Strings of Fate
179- Teamwork and timelines
Another night, another murder. I see Kiara is forced to reach out again. It has to be connected to her
magic in some way. Her species magic. Not her magic as a representative of fate. The poor girl barely
even made a sound during this one. She moved around like a zombie afterwards and when she was
finally able to copse onto the floor, she just sobbed until she passed out. I wake up seriously stupidly
early in the morning. I don’t want to face the day yet and ept that once again, there is nothing I can
actually DO. So I end up just curling up with Bemy who is still sleeping. He does wake up and ch*ck
on me. Peering at me through bleary eyes as I move around, but at this point I don’t really want to talk.
So I just hug him close and for a while, I try not to think. It is probably another two hours until Bemy
really wakes up. He strokes a hand over my hair and pushes it away from my face, then moves back a
little so that he can see my face.
“Morning love.” He greets me with a smile but it quickly falls off his face when he realises that I’m not
returning it.
“Another bad night?” He asks sympathetically.
“The worst. Another murder I think.” I confirm croakily. My eyes hurt and as I rub at them I realise
they’re wet. How long have I been crying? Based on how sticky my eyes feel, I’m going to go with
probably a long while. I sit up and pull a nket up to my chin, not so much because I’m cold but more
because it’s kind offorting. It’s even moreforting when Bemy puts an arm over my shoulder
and pulls me into his side.
“Sweetheart, I want to fix this for you. I wish I knew what to do.” I nod against his shoulder. He is quiet
for a couple minutes as he contemtes.
“We’ll call a meeting. Get everyone over here and we can try to figure out if we’ve missed anything or if
there is any new information. Maybe if we go over everything from the beginning we can work this out.”
He says firmly. I’m not totally sure how it will go, but at this point I’ll try anything. Bemy sends out a
message asking everyone to meet us for lunch today.
Come lunch time, people start arriving. Megan, Bemy and I set up food on the dining room table. It
was Megan’s idea. She said she figures that everyone can eat while we think, since this might take a
while. Aaron and Darrien are the first to arrive. Aaron silently follows behind Darrien who makes a big
deal out of greeting Megan even though he saw her yesterday. Shaun and Alex turn up not long after.
Their blue thread sitting between them. Alex sets up hisptop and Shaun organises a pile of
paperwork and files that they must have printed out beforeing. We’re just getting ready to start
going over things when there’s a loud knocking at the door. Aaron answers and I’m confused when he
returns with Harry and Cam? Did Bemy invite them to this meeting? I didn’t realise. A nce at
Bemy shows that he’s as confused as me.
“Hey guys.” I greet them. Harry cheerfully responds.
“Hey Ry, we’re here for your meeting thing.” He grins. Cam rolls her eyes at him and crosses her arms
over her chest.
“Apparently.” She mutters.
“Oh, I mean, that’s cool. But… who fold you about the meeting? I didn’t–think-” I’m cut off by another
cheerful voice.
“Oh that was me!” Amber chimes in from the still open doorway.
“I figured the more people working on the problem the better the chance of finding a solution. Also, I
brought some
1/3
179–Teamwork and timelines
N?vel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.
extra food.” She says holding up a couple of brown paper bags.
“More guests means more stomachs to feed. Since I invited myself and these guys along. I brought
extra food too.” She exins.
“Oh, well in that case,e on in I guess.” I gesture for the three of them to join us. With ten of us
there aren’t enough chairs, but Aaron and Cam both decide to pull up the kitchen barstools and chill on
them instead of sitting around the table which seats the other eight of us. It’s interesting. Every single
person in this room is connected to someone with a thread. Red threats between Shaun and Amber,
myself and Bemy, Megan and Darien, Harry and Cam. Then blue threads between Alex and Shaun
as well as Megan and I. Actually, I’m wrong Aaron has no threads to anyone in this room. It’s strange
because he fits in so well with us all. Yet it’s not fated. He has just made the decision to stay with us all.
With all these threads floating around it’s actually a little overwhelming. I am just going to have to do
my best to focus despite them. At least these are all nice threads. No ck ones or anything
We all have something to eat, then we get started. As a group, we systematically go through every
single thing we know about the psyches. We spit up the files about the murder victims and take turns
exining everything we know about them. We even go over the details of the threats I was sent. We
make a timeline of everything that happened.
“What we’re really missing here is a starting point. The threats against Ryann can’t be the first
interaction she had with the psychos. Something had to trigger them. You don’t just get up one day and
decide to threaten a random woman or kidnap a child or go on a killing spree.” Darrien observes.
“Well. Yeah. But we don’t know what that trigger is. Megan points out.
“Why would someone who was targeting Ryann suddenly start murdering people? I mean, kidnapping
Kirkes a vague sort of sense since there is obviously a connection between the two of you, even if you
didn’t know it at first. But why start killing people? Is it part of some ritual? Are these people rted to
you in some way?” Cam asks from
where she sits next to Aaron.
“I don’t know any of them. Also I don’t think there is any kind of ritual, unless it involves Kiara’s powers
in some way.” I respond with a sigh
“It’s strange that after you came here there were no more threats, not even any attempts at threats
towards you. ! mean, I know you moved here to be safe, but you’re notpletely inessible. They
could be texted to you, emailed to you, delivered to a friend, left at the entrance of thepound.
There are plenty of ways that someone could get to you. So after going to all that effort to scare you,
why just stop all of a sudden?” Shaun adds.
“I’m not sure that’s right.” Alex replies softly. We all turn to face him. With a crowd this big, he’s been
fairly quiet, only really speaking when spoken to
“Exin.” Bemy demands. Alex looks pule
“Please Alex, feel free to share what you were thinking I tell him gently, hoping to help him rx.
“Well it’s just… has anyone else looked at the pictures?” He asks shyly.
“The pictures?” I prompt.
“The pictures of the victims. They’re in the back of the files. It only just urred to me while looking at
the most recent victim.” He adds. Bemy frowns. I don’t think we really have looked at the pictures.
We’ve been too busy
2/3
179–Teamwork and timelines
looking for connections between the girls or connections to me. Everyone in the group takes out the
pictures from the files and wey them out on the table. Everyone stares at them in stunned silence.
“Oh.” I say weakly. Bemy is out of his seat in seconds and pulls me out of my spot. When he sits
back down, he takes- me with him. Keeping me on hisp. Megan is the one to say what we’re all
thinking.
“Ry… All of those girls… They look just like you.”
Chapter Comments
Visitor
Wait that legit didn’t ur to any of them??
1 COMMENT
POST COMMENT
10
< SHARE