Thyla - Kate Gordon [70]
‘Thanks, Isaac,’ I said, my face burning.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Isaac, walking towards me and punching me on the arm as I pulled the shirt over my head. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’
When you saw us coming, you began to sprint towards us, your hand rising up in greeting. ‘Vinnie! Tessa!’ you called out. When you reached us, you wrapped your arms around me. ‘Oh, thank God. Thank God, Tessa! I thought I lost you! Vinnie, where did you find her?’ you asked, turning to Isaac with your arms still tightly around me. You didn’t wait for him to reply. ‘What happened to her? Why was she out there?’
‘I was out there because I was Thyla,’ I said quickly, before Isaac could come up with some lie to deceive you. ‘That’s what they’re called. The creatures in the book. I’m one of them. We both are.’
You gasped, looking up at Isaac. ‘What do you mean you both are? Tess, really! She’s joking, isn’t she, Vinnie?’
But something in his expression told you everything you needed to know.
Your face became pale. The freckles seeming to darken, showing like specks of dirt on a marble floor. ‘No, hang on. Wait. I …’ You looked like you wanted to run. Your hands were raised up, and your head was shaking.
‘I can’t deal with this,’ you said. ‘It’s too much. I … I need to go. I need to think.’
‘Connolly, I’m still the same. We’re still the same!’ I protested.
I looked quickly at Isaac, afraid of what I would see. I expected him to be angry – his eyes blazing, his jaw grinding. Instead, I was surprised to see that he looked calm, even relieved.
‘Rache, nothing has changed,’ he said.
The way his voice sounded surprised me almost more than anything I had seen that day.
It was soft. It was kind. It was tender.
You still looked as though you wanted to run, your body tilted half away from us.
But you weren’t running. You had stopped. You were listening.
‘Have you always been?’ you asked, softly.
‘Yeah, for about a hundred and sixty years.’
‘Why did you never tell me?’
You looked as though you might cry and suddenly I understood the tenderness in Isaac’s voice. I’d never noticed it before. But now it was there, painted vividly on the faces of my two friends: in the softness in Isaac’s eyes; in the way you were biting your lip, your eyebrows furrowed.
‘I never told you because I thought you wouldn’t understand.’
‘I don’t understand,’ you whispered. ‘But maybe I will. In time. I’ll try. That’s all I can promise, Vinnie.’
‘Right. Good. Excellent. Well, we’ll talk about that later,’ he grunted, his voice shifting abruptly to his usual growly tone.
‘Where have you been?’ you asked again, your voice turning from tender to accusing. ‘Where did you take her? Vinnie, what is going on?’
‘There are … dangers here,’ Isaac said, carefully.
‘At this school? Has this got something to do with those other missing girls? Because you said that case had been solved and they were safe. And I know that Cat … oh, Vinnie! Has this got something to do with Cat?’
‘No!’ Isaac said, quickly. ‘This has nothing to do with Cat. Nothing to do with you. You need to keep away, Rachel. You need to stay away from all of this.’
You looked exasperated. ‘Vinnie, why on Earth would you let Tessa come to this school, if you knew it would be dangerous for her?’
Isaac cleared his throat. ‘Well, Lord wanted Tessa to come here and he’s … he’s such a powerful businessman, Rache. You know that we must be seen to be doing what he wants.’
Isaac gave me a meaningful look – a look that said ‘don’t say a word’, and I didn’t need to ask why. He was trying to protect you. He was trying to keep you from knowing about Lord because he knew if you did, you’d be in danger. In any case, I felt too nauseated to say anything. I knew Lord had provided the money for me to come to Cascade Falls, but he had suggested I come here?
Why?
‘And … look, Rache,’ Isaac went on, ‘I did know that there were Sarcos here – but they are Sarcos I have come to trust.’
‘Sarcos?’ you said, wiping a shaky hand over your face, your eyes closing