Tethered Twins

Emmie Keyes

I hadn’t wanted to leave Grace behind but she seemed in safe hands and I still had some trust left for March. With her back damaged there was no way she would be able to help us.

Us, I thought as I looked at Gabe. I’d heard so much about this man from Grace, yet I hardly knew him. Not really. Yet he had agreed to help me catch Faye and right now I needed an ally, even one labelled as a terrorist.

“So what do you do for a living Emmie?” asked Gabe as we walked through the backstreets of the city. The train was too risky now Tobias knew who he was.

“Don’t you already know everything about me?” I replied.

“True. But I was just making conversation.”

“That’s not fair. I know nothing about you.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Why was The Deck started? Did you always know Tobias was dodgy?”

“That I don’t know. I got recruited just like everyone else.”

“But, aren’t you the boss?”

“I was the second employee after the boss. There’s someone else funding us, although he likes to remain private.”

“Who is he?”

“Are you listening? He’s a private investor,” he explained. “Rich enough to fund us but also rich enough that if anyone knew he was associated with us it would destroy his career and land him in jail. We operate outside of the law but he can’t do both. So he never meets us in person, only emails us instructions.”

“Have you ever met him?” I asked.

“Once, at the start. But I can’t tell you who he is. All I can tell you is he has hated Tobias long before he recruited me. He promised to pay me handsomely if I did some research on Tobias and that’s what led us to grow the team and, once we learned what he was up too, to target his factories. ” he explained.

“What’s his end game though? What does he want?”

“Destruction.”

When I heard Tobias speak about his company I had felt the same way. The man seemed obsessed with war and even in his pursuit to save lives, underneath that there seemed to be a hidden layer which hinted at something far far deeper.

I sensed Gabe no longer wanted to be asked questions and we walked the rest of the way in silence. As we walked I thought back to the events of that night. How Faye had caused Will’s death and how she could now hold answers that would help me stop the men who had killed him.

--<><>--

Faye Galveston

Faye Galveston awoke in an abandoned building on the outskirts of Birmingham. The building had been left long ago, no doubt due to the wealthy moving into the heart of the city.

This had once been a small village, not divided by wealth but a normal, functional hub of commerce and community. As the boundaries of Birmingham expanded over time, they had eaten up small towns such as these and the wealthy had abandoned them while the outer edges of the city were reclaimed as homes for the poor.

Faye had slept on hay next to ten people she had never met before in a large wooden barn. They had been kind enough to take her in and feed her when she arrived in tears last night. They didn’t know what she had done and she wanted to keep it that way.

The Tippet family were kind. There were three generations of them cramped into the barn, which when everyone has a twin it leads to a shortage of space. She could see they didn’t have much but they still looked after her. If she wanted to, they had said she could stay indefinitely so long as she helped on their farm during the day.

Faye was tempted. She couldn’t go back to her old life now. People would be looking for her and if she returned then the one person she wanted to protect most of all would be in danger. Last night she had saved a loved one but lost another in return.

Will.

She looked at the engagement ring on her finger and felt ashamed to wear it. Her eyes started to well up but she held back the tears. She didn’t want the Tippet’s to see her cry. It would lead to questions that she could not answer right now. Maybe never.

She took the ring off and hid it in her purse. She felt deceitful in doing it but compared to her betrayal of Will last night, this was but a small act in comparison.

Faye looked out of the window at the farm land in front of the barn. She saw cows, chickens and pigs and so much green grass. Green. That was a colour she rarely saw in the city and it felt nice and calming.

She was ready for her new life. She didn’t deserve it but she hoped her sister was thankful for what she had done.

“A brand new life. A new me,” as Faye picked up her ID so she could destroy it, a Tether event took over her. With control no longer her own she dropped to her knees and placed her hands in the air.

Her sister was in trouble and that meant last night had been for nothing. She had helped kill the man she loved for nothing.