Chapter 3
Kate Freelander tells herself it's coincidence that she is skulking around the warehouse where she knows they have stashed Ashley Magnus. Curiosity finally gets the better of her, and if she is honest, a little sting of jealousy. Just what is so great about this 'Ashley', or 'Simmone', or whatever she is calling herself these days, that has everyone else running around falling all over themselves?
"Just what is the big deal about this girl?" Kate had asked Will
"That's Ashley." He had answered, as if that was supposed to explain everything.
It was just a name. Sacred around these hallways it seemed, but just a name all the same.
"Well, 'Ashley' doesn't seem to want to be here." Kate had pointed out.
"Ashley is....not herself." Will had answered cryptically.
Maybe that was true. Kate couldn't comment, she had never known Ashley.
She had heard the others whispering behind closed doors, and knows there is something going on that she isn't privy to. And she resents it. It was almost enough to send her running to Magnus and just freaking tell the woman that her kid was here. But there was a kind of bitter-sweet consolation in knowing she wasn't the only one in the dark. And an almost exciting anticipation waiting for the fireworks when Magnus figures out just how long they have been keeping this secret from her.
Kate remembers the blind fury that flashed across the eyes of Helen Magnus, the rage in her voice as she spoke the words. "They have my daughter." It was the kind of fury fuelled by deep underlying devotion, by desperate fear. Beyond anything Kate had experienced in her own life. And it makes Kate want to know, who would run from a mother like that?
Kate feels a little sorry for the girl, almost, being kidnapped against her will. Kate had been the one to knock her unconscious in Australia. Without her, Will and Henry would still be standing on that street corner pleading with the girl. Kate could see in their eyes, they would not have walked away and left her, neither would they have been able to drag her back forcibly.
Kate wonders just how long they intend to keep her here? It's not like they could make her want to be here. It was not like she'd been brainwashed or turned into some kind of monster killing machine, like the last time. The girl did not want to be here. Simple as that. There wasn't much point keeping her against her will, that was hardly going to ingratiate her. It seemed even more pointless since they were not even going to tell Magnus that her daughter was alive, that her daughter was here just around the corner from the sanctuary. It makes Kate wonder just what Will and Henry were hoping to achieve.
And then, as if Ashley were a child, Will had contacted her father. Kate overheard Will explaining to the man they had found his dead daughter, that he was reluctant to tell Magnus. Not yet. That he didn't want to hurt her, didn't want to get her hopes up. That he didn't know what to do. And so it had been decided, John Druitt would talk to her, somehow get through to her. As if she were a naughty disobedient little school girl, waiting for her father to come home and reprimand her.
Kate hides in the shadows watching as John Druitt approaches that warehouse. Through the window she sees the fear in Ashley's eyes as that door creaks open. A deep fear that defies all logic and sense. Did Ashley really think that anyone here was going to hurt her? They were each falling all over themselves as if she were a god. It makes Kate wonder if Ashley has lost the plot.
Kate waits for the outrage to cloud the girls eyes, waits for her to tell her father to get lost, as she had told Will, as she had told Henry. Waits for her to scream that she didn't want to be here, didn't want any part of this, waits for Ashley to demand to be set free.
But the fear dissolves instantly from her eyes as Ashley looks up and sees her father in the doorway. Far from angry outrage or even surprise, the look that crosses Ashley's face in that moment is more akin to smug relief.
"You..." Ashley says to her father, "...are late."
