The Stolen Chapters by James Riley Page A

“I know about you and your friends . . . even your father. So believe me when I tell you that you must never find him. That is all I can say.”
    â€œNo, please!” Bethany shouted. “Help me get out of these chains. Let me see who you are!”
    â€œYou know how to free yourself,” the voice said, getting farther away.
    â€œNo, I can’t ,” she said, not sure if there was water on her face or if she was crying. “I can’t do it again. Not to them , too. I can’t!”
    â€œIt’s the only way,” the voice said, even farther now. “You must leave and save yourself.”
    â€œPlease, help me!” she shouted. “Please!”
    â€œI saw what you did on Argon VI,” the voice said, and this time she could barely hear it. “I know how you feel, and what this means to you. That is why I cannot release you. Escape, Bethany. Leave all of this behind, and forget about it. The worlds will both be safer if you do.”
    Argon VI?! How could this person have seen her there? “What do you mean?” she shouted. “How would they be safer?”
    But this time there was no response.
    Bethany shouted again, and flailed around in the chair so hard that she splashed water all over herself. Crying in frustration, she yanked on the chains over and over, but all she did was make her hands bleed from the hard metal.
    Argon VI. How could anyone have seen her there? She hadn’t told Owen or Kiel. Doyle didn’t know. No one knew, other than EarthGirl.
    The memory of her time on the other planet filled her mind, and somehow, it actually managed to calm her down. She stared at the chains, then at her red, scratched hands, and finally at the chair she was laying on.
    She’d been going about this the wrong way. Too much doing, not enough thinking.
    She dropped the chains, and instead reached behind her for the soaking wet cushion on the chair, which she pulled out as best she could. Once she’d managed to get it off the chair, she unzipped the cover and yanked out the cushion. That she tossed aside, then took the cushion cover and wrapped it around her hands for protection.
    Then she grabbed the chains again.
    The cover protected her skin enough for her to pull as hard as she could. First one chair leg, then the other pulled free, and instantly she jumped to her feet, pulling against the heavy weight of the unattached chains on her wrists, searching for whoever had been talking to her.
    Except nobody was there, and there was no way out of the room, other than the door Doyle had used. And that had been in her sight the entire time.
    Who was her visitor? And how had he managed to see her on a completely different planet?!

MISSING CHAPTER 3
    One month ago, the same night . . .
    T he green sun of Argon VI beat down on Bethany as she punched a hole straight through a mountain, screaming at the top of her lungs until her throat hurt. She leaped into the air, flying hundreds of feet into the yellow sky, then turned her laser vision on the desert floor beneath her, burning the sand into glass. She then dove back down to the surface, splintering the glass into dust so fine it felt like snow.
    â€œWHERE ARE YOU?” she screamed into the empty sky as she sank to her knees, her voice like thunder. She punched the ground a few more times, tears falling and mixing with the dirt on her face. “WHY CAN’T I FIND YOU?”
    She leaped back into the air and rocketed off toward the ocean, a sonic boom exploding behind her. She hit the water with a sound like a bomb going off, tunneling through it so quickly that she left only steam behind her, then aimed straight down. She hit the sea floor hard enough to send tremors in all directions, then spun around in a circle as fast as she could, twisting the water into a funnel all the way to the surface, an enormous whirlpool a mile deep.
    She stopped, and as the ocean water began to collapse in