Rules of Fate

Chapter 11 - Confessing

All the way to Scott's apartment my panicked state kept me company. All the tiredness I'd felt before had evaporated along with any blasé attitude I possessed. I kept checking second sight but didn't see anything unusual. It was like closing the door after the horse had bolted. And man...what a horse!

Bimbo was still with Scott and I watched them enter his apartment before flipping open my cell phone and calling Zach.

'Yeah?' a groggy voice answered on the seventh ring.

'Hey it's me,' I said with forced cheer.

'Great,' he replied with as much enthusiasm as he would've shown for a spot on the floor. I ignored the get-lost tone and launched into my woeful tale.

'Again?' He seemed more awake now and I could imagine him putting on his specs and tramping into the living room to grab the laptop. 'Why is it, that you're always involved in stuff like this?' he asked with a slight trace of amusement.

'You got me,' I shrugged and watched the lights in Scott's apartment. 'So...anything?' I asked after a minute or two of waiting.

'Geez Sam! You do realise it's like two a.m. in the morning right?! Give a guy a break!' he moaned tapping at the keyboard. I held in my impatience and waited as the cold numbed my limbs. Dresses were a definite no for nocturnal wanderings, I thought idly.

'OK so James' street...oh yeah...yup it's big.'

'Thanks genius...I could have told you that...in fact I did!' I replied sarcastically.

'And again,' he continued, ignoring me, 'the source was right there.'

'No way!' I burst out, 'I checked and double-checked...!'

'Yeah, well, maybe a triple check would've helped,' he stated dryly, stifling a yawn. 'Look clearly this guy doesn't want found, and if the Hhunters can't find him than what chance do you have?'

I thought about what he'd said and agreed with him to some extent. The hunterHunters were employed purely to bring in rogue Fatelists or Fatelists on the run. They were our version of bounty hunterhunters and rumour was the bounty was usually quite big. They had tools the rest of us could only dream about, if we had any clue what they were. I'd seen a squad leaving the Society building recently and had felt a twinge of fear.

Unlike the normal Fatelists around me, the squad were dressed in old faded fatigues and jeans, ripped and shredded, showing their age. Grungy T-shirts under well worn leather overcoats completed the basic look. They looked rough, their hair unkempt and , beards left unshaven for Ggod only knew how long! The girls weren't any better than the guys, minus the facial hair. All of them had one thing in common, besides their body odour; a cold light that lit the depths of their tired, red-rimmed eyes and a sternness to their features that told stories of chases, captures and possibly eventual death. They were powerful and ruthless in ways I never wanted to explore. I'd looked the other way when they had passed me, just like all the other Fatelists in the area. All of us knew what a squad meant; either a mission had been completed or a new one was on the way.

'Sam?' Zach's voice pulled me out of my reverie and I drew in a desperate breath.

'Yeah.'

'Maybe you should talk to Ethan about all this. I mean, it isn't exactly normal you know?'

'Yeah, I know,' I sighed and thanked him before ending the call reluctantly. Tell Ethan? Oh yeah, I could almost imagine what he would say.

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OK so I was wrong. Ethan didn't do anything I'd imagined he would.

'How's it going Sam?' he asked almost cheerfully. Ethan and cheerful? Alarm bells rang dully in the far recesses of my mind.

'Not too bad,' I replied without thinking and then retraced my steps. 'Actually it's pretty bad.'

'Really?' he continued writing without looking up.

'Yeah, you probably know about the ripples.'

'The cafe? Yeah.'

'No, the ones that happened last night,' I clarified.

He looked up with a frown and I sighed with relief. That frown was more like Ethan than the un-nerving cheerfulness he had greeted me with. 'Last night?'

'Uh huh,' I gulped, dragging in a breath I told him what had happened. He listened patiently while my panic resurfaced and spiralled out of control.

Finally he smiled at me reassuringly. 'No worries Sam, it's under control.'

Under control? As in I wasn't going to be blamed? I sighed with relief. 'Anything you want me to do?'

He shook his head slowly, a speculative look in his eyes. 'Nope, just tag along behind your target.'

I nodded and turned to leave as he picked up the phone. Just as I closed the door behind me, I thought I heard him ask for Malcolm.

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