N.B this story takes place after the events of Independence, in London, England, where Caleb and Maggie are sorting out the Virtuoso Council in preparation for the Reunification.

Chapter 1

I walked towards the car park, fuming silently. How could she have ditched me? I forced myself to take a calm breath. No, Lillian wouldn't ditch me for no reason- she wasn't like that. I got my phone out and tried phoning her again. Still no answer. Glancing at the iron-grey clouds which loomed overhead, I sped up, texting Lillian in case she did turn up to find me not there (not that she would- she was an hour late) and increased my pace further, hoping to get back before the rain hit. The weather had said we were in for a storm tonight. It was summer but it felt decidedly cold. I guess that's England for you. I pulled my jacket around me tighter and pulled the hood up over my light brown hair.

I turned into the park, which led to the road where I had parked, not surprised to find it deserted. It was getting darker every moment. Just 5 more minutes, I begged the sky, almost running in my haste. I absolutely hated driving in the rain, but that couldn't be helped. Not looking where I was going, I walked into a guy and nearly fell over.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I apologised to the man as he grabbed my arm to stop me falling. "No problem!" he sneered, but didn't let go of my arm. He sounded American and was black haired and tall, menacing-looking. I started to get nervous. Why wasn't he letting my arm go? "Um, thanks… can you let me go?" I asked, but realised how stupid I sounded. He wasn't going to let me go. I began to panic as he glanced at me as he waited for something, and then I saw a few other people coming our way, well running really. I heard one of them shout "there he is!"

I suddenly felt a stinging slap on my face and he began to drag me by my arm towards the entrance to the dead end bin alleyway where the empty houses were. I started to struggle, a little belatedly, but he was strong and easily held me. I tried to scream, but before I could get more than a squeak out, he clapped his hand on my mouth and then pulled out a gun.

"I'll kill you if you call out or try to run. You understand?" I noticed now that he had a hard and cruel voice. I nodded slowly but he hit my face with the side of the gun and I almost collapsed from the pain. My vision blacked out for several seconds. Why did he hit me when I told him I'd do what he said? "Do you understand?" he roared, slapping me again. I cried out but he just clapped his hand over my mouth again and grabbed my hair. He half-dragged me towards the alley but I guess he didn't know it was a dead end as we seemed to be running away from the people behind us. I certainly wasn't going to tell him that though. I screamed out as he practically pulled my hair out, yanking on it hard. Why did he need me?

He reached the small area where the bins were overflowing and an overpowering stink pervaded the air. I attempted not to throw up and gagged silently. He looked around wildly for an escape route, then shook me violently. "Where is the way out?" he yelled at me, pushing me over hard. My side and shoulder hit the ground brutally and I felt like I had maybe bruised something crucial. I struggled to breathe, winded, as I lay on the filthy floor feeling my eye rapidly swelling up.

His head whipped round as the three people rounded the corner and he grabbed my up by my hair, causing me to groan in pain again, having still not regained my breath. He held me towards his chest like a shield and put his gun to my temple. I shook from pain, fright and cold as the wind began to pick up. The three people stopped, looking worried. There were two guys and a girl. She was pretty and had green eyes and freckles. One of the guys, holding her hand, was tall, muscled and had brown, shaggy hair. Before I could see the third guy, the one holding me yanked my head up again.

"Marcus," one of the guys began. He was American too. "Come on, man. Don't take it out on the girl."

"So you can just stop me? Not likely!" he snarled and jerked my head again. I think I may have blacked out for a few seconds, because when I could hear again, Marcus was speaking again.

"So, Maggie," he crooned mockingly. "Will you risk this," he shook me, "human girl's life to capture me? Can you stop me before I pull the trigger?" None of them made any move. This was an impossible situation, a stalemate. I was pretty sure I wasn't getting out of this one alive. I was barely coherent, but managed to form a thought. There's no way out. I realised, closing my eyes.

"No! We're not going to sacrifice you just to get him!" she shouted, looking at me. I definitely hadn't said that out loud. "Aw, looks like we got ourselves a martyr," Marcus scoffed and kicked me in the leg, making me collapse again, but he was still holding my hair, so all I succeeded in doing was further ripping my hair out, but I couldn't hold myself up any more. It felt like my scalp was coming off as well as my hair.

It began to rain, the tapping on the metal bins growing louder every second. I just managed to hold my eyes open to see the girl, Maggie, I presumed, step forward.

"Marcus," she said gently. "Let her go and we'll talk."

"We're done talking!" he yelled, pressing the gun to my head threateningly. I squeezed my eyes shut. This was it. I was strangely at peace, I knew that these people were trying to help, but once I was dead there was nothing to stop them taking him down. The guy had that look on his face, the 'I want to kick this guy's butt so bad' look. I wish I could've told dad goodbye. I was soaked to the skin now and shivering violently.

Marcus was still yelling, but I was beyond hearing. Maggie had her hands up and she looked to be concentrating. I thought I saw the gun fly out of Marcus' hands but he was holding it and no-one was near him so that couldn't be possible. I fell suddenly, no longer held up by my hair and caught a glimpse of Marcus jumping over the wall at the far end of the space we were in, using the bins to pull himself up. The brown-haired guy made to follow him, but the girl grabbed his shirt and kissed him first. "Stay safe," she told him. "Always," he replied and followed where Marcus had gone, swiftly vaulting the wall. She and the other guy came to me and knelt beside me.

"Hello, can you hear me?" she asked, touching my shoulder. I tried to speak, to say I was fine.

"She's ok," she told the guy behind her.

"Yeah," I managed to croak. My throat felt sore.

"Do you think anything's broken?"

"No, I don't think so," I replied, mentally assessing myself. She seemed relieved and helped me sit up carefully. She quickly introduced herself.
"Hi, I'm Maggie. This is Luc," she gestured to the guy beside her. "I'm so sorry you had to get involved in this. We'll take you to the nearest hospital."

"Don't worry, I don't need the hospital," I cleared my throat. "Just some help to my car maybe. I don't live far away. Sorry, I'm Anna."

"You don't look like you're in a fit state to drive," Maggie told me quietly. "At least let us drive you to your house."

"No, really, I'm fine, I'll be fine," I corrected myself. I started to get up, but realised my leg was numb where Marcus had kicked me. I collapsed with a cry, but before I hit the ground, I fell into strong arms. Luc's. He helped me to my feet and stayed there, holding my arm to make sure I didn't fall over again. I smiled at him, meaning to thank him, but when I looked at him, my stomach flipped over. He had warm hazel eyes and tousled dark brown hair. I stared into his eyes much longer than was polite, but he was doing the same, looking at me with a somewhat curious and marvelling expression. I managed to stutter my thanks to him, going extremely red at my incoherence. Wordlessly, he wrapped an arm under my shoulders to support me and began to help me limp to my car. Seemed like a long distance when I was trying to outrun the rain, but with a hurt leg and in the rain, it was so much further. We finally got there, soaked to the skin and me on the brink of collapsing again and shaking like a leaf.

Maggie suddenly turned, and a second later the other guy appeared, breathless. He shook his head and puffed, hands on his knees.

"Couldn't catch him. Disappeared somewhere," he panted. Luc grunted angrily, drawing his attention. He looked questioning for a moment, then smiled widely and went to Maggie, holding her hand.

"Hi, I'm Caleb, Maggie's husband," he told me, smiling. "Hi," I replied, uncomfortably. They were married? Maggie looked to be my age, just 18, or possibly a bit older. I was not good with strangers, even friendly ones. "Are you Ok for Caleb to drive?" Maggie asked me as I got out my keys. I nodded and handed them over to Caleb, muttering that it was a manual gear shift, uncomplaining now. I would never be able to drive in this state, not when I could barely keep my eyes open.

Maggie got in another car and followed us whilst I gave him directions to my empty house. I got out, and turned round to them. "Thanks for the lift, and for… well, before." I said, awkwardly.

"It's no problem- I'm just sorry you had to get caught up in all this. We'll make sure Marcus doesn't come back," Maggie said, determinedly.

I turned towards the house, but I had barely gone a step when I collapsed for a second time, jarring my already bruised butt. Luc offered a hand to help me up and I took it, not that I normally grabbed stranger's hands. I just felt some kind of pull to him, that I knew I was safe with him. He helped me up, but just as he was about to let my hand go, I felt a jolt. A weird jolt, like I had been shocked by an electric fence or my blood decided to spontaneously combust. It wasn't a bad feeling, just strange. Then, my blood decided to freeze and my skin felt oddly hot, even in the freezing rain. He didn't let my hand go as suddenly, pictures swam before my eyes. I gasped. No, they were visions.

In the first one, I saw myself and Luc, sitting on a bed I didn't recognise, me looking at my phone with my head on his shoulder and him playing with my hair. As I watched, he tugged at a piece playfully, and I turned and ruffled his hair teasingly in retaliation. He gave me a 'now you've done it look' and began to tickle me as we both laughed. The second was of a moonlit garden with fairy lights around. I was wearing a red dress and him a red shirt. We were both barefoot and danced slowly, my head resting on his chest and his arms round my waist. I buried my face in his shirt, but he brought my chin up with his finger and brought his lips to mine. The last was of me crying on the floor of a room, hugging my knees. He sat next to me and touched my back. I threw myself into his chest, sobbing and shaking as his arms came around me. His face showed that he was hurting as much as I was. He held my cheek and kissed me softly on the lips. I continued to clutch at him as I kissed him back desperately. Finally, I saw me, here in the rain, with Luc holding my arm in his. My face was the very picture of confused but strangely joyful. His was the same, but without the confusion. He knew what was happening.

My eyes opened and I saw his face, looking exactly as it had in the vision, utterly amazed and utterly happy. I stared into his open brown eyes that looked at me with certainty and joy and somehow, everything felt right with him, even though I was so confused. Then, he spoke the first word I'd heard from him. "Anna," he said, looking awed. His voice had that throaty sound that people had when they weren't speaking their mother tongue. I bit my lip and tried not to make it look like I thought his voice was extremely sexy. What was I doing? I suddenly remembered what I'd seen and heard and started to back away from them both. I shook my head.

"What are you?" I asked Maggie, frightened of her now. No normal person could have made a gun fly out of a grown man's hand without even touching him and answer thoughts. She glanced at Luc, raising her eyebrows in question. He nodded to her and proceeded to tell me the most unbelievable story I had ever heard.

She began, "Ok, before you ask, I'm not an alien." I raised my eyebrows- that had not occurred to me. She continued, "What I am, what we are, has a few names. We're called Virtuoso or Charmed, but mostly we call ourselves Aces. We're practically human, there's just one major difference. Some of us have… abilities. Like superpowers, but these only come when there's an imprint and an ascension. Ever read Twilight? Well, it's something like that; we find our soul mates. You've just imprinted with Luc. He's your, and you're his, Significant.

"Your souls, your bodies, your minds, all chose the other; you're perfectly matched in every way. You were made to be together- you are meant, destined, even. You need each other's touch, so when you're apart, you get… withdrawal symptoms from each other. You'll be fine for a few hours, just not for, say, a week. You'll get sick if you're not around each other." She winced at some memory or other and stopped. I just stared. This could not be happening, she was mad, they were all mad.

"Please, we're not mad," she told me, surprising me. "My ability, well part of it, is reading thoughts. I try not to some of the time because it's rude to pry into people's minds, but I can hear thoughts. I also have telekinesis, which is how I managed to get the gun away from Marcus."

I shook my head, slowly, then faster. "No," I said. Caleb exchanged a glance with Maggie. I dropped Luc's hand and started to back away, my leg only just supporting my weight.

"Anna, wait, let us explain!" Maggie pleaded, but I was done. This was too weird for me. Telekinesis? Mind reading? No, it was too much. They could keep their stupid imprints, I wasn't going to just be someone's 'significant', just because we touched. Not even a hot guy like Luc. It felt like my body was rebelling against me and I was walking against a rope, pulling me back, but I just had to get away. Caleb started to follow me, but Luc put his hand on his arm, stopping him, and walked forward. He stopped after a few steps, then said gently, "I will wait, as long as it takes. When you want me to explain, I will come." He stopped and took a breath, like it was physically difficult to let me go, looked down and shut his eyes for a second before sighing and looking at me again. I turned and limped away, feeling his eyes on me all the way to my door. I wanted, needed to look back, but I wasn't about to embark on some fake freaky thing that forced me and someone else to be together, or whatever. Luc's face popped into my head as I slammed the door and tossed the keys in the bowl. I pushed the image away. I was not going to think about him. I went to the bathroom to have a shower.