to even contemplate interrogating him further.

Even so, Landon breathed heavily and sweat dripped down the side of his face. He nervously played with his hands and neurotically wiped his brow on