The Island by Teri Hall

plump, round fruit Rachel had never seen before, but she was still full from the stew Tom had brought her. She sat next to Pathik and watched the others fill their plates. They all ate with gusto, silent until their stomachs were full. Rachel noticed Sarah watching her a few times, but she always looked away when Rachel met her gaze.
    “Now then.” Filina sat back in her chair. “We need to apologize, first, for the way we introduced ourselves to you.” She laughed lightly, as though abducting Rachel was a simple matter of a misunderstanding. “But you have to understand, we can’t take chances. We’ve sacrificed much to make this island a safe place and we had no idea who you were.” She looked around the table at Rachel and the others.
    “We were told . . .” Daniel hesitated. “That is, we were under the impression that this might be a safe place for us, too. It appears we may have been wrong about that.”
    “You weren’t wrong. It’s just . . . there have been people in the past, people who aren’t like us. They didn’t mean us any good.” Filina looked troubled. “We just had to be certain you weren’t like them.”
    “Do you mean Regs?” Malgam crossed his arms. “Well, I mean, some of us here are Regs.” He looked at Vivian and Daniel, then at Rachel.
    “Regs.” Filina tried the term out. “Is that what you call those with no talent?”
    Malgam shook his head. “That’s what we call the ones who stayed safe from the bombs, the ones on the U.S. side of things. At least, the ones we still don’t like.” He smiled at Rachel. “By talent I assume you mean our gifts. Plenty of us where I’m from have no gift.”
    “Really?” David spoke for the first time. “None at all? We all have something, here. I thought maybe these four didn’t because they weren’t from the bombed areas.”
    Malgam studied David. “Which four?” He got no answer. “How do you know how many of us have a gift and how many don’t?” He leaned forward across the table.
    There was silence around the table. David exchanged a look with Filina, who gave him a slight nod.
    “That’s my talent.” David spoke the words like a challenge. “I can tell whether a person has anything and I can tell how much. You, for instance,” he narrowed his eyes at Malgam, “have some talent, but it’s not very strong. In fact, neither you nor the boy are very heavy hitters.” He smirked then, as though he’d dealt Malgam some sort of satisfying blow. “The rest of you—” David looked curiously at Nandy. “I don’t get anything solid from the rest.”
    “They don’t have amps though, and probably never had honers work with them either. You said yourself the whole colony seemed crude at best, in terms of talent.” Sarah’s eyes widened when she realized Filina was looking at her, a displeased expression on her face.
    “What’s a honer?” Pathik was about to ask more, but Daniel interrupted him.
    “Colony? Do you mean our people Away?” Daniel frowned at Filina. “How long have you known about us? Why didn’t you make any attempt to contact us?”
    Filina raised an eyebrow. “I think we all have a lot to talk about.” She turned to Pathik. “A honer is someone who can help you get better at your tal—at your gift , Pathik. We can probably assign you one, help you improve, once we’ve got you all settled in here.” She turned back to Daniel. “That is, if you plan to stay here with us? I’m assuming you do, since you came all this way.”
    Nandy spoke, as if she’d just roused herself from a trance. “I want to see Nipper.”

Chapter 7
    W hen Nandy saw the cage, she went straight for the lock. Before she could hack at it more than once with her knife, Ronald ran over and waved a rusty key at her.
    “I’ll unlock it! That’s one of our last locks, woman! Stop cutting at it.”
    Nandy stopped mid-swing and stepped back. “Get to it then.”
    “Wait.” Filina held up a hand. “How do we know this