6

Dear Shannon,

Riley is returning. You need to move. It is never going to be safe, but when you learn that Riley is actually returning to England just to get rid of Anna... That is correct. I got the information. And the way I got it wasn't pretty. I know what I promised you. But this was worth it.

Apparently, there are people in the hierarchy that know of the emergence of Anna. They have told Riley about this, stupidly, and now he is on a mission. And he won't stop until Anna is dead. So, it is time to move your ass. Nobody is surviving against Riley. Not even Anna. Or Melissa. But you know all of this.

I guess that I'm really just warning you: which I probably don't need to do, because you have a way of knowing things anyway. But I know you're going to get pissed off at me, so let me explain myself. I knew Riley was moving. He made no effort to hide this fact. He was living his days out in America, and he seemed happy, but for some reason he was now moving. He wouldn't have done so if it wasn't important.

I know what I promised you. But I needed to, to warn you, to tell you. Having to sew the stitches into my own skin is punishment enough, right? I am still reformed. I promise. This was just one instance of me doing this. Never again. I swear.

And now that you are reading this and probably fuming, I am going to dig myself a deeper hole. I'm following Riley. I'm coming to Britain. There are others here who can continue the fight, and right now, your safety is pretty much the most important thing on the planet right now. So, I'm coming over. I probably won't be able to find you, but it doesn't matter if I do or not. All that matters is that there is one more person that Riley has to get through to get to you.

Stay safe,

Andrew

Signed 07/05/2018

They'd escaped! He'd missed them! He knew better than to blame Sana: he'd seen how her abilities could work. Not nearly as powerful as his, but still very impressive. She wasn't wrong. So, they had somehow been tipped off. There was a mole. Someone who was feeding out information to the other side. And now the little bitch was gone, and there was no way that Sana would be able to catch them again.

So, it was down to him. He had to track them down on his own. He knew he could do it, but he had just looked forward to a bit of an easy job. Quick two kills (excluding Shannon, of course), and on the flight back to the U.S within the week.

Now he had to actually work to find his prey. He didn't know whether that was a good thing. He'd learned through his many studies that, while not being lazy, the easiest method usually has the best outcome, because you end up conserving energy for other tasks that need to be performed. And now he had to expend more energy than was truly necessary, simply because someone couldn't keep their mouth shut.

At the same time, he relished a good challenge. And Shannon knew her stuff. Wherever they were hidden away, you could guarantee that it would not be easy to find them. So, the sense of achievement when he did finally find them would be magnified one-hundredfold. He needed to prepare for the challenge ahead. So, he sat down. He crossed his legs. And began to meditate.

A cool peace soon settled over his body. Meditation was something that Riley enjoyed immensely. It was almost like he had a second power, an ability to centre himself, seclude into his own world. He did it on the plane ride, and nearly broke the jaw of the flight attendant who'd had to wake him up after it landed.

But something was different, and he knew what it was exactly. "Not now, Sana. I need you to piss off."

"Aw, did someone not satisfy their killing proclivity?" Sana was one of the only people who had no fear of Riley. Her power was too useful for him to just get rid of her if he felt like it.

"Proclivity? I think you mean--"

"Anyway, as you've probably already figured out, there is no way that I will be able to track them down again."

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"But they aren't too far away. They are still in the country. Nothing around her usual aliases have been through any of the airports recently. Looks like your home holiday has just been extended."

Riley rolled his eyes. "Woo-hoo."

"They have probably gone north, because, let's face it, there isn't really anywhere to go sou--"

"Wait. Shhh."

Sana didn't appreciate being cut off. "Excuse me?"

Riley grinned. "Someone's in the house."

* * * *

Andrew looked in amazement at Shannon's 'inconspicuous' house. It was the only one on the block that was completely made of wood. It was a nice place, but easy enough for anybody to find if they so desperately wanted.

It was frustrating for Andrew, because the code that Shannon had sent him was ridiculously difficult to solve, and now that he had done so, he thought that he could have found the place anyway. He hoped that he and his letter had found their way to them before Riley did. It was really a matter of chance. Whether his letter was one of the ones that was delivered quickly, or whether it was just bumbled through the system slowly. He steeled himself, preparing himself emotionally for the potential massacre that he could find inside, and opened the door.

It was dark. That was his first thought, and he knew that meant that the three were probably not alive, and at the very least not in the household. He still bared the palms of his hands, preparing for any attack that may come.

He walked into the living room and came face to face with Riley. A smiling Riley. That would never be good. He tried not to let his recognition show, as he put on his pre-conceived false identity. "Oh! Hi! Who are you?"

Riley seemed to believe him, at least for the moment. "I'm a friend of Shannon's. The name's Alex Stuart. Have you seen her anywhere?" Riley's faux Australian accent was almost impeccable, and made Andrew doubt his identification for just a second.

"No, I was actually just looking for her myself. Ah well. I'm sure she'll be back soon. Alright. Well, I'll see you around." Andrew turned to move out of the door, but found that his limbs wouldn't move.

"I never forget a face." Riley's accent dropped immediately. Andrew's breathing quickened, as he strained harder to move his muscles, to no avail. "And yours seems familiar. I've seen you at the pubs. Back home. Now there's only one question: who the hell are you?"

Riley looked to be enjoying himself, and sat down on the sofa, with no evidence of any effort shown on his face. "You're either a cop, or you're on the other side. Given that you crossed a border to find me, I'm going to guess the latter."

"Okay, that means that you have a power of some sort. Probably a physical power, given that you got the information about my whereabouts, so you probably had to torture to get it. A dolor resistis? No, probably not. I've heard that your side doesn't exactly like the use of that power, at least not to torture. Hmmm... This is a good puzzle. Well? Are you going to give any clues?"

Andrew didn't rise to the bait, didn't let Riley see any show of emotion on his face. Now was not the time to see whether his ability would work while he was immobilised. He would have preferred to try this in a safer setting. But there was only one thing for it. He turned his fingers into Riley's direction, and before Riley could register the movement, he let the electricity flow from his fingertips.

A bigger jolt than Andrew had ever done. His limb mobility was immediately restored, and he sprinted away, before Riley could gather his wits and stop Andrew again. He ran faster than he ever had before, straight to his car, and raced out of the street, just in time to see Riley stagger out of the front door and give a friendly taunting wave.

Now Andrew was concerned. Riley easily had the telekinetic strength to stop the car, so why didn't he? Maybe he was going to try and chase him? In that case, Andrew had to get rid of that car. He stopped at the side of the road, seeing another vehicle, and used his power to hot-wire it and drive away.

He had beaten Riley. Sort of. It was more of a quick stun and run, but it proved that there were cracks in Riley's defence. Cracks that could be exploited by the right people.

And he was one of those people.

* * * *

Riley waltzed back inside the house. How on earth had that asshole gotten the better of him? He had been caught slightly by surprise, but that was no excuse. He was fuming. Could he be beaten? Surely not. Surely, he couldn't be beaten. So how had that happened?

It didn't really matter. He went right back to his meditation position. And Sana was still there, probing to find any information.

"You can go first, since I have more exciting info. Wait, hang on. Is that an unhappy Riley? Is that a Riley who's been, dare I say it, beaten?"

"You can dare say it, and you're damn right. I'm smart enough to know when I've been outsmarted. He caught me by surprise. It was one of them, a homo electrica. And he was still, I had him cornered, but he shocked me. I didn't bother to go after him."

"Why not?"

"Because I figured there were better ways to spend my time than to chase after a useless guy who won't beat me a second time."

"Fair enough. Anyway, after you left, I got info from someone with a name, which meant he was reasonably high up in our little family. It's a big one."

Sana smiled at Riley. "We found it."

* * * *

"Where are we going?"

"To the cemetery. Time to get rid of you. You're too dangerous to be around."

"Where are we actually going?"

"A safe place." Shannon knew that Anna was only young, but she didn't quite have the patience at that time. And it needed to be safe, if Riley really was coming after them. Andrew was probably going to die, if he was following Riley. No time to grieve, or even to simply be sad, because there was no stopping it now. The deed was done. It was now a matter of stopping Riley from committing any more of those deeds.

So, it was time to return to her roots. The home that she grew up in. And probably the only house that wasn't recorded anywhere. It was deserted. And dirty, creepy, stained, bloody... A number of other choice adjectives. But it still functioned as a house. Not a home. But a house.

"This is definitely the sort of thing we would see in a horror movie," commented Melissa. She could visibly see spiderwebs littering the place. And the door was open, for no reason whatsoever. "Are we sure that the place is safe?"

"I know you've discovered a lot of weird shit, but rest assured. Ghosts, vampires, zombies, none of that is real. It's fine, okay? Not the happiest place to live in, but we don't need happy right now, we need safe."

Anna walked into the open door. It wasn't any better on the inside. It definitely looked inhabitable. And it didn't feel like anyone else had stepped foot in the place for fifty years. Shannon went through the house, checking to see if any of the lights still worked, which, unsurprisingly, they didn't. Anna separated from her mother and started exploring the rooms.

"Whose blood is that?" Anna didn't sound shocked, or concerned, but the two women still rushed over to her and saw the room she was looking into. Red stains splattered the walls, leaving little to the imagination to describe what was probably a very gruesome scene.

"It's my mum's. She died here, way back."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not. Traitorous bitch. She sold out all her friends, effectively killing twenty people. Some of those were children. Kids I would play with. And she murdered them for a quick buck."

Shannon walked out of the room in disgust. But Anna stayed. Something didn't feel right. "If she died here, where is the body?"

"They probably took it out with the rest of the garbage. I don't know. They probably would have disposed of it, or burned it, to get rid of any evidence."

Anna didn't agree, but let the matter rest for the moment, figuring that it could wait for a later time. She walked slowly back through the house, before getting an idea, and focusing her telekinetic energy on one of the cobwebs.

"Ha ha, Mum, look." The cobweb was extremely light, meaning that Anna could control it far easier than she could with the wine glass. She made it move quickly towards Melissa's face.

"Ah! Anna, stop!" Brushing the webs off her face, she smiled at how Anna could still laugh, and have fun, despite her world crashing down around her. "Okay, Miss Genius. Time for you to put your brain to good use. I challenge you to fix a freaking light globe in this place. It's darker in here than it is down a mine shaft!"

"Okay." Anna exited the house and went around to the back. The light globe problem was zapped out of her mind completely, as she saw the backyard. This, she was shocked by. This made her want to cry.

Corpses. Old, rotting, corpses.