Be Careful What You Wish For

by Misty Blue

  Dead!

  The words kept going round and round in her head. She couldn’t take them in. She didn’t want to take them in. They didn’t belong. They couldn’t be true. And yet why would Shadow say them if they weren’t true?

  She wasn’t thinking straight.

  Again she believed she’d found the answer. Again he had come, just the way he always did, and snatched it all away.

  She ran until she had no more breath, gasping and gagging, pushing herself into the unyielding rocks that rose like aliens from the sands, surrounding the bay. They shielded her. They protected. They calmed. Just knowing she was out of the line of the camera lens tracking her movements brought her some degree of comfort.

  But then she was crying, wracking sobs that shook her body. Where had the dream gone? Had it always been this way and she’d just never seen it how it really was? How could she have been so blind? She felt trapped. A bird in a gilded cage. She’d been given everything she had ever wanted, and more, and kept, locked away from the world. For months she’d had no stimulus from the outside world. She didn’t even know what was going on away from the island. She was a prisoner. There was no place to go, and no means to get there even if she could.

  She thought of the helicopter, and of the plan which had formed. Now was as good a time as any. She knew that now Shadow would prevent her even going outside, given she’d used it as a way of getting out of his clutches. Now the sadist in him had taken over it was as if he were finely tuned, anticipating her actions before she knew herself what she might do. She’d beaten him to it on this occasion, but he wasn’t likely to let it happen again. The French windows would be locked, of that she could be certain. He could be waiting for her even now.

  Again she looked to where the camera lay hidden in the rocks. Floodlights were positioned on either side, two more strategically placed so that anyone approaching the bay could clearly be seen. But the sands stretched beyond, and she knew just where she could sit without being in the line of vision.

  She could see the silhouette watching from the window. He wasn’t coming out. Why should he, when he knew eventually she would be forced in either through a turn in the weather or by basic needs? Keeping her head low, as if grief-stricken... which she didn’t really have to pretend because she was... she continued following the coastline, and then came back on the same path.

  Gulls swooped overhead, no doubt hoping for food. It wasn’t the sound she wanted to hear. She listened to their cackle, knowing they had a language all of their own. She wished she too could make somebody hear at a distance.

  The window was empty. Shadow seemed to have given up his vigil, but she knew he would be keeping a watchful eye. She would stay out as late as she could. There was no urgency to return. Shadow would only be thinking up more perverse ways of punishing her, making her pay for somehow taking control and keeping him waiting. Well, let him wait! He wasn’t used to not being obeyed. His payback would be swift and certain.

  She settled back in the line of rocks, her favoured place, and looked back to the path she’d followed through the wet sand, the lettering she’d scraped in it with her feet large and bold and clear.

  H E L P

  Maybe Dream Catcher really was dead and would never return, but Grand Master seemed to have made it his mission to fly over the island, for whatever reason. She would use that to her advantage.

  Meanwhile her thoughts drifted to Dream Catcher. Just before he left that time they’d spent in his room had seemed all the more special. He genuinely appeared to care for her, to love her. Out of the two men he had always been the one she would turn to so easily, giving herself freely, without fear. Somehow he instilled trust. She knew she was safe with him. He took control, but went only to a level she could cope with, pushing her that little bit further but always at her pace, and never abusing her trust.

  Shadow had always been different.

  But given what she had witnessed on the screen once the session was over, she didn’t know if she could trust either of them. They seemed to have each betrayed her in different ways.

  What was it that drove Shadow now?

  She mulled these things over in her mind, and gradually the day passed, and she drifted, dozing, until the ball of fire on the horizon began to sink into the crimsoned sea.

  Suddenly she heard the chuff... chuff... chuff of the air being beaten by rotors. Then came the drone of an engine, and the continual whoosh of the rotors as the helicopter approached.

  Grand Master!

  Immediately she was on her feet. Who cared now if Shadow saw her? She would only get one chance at this. She had to make the plan work. There was no other way.

  She ran the short distance and sat by the lettering in the sand just out of view. Yes, there he was! Grand Master! She watched him lean forward, forehead pressed against the window. His hand raised, his head turned. It was as if he were instructing the pilot. Slowly the helicopter edged towards her. Yes, yes, yes!

  But then Shadow was coming from the house, attracted by the noise. Peering over the rocks she saw him start to run. She rose to her feet as the helicopter landed.

  ‘Quick, take my hand, there’s a good girl!’

  ‘Grand Master!’

  ‘No time for words! Just heave yourself up... that’s it!’

  Shadow was almost upon them, reaching out, ready to snatch her back as the helicopter rose into the air, hovering just out of reach above him. He swatted at it as if it was an irritating fly, jumping up and down as if he could somehow drag it down. And despite herself Abi laughed. Two arms enveloped her. She was safe.

  ‘Seems we were just in time.’

  ‘That is so true!’

  ‘So what’s been happening? And where is Dream Catcher? Isn’t he back yet?’

  Abi didn’t know where to begin. She relaxed back in her seat. Dream Catcher. Again the sadness dragged her down, and suddenly she was spilling out the way it had been.

  Grand Master’s face darkened the more the story was revealed. At one point he leaned forward to tap the pilot on the shoulder. ‘Divert to Pentangle. We won’t be going home just yet.’

  She wondered where Pentangle was, what it was, who lived there, what Grand Master’s connection was with it.

  ‘Go on, I’m listening,’ he prompted, and she marshalled her thoughts and continued sharing the way Shadow had become more and more sadistic in his behaviour, revealing the bizarre events that had followed the Collaring Ceremony. As he listened, Grand Master resolved to use this information for his own ends.

  While in a room in the heart of the City, Sir Richard Armstrong had just completed the deal - the biggest deal of his life. He was looking forward to returning home... and to Angel.

  -oOo-

  Also Available

  Follow Abi’s continuing story in Pentangle, and the final part of her journey, Maverick, both coming soon from Chimera.

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