And so the secondary story continues. I am really likening it. It is sort of the reverse of the first. In the story I worked on before Gwen was being sent out away from home, launched into a new world. Here Anna is being called back home. Kind of fun. But the story continues…
Day 5: “I meant was there more you needed to say or do before you left?” Anna clarified.
“I meant was there more you needed to say or do before you left?” Anna clarified.
“Left?” Marcus asked. He seemed confused. “Why would I leave?”
“Because your message has been delivered,” Anna said.
He looked at the pages I held and then at me. He smiled. “Of course, you want to read through the details. I will speak with you when you are through. My card is in the envelope.”
Anna looked in the envelope and saw there was indeed a business card. She pulled it out and held it up.
“Call me when you ae ready.”
Marcus turned away and Anna stopped herself from asking ‘ready for what’. She knew the answer.
She watched Marcus leave. He turned a corner and disappeared from sight. Even knowing he wasn’t that far, having him out of her sight made her feel better. Anna turned. Her plan was to go home, grab what was needed and run. Now it seemed that was unnecessary. She sent a tiny filament of thought out and realized that while Marcuse stepped inside her outer alarm system, no one penetrated her inner defenses and her apartment might still be secure.
Not certain if she was still being observed or not, Anna continued in the direction of her home, but then took a street heading left and out of her home district. She walked until she found a café that she knew was outside of all her perimeters. Feeling chilled inside from her earlier scare, Anna placed her order and took a seat at one of the indoor tables.
She avoided looking at the papers until her order arrived and even then she took a long hot sip from the cup. She felt the warm liquid start to thaw the chilled insides. She hadn’t asked Marcus what she needed to be ready for because she knew. He expected that now the pardon was through, she would come home. She would go back with him, packing up what she needed here and abandoning this life she was building to pick up the threads of what she left behind.
She sipped the coffee and glanced down at the pages, not really reading them. She ignored the hot flash of anger at being pardoned for a crime she hadn’t committed in the first place. ‘Not that they listened the first time.’
Her protestations of innocence were irrelevant. She shook her head at the thought. Remembering the terror of the accusations and the repercussions. She ran from the only things she knew because that was the only way to stay alive. For a while all she could do wad run. Eventually, they stopped chasing and now she was starting to build a new life.
Did she want to give that up to go back? Anna wasn’t sure. It was not something she ever contemplated. She never thought going back was an option. ‘And I am not sure I want to leave.’
The thought about the research she was doing. The archives here may be only infrequently visited but it was proving a treasure trove of information. Thus far, no one else seemed to realize the documents that were stored here. She doubted even when Marcus put the tracker in the space he bothered to look at what was there. He, or more than likely someone working for him, spotted her near the archives and reported in. Then he placed the tracker.
‘Have to get rid of the tracker,’ Anna thought. She had the elements for the counter spell at her place. She doubted Marcus would have gone back to retrieve it. He knew in time it would fade and he thought she would be going back with him.
He expected her to leave with him immediately. She could see it on his face.
Ten til Midnight 