I woke up to stark silence. I sat up, pulling the sleeping bag up my bare breasts trying to remember where I was.
"Gabe?"
Silence answered.
With irrational, unexplainable, rising panic drumming out of control, I realized I was alone in the middle of Nowhere, Oz. I tightened the grip on the silky fabric of the sleeping bag until my knuckles turned white with effort. Struggling not to give in to fear, I brushed aside the thought of wondering where such intense panic could be coming from and chose to be my practical self instead. A poor choice to make as the ensuing events would later reveal, but no matter how powerful the warnings, I still hadn't gotten used to trusting my intuition. Only when we truly stare at our enemies in the eyes do we learn what we're capable of, or not.