Tethered Twins

Chapter Twenty One

Emmie Keyes

My phone would not stop ringing. Someone clearly wanted to speak to me. Is it Grace? I wondered, not wanting to shift my focus from Tobias too much. I assumed she was probably just worried about me but by the fourth separate phone call it seemed serious.

Eventually I felt the different vibration of a message being received. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “My phone will not stop ringing, do you mind if I check it?” I asked, interrupting Tobias during another speech about how he wanted to restore balance to the world.

“Not at all,” he replied.

I pulled the phone from my pocket and glanced down.

“4 missed calls: Rex. 1 new text message: Rex,” read the alert on the screen. Probably another fight with Rufus. I thought as I loaded up the message.

I was wrong. So wrong.

“Emmie, whatever you are doing, wherever you are you have to stop right now. They know you are disguised. They know it’s you!”  The message was very clear.

There was no hiding any more.

As that thought entered my mind I felt the tight grip of a hand around my throat grabbing me. The hand belonged to Tobias who now stood tall at my side as I sat struggling for freedom in the chair.

“Hello. Emmie,” he said, the truth revealed for all to see.

He released his grasp and I gasped for air. I instinctively held my face with my hands as my breathing returned to normal. As I did so, steam started to emerge from my face. “What has he done to me?” I panicked, as the steam engulfed me.

I could feel a transformation under my hands. My hair began to tingle and the skin on my face felt like it was burning.

“Well now. What is this?” asked Tobias, confusing me further. I daren’t pull my hands away to see what had happened but Tobias grabbed my hands and forced them away.

“Now that is interesting,” he walked over to his desk and retrieved a silver pair of rimmed glasses holding them in front of me. From the reflection I could see that my face had returned to normal and my hair had gone back to its natural blonde colour. Jessica Young was no more and I no longer had a disguise to exit the city. This was bad.

“I knew today would be filled with serendipity but I didn’t imagine it would be quite so lucrative,” he didn’t take his eyes off me, his fist poised for another attack.

“Why did you kill Will?” I asked, hoping that if I was to die here today I’d at least have answers.

“Will? Oh you mean Will Keyes, the inventor of the DualCam? Yes, I was sad to hear what happened to him. He was a real asset to the team but sometimes you have to let people go,” he said.

“Let people go? You killed him! Your people cut him until he almost bled to death and then tortured him until he died!” I shouted.

“..and yet here you are Emmie,” he interrupted. “A miracle of science. By all rights you should be dead and yet you survived. You are very special Emmie and soon you will be thanking me for helping you realise your true potential.”

“My what?” I screamed “You killed my brother to help me? How does that help me! He’s the only person left who cared for me and now I have nothing! Nothing!”

“You have me. I will look after you now and one day you and I will change this world.”

I looked at Tobias. The mad man who had already changed my world forever. I had my answers and they cut just as deeply as any knife. My brother had lost his life and for what? So some crazy scientist could keep me as a pet? Lock me up like the animals in the basement?