First | Previous | Chapter Index | Next

“If everyone agrees, I’d suggest you take her to Indaturan now before she wakes up,” Matthias said. “You can pass the message to Sal to come back while you’re there. We’ll need to question her eventually but I want to find out more about her link to Kayleigh first. Talk to Kyle and Darya – see if they can help with the scrying.”

Adrian tilted his his head questioningly, then his mouth made an oh. “You’re thinking it might work both ways and if we try to peel Dialdra’s mind open we might hurt Kay? That’s actually very possible if she was using Kay as some sort of reference. I’m glad you thought of it. It didn’t even occur to me.”

“Well, I have no objections – once we’ve checked Adrian anyway,” Alexandra said. “We certainly won’t be able to hold her here.”

“So check me now,” Adrian said.

“And me,” Hannah said. “I want to go with him and ask this bitch when they pulled this switch.” She hugged herself. “God, I hope it was before mum was killed.”

Her father squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “I think it probably was,” he said. “Or if not, then she wasn’t acting of her own volition.”

“I hope so,” Hannah said. “And I hope we can save her.”

“Right, we’ll get the two of you checked and then you can go.” Alexandra looked around the room. “The logistics of this is going to be a nightmare but we can’t continue the meeting until we’ve covered everyone.”

“Once we’ve checked out all our team and Adrian and Hannah I’d like to deal with Marian next,” Lianne said. “I’m sure she is herself but there’s something fishy there and I want to know what.”

“I expected someone would want to,” Marian said. “But I didn’t expect it under such circumstances.”
“Just be careful,” Matthias said. “She’s badly injured.”

“Injured?” Lianne raised an eyebrow. “That just makes me more curious. But we’re always careful… Well I am anyway.”

“Of course,” Alexandra said. “And we’d best leave her-” she pointed at Julie “-until last. I’d like her to tell her story before she’s tested. It might be too much of a shock otherwise.”

***

Adrian and Hannah were cleared quickly and had left with the still unconscious Dialdra by the time it was Marian’s turn to be checked. The mind-probing team had barely started their scan before several of them recoiled and Lianne dropped to her knees by the woman and hugged her.

“Oh, Marian,” she said. “Is this what you were going to tell us before everything blew up? How have you lived with this much pain?”

“Badly, as you probably noticed,” Marian said. “I’m never going to make up for what I did.”

“What did you find?” Alexandra asked.

“She’s Marian all right, but when Matthias said that she was badly injured it was an understatement,” Lianne said. “And she’s been injured for a very long time. I think we should hold back the details until after we’ve finished checking everyone else. We don’t want it leaking.”

—

A/N: Check out this announcement, please. 😀

First | Previous | Chapter Index | Next