Prologue

2,300 people in America go missing every day. Most of them all go to the same place.

My name is Deetro Connors. I am fourteen-years old. My parents are Hank and Crissy Connors. I have a little sister named Susie. These facts I will all forget. I don't remember my life. I don't remember if I even had a life. I don't remember anything. The only thing I can grasp is my name is Deetro. My home is hot and humid; the smells are suffocating. The scent of blood and death fill the air of the corridor. My ears are drowning in screams of the tested. I don't remember my real home. This is the only one I know of. Any place is far better than here. This is where the missing go.

Chapter 1

I was a shock to my family. I was born with coal black hair when pretty much everyone in my whole family tree was blonde, but I did have the bright blue eyes that runs in my family. My parents desperately wished for a little girl, a little girl to dress in pink and to play dolls with, so my parents were disappointed when I was born. They actually named me Deetro, it means 'surprise'.

When I was three, my mom and dad noticed my unusual habit of being alone, which was abnormal because most people in my family are very social. They even took me to psychiatrists but they couldn't find anything wrong with me. My parents were overcome with joy when my little sister was born. She was a beautiful baby. She had blonde curls, bright blue eyes, and pretty white skin. They named her Susie. I was neglected even more, but I didn't mind; I liked being by myself. If I wasn't in my family, you could describe us as the perfect-cheesy-happy-all-the-time-American-family. I stick out like a vampire at a beach.

One day, my father was driving down a dirt road off of the mountain in which our house was set on. Mother sat in the passenger seat while my little sister, Susie, and I sat in the back of our car. I can't recall where we were going then, but if we hadn't been driving down that dirt road that one summer day, our family would be whole. But that's not what happened. In reality, we drove our car until we crashed.

Music was playing on the radio. The sun had just set, making the summer air slightly cooler. The crickets chirped outside in the brisk air. Mom and Dad were talking in the front seats. Susie played with a doll while I stared out the window. The car's tires crunched under the compacted dirt.

My father was momentarily distracted. A drunk driver swerved into our car and our car, the one we drove to Grandma's in, the one we drove to the lake in, the one we drove right off the mountain in, grew out of control. The car jerked around and rolled off the mountain. Tumbling down, our car flipping over and over again. I couldn't tell which way was up and which way was down. I just clung to the door handle for dear life. My heart beat right out of my chest and I feared I would die of a heart attack before the accident killed me.

The car rolled over one last time. We sat strapped in our seats while the car was upside-down. I unbuckled my seat belt and lay down on the smashed-in roof of our car, not wanting to see if my sister or parents were hurt. Glass pinched my skin; I assumed the windows broke. Pain struck me everywhere, but I was too weak to notice of do anything about it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my parents unconscious. I don't dare to look at the sweet, little face of my baby sister. Her blonde curls probably stained in blood and her baby blue eyes closed, maybe forever. So I just laid there for hours. I wished for the end. I felt so close to death, I wish it would come already. Though death didn't come.

It seemed as if I was half asleep. My eyes were half open, I could partially see and hear things, though I couldn't move. I wanted this to be all over. I wanted someone to find us or I wanted to die, whichever comes first. All hope was lost. I strongly believed we were all going to pass away here. Just a minute ago, we were all in the car, driving down the hill, then all of a sudden, we are sitting here waiting for death. Maybe I was already dead.

I sat there in the dark. I found it harder and harder to breathe as if the night itself was trying to suffocate me. Hours later, I was blinded by a sudden white light. I knew I was dead. I thought the white light was heaven, but it was, in fact, a flashlight. My eyes were adjusted to the darkness of the night and so when a paramedic shined the light on my face, I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut. When the light moved away from me, I noticed flashing blue and red lights out of the cracked window. I, very faintly, heard sirens and people yelling. The sounds I heard seemed to be in the distance, as if I were in a long tunnel I could never escape. I felt so dizzy. I didn't want to move.

Someone broke the window even more with the end of an ax, and I was dragged out of my car by a yellow-gloved hand. I wanted to see if my family were alive, but at the same time, I didn't want to see them injured. If they were dead, I want to remember them as they were, instead of a lifeless body covered in blood and bruises. That wasn't my mom, my dad, or Susie, so full of life and happiness, not death and despair. The man with the yellow gloves carried me until other people shoved me onto a gurney and stuffed it into an ambulance. I used what little strength I had to sit up, but the paramedics pushed me down.

"He's lost a lot of blood," one of them said while putting a cup over my mouth to help me breathe. I was so dizzy. I heard a beeping sound coming from a machine. I breathed quickly, thinking that every breath I took could be my last. I sucked in air and it tightened my throat. My eyes were hot with tears as they ran down my face. I was moaning, pleading for someone to make the pain go away. The room spun until I went out cold.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital room. I looked around confused. I woke to the sound of crying. I looked over and saw my dad bawling in a bed next to mine.

"D...Dad?" I croaked out of my throat. He quickly shut up as if he were embarrassed. I tube ran from my wrist and more tubes were in my nose. Being a young child, I didn't know what they were for.

"Deetro, are you alright?" he said with urgency. My father and I were never close, as soon as you met our family, you could tell Susie was the favorite, so it was weird seeing him cry about me.

"Yes. I'm just sore. Are you okay?" he nodded and stared down. "Where's Mom? Where's Susie?" I said sitting up. He just shook his head without looking at me. I guess he wasn't crying about me. Mom died in the accident. Susie disappeared from the crash scene.