Skye City: The Darkness of Emmilyn

Survivors of the Enclave

I send messages to our friends on the holoscreen to alert them to our evacuation plan. Some of the gang are still at the rebel base, but Killow and Myla remain as silent as my boyfriend who was never actually my boyfriend – just a hot guy who liked me before he vanished. The lack of contact from Nelson makes my heart sink, but I must accept a soldier would be far too busy to access Sonet. We might not be reunited soon, if ever, but Nelson will survive this war and that is all that matters.

The three men say 'Goodnight' and switch to the other hotel room as I log out of Sonet, deactivating the holoscreen. Dynah and I top-and-tail in a single bed while Mother and Kyan take the double bed and we fall asleep without any chitchat. Rain splashes against the window throughout the night and a knock at the door comes far too early so I ignore the stupid boys and close my eyes.

'Dynah,' a voice whispers and it sounds female so I jolt upright. 'Dynah, are you there?' I shake the telepath until she wakes up and shifts her head from side-to-side, blinking.

'Are you expecting someone?' I whisper and Dynah sits upright, rubbing her puffy eyes.

'Dynah, if you're there, please open up,' the voice says, slightly louder and definitely female. The telepath sluggishly climbs from the bed and answers the door, hugging two unfamiliar girls who are wearing the Enclave's robes. 'It's so good to see you.'

Dynah leads the girls into the hotel room as Mother and Kyan sleep, then she turns to me and says, 'Why don't you get the boys?' as I struggle to hold my eyes open. I grudgingly rise from my bed and leave the room, crossing the passage to what I assume is the boys' room and I knock until Arturo answers, looking like a zombie.

I peer through the doorway to see Otess and Vytali sleeping so I say, 'Come on, you two, wake up,' and they sit upright with messy hair, shielding their eyes from the dim light of the window. It takes a lifetime for them to climb out of bed and follow me into the nicer bedroom. We discover the others have already started breakfast and are devouring our food supplies. Wrappers and empty bottles are strewn across the once-tidy floor and bed covers and I was only gone a few minutes.

As I haul my rucksack onto the single bed, Arturo gulps lemonade and belches, then he stares at our visitors who are sitting on the leather sofa. The pair are soaking wet, having ventured through a warzone during the stormy night – I guess they urgently wanted to meet. One girl is ebony-skinned with frizzy hair and bulging eyes – the other is brown-skinned with long wiry hair and a flat face. And I definitely cannot remember either of them from the Enclave, but I only visited a couple of times and they were hardly short on numbers.

'This is Lanya and Keia.' Dynah points to the ebony then the brown girl. 'I connected with them during meditation and an elemental led them here. They may be the only other telepaths who have evaded capture. Together we might be able to see through San Teria's suppression fields to locate the others, then we'll have to figure out how to rescue them.'

'Good to meet you girls. You're braver than I am, coming here in these conditions. Must've been freezing.' Arturo sits on the edge of the queen bed and the girls stare with serious eyes like they have no interest in small talk. 'I'd be curious to know how you two managed to escape capture when the other telepaths couldn't.'

'It wasn't easy... The ground started shaking, roots reached from the soil and ensnared our friends,' Keia explains with a deep voice. 'Troops entered the Enclave with a woman, a telepath. Some fainted, others tried to resist but were shot by their weapons. We were two of the last standing. We summoned our elementals, killed many soldiers, injured the telepath.

'She neutralised our elementals and summoned her own. It was powerful. We clung onto one another and formed an energy shield. The others were carried away by the troops. Our shield was breached and we fought back, fleeing as we knocked the woman over with our combined efforts. The force would have killed a regular telepath. We're much stronger than most but it took everything we had to resist. We seized the opportunity to flee and have been lying low since. The battle weakened us, but we're back to full strength now. In fact we're stronger than ever.'

'Wow, you two must really be powerful to survive an attack like that. I'm sorry to hear about your friends, but it's good to have you with us,' Arturo says and I certainly second that – the more telepaths we have on our side, the better.

'We will escort you today to help the others get to safety and then we'll help you continue your mission. Prepare for everything. It's no coincidence that we've been drawn together on this particular day. The team you've been gathering for the war is all but complete now. Fate has played its part and it's down to us to do the rest,' Lanya says.