The Touch

Chapter 22 - Training

When we arrived at the CWT Tori jumped out of the car before it had fully stopped, then quickly walked over towards the tomb.

Theon looked after her and then turned towards me. "Don't worry about Tori. She will get over it".

I didn't think so. It was more obvious now that Tori was not getting over Slade any time soon and her hatred for the people with the Touch had me concerned. Was she actually trustworthy? If only I had managed to read Tori then I might be able to see what kind of person she actually was. I had a terrible feeling that she had an agenda planned and couldn't be trusted.

I grabbed my back pack out while Theon lifted the back rear door of the van and Slade helped load up the supplies.

"Theon, I am going to show Lacey the other entrance so we will catch up with you down there, okay?" Slade said.

"Great. I will just take all of this stuff plus Tori's bag and you can call me the bell boy".

Slade slapped Theon good naturedly on the back and laughed then he came around and gestured towards the forest area.

"Want to see something pretty cool?" he said.

"Sure" I replied.

Slade led the way from the van and we walked around to the left side of the church. I could see the church had been restored at some stage but when I looked in the windows I could also tell that no one had been inside it for a while.

"Don't you use the church for anything? "

"No. It has been here for over four hundred years and no one has used it for the last fifty years. When the CWT brought the land and church they repaired it as they thought they may turn it into offices. When they discovered the hidden underground bunkers and warehouse then the obvious choice was just to keep it vacant, kind of like a decoy."

"It is such a beautiful old church. I am amazed no one has tried to come out here and look through it".

"Oh we have had people doing that, but it is private land now so they clear off pretty fast. We even had a bunch of Watchers out here once".

"What? You did?" I said "What happened?"

"Nothing much really. They were turned away by the gardener and told that it was private property. The Watchers insisted on looking around the church but didn't end up even setting a foot inside. You see, there is no way that you could hide any children under the church benches if there weren't any in the church".

He was right. The church was now just bare wooden floorboards which were covered in dust. It was probably another reason why they would have turned away as the dust was thick and you would be able to track movements over the floorboards if there had been any. It didn't look like anyone had been inside it for a very long time.

We moved past the church and walked onto a gravel pathway which had overgrown wild flowers surrounding it. The pathway didn't look as old as the church and somehow it looked kind of staged. Slade looked at me and smiled, obviously reading my mind.

"This has only been here for the past five years. It is a pathway that leads to the gardener's cottage. Of course we don't have a gardener here, but we do have one that is in the CWT" Slade pointed towards the curve ahead a few yards away in the pathway "The cottage is just another five minutes down the track".

Suddenly I felt very nervous being on a track leading to a cottage with Slade. He looked at me for a minute and must have seen the concerned look on my face.