SAPPHIRE AND STEEL: Traitor's Gate

Traitor's Gate: Part 2

Tess must have blacked out. The next thing she was aware of was the sound of voices in earnest discussion.

'You were part of it, Silver,' the woman was saying 'You were working against us from the beginning.'

'It was a trap... but not in the way you think. Please, please, let me explain. Then you can do what you want with me...' That was the voice of the man she'd met that afternoon. Strange that he seemed to answer to the name Silver. Same name as her dog. Which reminded her, where had that dog got to? She wondered if he'd taken fright and run home. If Mum opened the door to find the dog sitting there with no Tess, she'd panic like hell..

'Are we free to leave here? That's the only thing that matters now'. A different voice; cold and combative. Must be that of the man who had run at them when they entered the room.

There was a long silence.

'Not quite.'

She heard the sound of a scuffle. Tess was horrified to think of that frightening man attacking her new friend. She sat bolt upright, realising that someone must have laid her down across a two-seater chair when she'd fainted. The three of them froze when they saw she was conscious.

Finally, the man apparently called Silver spoke. 'Ah you're awake. Feeling better?'

'Yes thanks.'

'Allow me to introduce Steel...' he indicated the aggressive, grim-looking man, '...and Sapphire...' he extended his arm to the woman. 'These are the friends I've been searching for.'

'I'm Tess.'

'Pleased to meet you, Tess. My name is...

'Silver?'

'That's right.'

'Same as my dog.'

Almost growling, Steel jumped in. 'We don't have time for this.'

Tess thought these so-called friends weren't very friendly friends. She didn't understand any of it. How could this place exist inside the broken down shell of the old service station? How was it possible that she had never discovered it before? She'd explored every inch of the field over the years and never found it. Why would a chintzy, little cafe like this exist here in a place where no-one ever came, a place that had been abandoned for decades? It made no sense. All she knew for certain now was that she was frightened and that she wanted to find her dog and go home.

Silver beamed at her, embarrassed. 'Did I mention that my friends and I didn't part on good terms? You're probably picking up on that.'

Tess hated to see people fight. Maybe it was to do with having seen her parents fight a lot when she was a kid. Any kind of conflict transported her straight back to how she'd felt back then; frightened, alone and guilty. The guilt thing was weird but back then she had definitely felt that her mum and dad's falling out was somehow her fault.