Chapter 36 – Michael

I had waited until the clock above the hospital room door stuck two o'clock in the morning before I started to move. Sam had fallen asleep in my arms, her lips parted as she breathed her nose against my shirt. She hadn't woken up from Joe's gift with the speed that I did. Myself, Ella and Joe all woke up on the five hour marks when we were only three minutes away from the gates; Trace informed us we had hit some traffic but we made good timing. Sam didn't wake up quickly – or at all. I carried her into the hospital and called Jason to check her over.

He had brought Nic up with him and I had hugged her so tight, sitting her on my lap before I asked her to tell me what had happened. She explained that Cameron had cared for her, cleaned her cuts; let her grow a forest in the room. He never threatened them, but treated them nicely. He kept the kids informed on what was happening and the plans. Cameron appeared to have nothing to hide, and was being genuine. The only thing wrong with the girls was dehydration. He made a kidnapping for the girls stressful and like an impromptu holiday for them. Nic wasn't at all stressed, just tired. Jason said that Sam was just asleep; she wasn't under Joe's gift anymore.

However, for precautionary reasons, Nic and Lily had to be placed on an intravenous drip to get them hydrated again and whilst they slept. Nic was more than willing to share a bed with Sam, and was an angel when Jason put the needle into her hand for the drip. Nic then kissed me goodnight, telling me she loved me, and happily went to sleep on Sam's arm, hugging her Mum slightly, like nothing major had ever happened. When Sam woke up, it was easy to tell she was completely shattered and I was able to persuade her to sleep. However, it wouldn't be so easy with me.

I edged out of the bed, kissing both Sam and Nic on the head before I crept out of the room. Walking down a few rooms, I came across the room Lily was in. Ella was standing against the wall, her hair only just visible from window, watching what was happening – which wasn't much. Joe was asleep on the hospital bed, with Lily in his arms; which was similar to how I left Sam and Nic. However, they must have found a Perspex cot and they had Charlie asleep in there. It was just Ella that was awake and she didn't seem too happy. I gently knocked on the window, causing her to jump as she turned around, before walking out.

'What are you doing up?' I hissed to her as she pulled the door closed, not to disturb her sleeping family.

'I can't sleep.' She simply said, rolling a shoulder in a shrug.

'Neither can I,' I sighed back at her. Everything was weighing on us; our children were not safe, there was a plan we had to follow without knowing what it was, oh – and two of our brothers we saw die in front of us was alive. Ella was more affected by it than me; I was able to process the grief properly and was conscious for their funerals and memorials, the charity pages to support both Ella and myself. Ella, however, for four months was in a coma. She woke up unable to speak, walk or breathe properly, and when she was told her family had died she didn't understand. She kept asking for them. And it hit her too hard. No five years old should ever experience that. She had just turned five when she woke up from the coma, but no one was there to celebrate it. Ella suffered heavily with survivor's guilt, and she had managed to bury the emotions completely after meeting Joe. It wacked everything into perspective for her. However, finding out two of our brothers hadn't died shook her up again. I frowned – why was Joe letting her go through this alone as he slept?

'I spiked him with sleeping tablets,' Ella said, running her hand through her hair.

'You did what?' I asked

'He needed sleep,'

'You need support; you're not dealing with any of this okay!' I shouted at her and she shrugged. It proved what she said; he was definitely on sleeping tablets or he would have woken up. 'He won't be happy, will he?'

'Oh, God no,' Ella muttered. 'He needs to be okay for the kids. We're probably going to be flying somewhere until they can bring down Kingdom – I can sleep on planes.' Ella whispered.

'What do you mean we'll be flying somewhere?' I asked deliriously.

'Well, we're not going to go home are we? That was exactly where they got the kids from. Safe houses in England are ruled out because of what happened to myself and Joe, it's too close and they won't risk it again, and as if they'd be dumb enough to send you to Blakeley or Frimley to stay,' Ella sighed. 'So, we're moving temporarily until they can bring down Kingdom,'

'We haven't been able to bring down Kingdom for years, Ella, we can't bring down Kingdom, we'd have to get Carnes and he has a pardon on his name,'

'About that,' Ella said, grinning at the floor. 'I need to find Trace and Vick,'

'You need to get your arse into bed, or I'll telling your husband you spiked him,' I told her and she shook her head, hugging herself a bit tighter.

'He'll already know, he won't be happy,' She repeated the fact he won't be happy and I knew she was scared, but she couldn't change the past. Neither of us could change the past.

I think that's something both of us struggled to remember. That we can't change the past, and whilst that in itself is a bad thing, it will all work out. We can't change the fact our family died, and we can't change the fact we ignored each other for so many years. We can't change the fact we grew up on other sides of the world. I can't change how Ella viewed herself for years, and when she needed me the most I never picked up on anything. We can't change the fact she attempted suicide. I can't change how badly I treated Joe when he told me about him and Ella – and that's despite how much I've tried to make it up to him and Ella. But, despite how bad the past is, everything happens for a reason and whilst we can't change what's happened in the past, we can change how it affects us in the future. So whilst Ella might get yelled at by Joe when he wakes up and realises he's been spiked, Ella can change how it'll impact her in the future. We can't change the fact that our brother's somehow didn't die in the car crash, but we can try our hardest to include them in our family and help them out as much as we can.

'Fine, let's go find Trace and Vick, then,' I said to my sister, and she nodded solemnly before taking one last look at her sleeping family before walking towards the exit of the hospital, followed with me hot on her heels.

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It didn't take us too long to find where the boys were. Ella projected straight over to where she could sense them to see them all sitting in the Twist, and since it was Ella's building she had the passes to enter at all times when anyone else could only ever enter during work times. They must have been in there since they had returned at just past ten – four hours ago. We stopped outside the door whilst Ella put her key card into the door, opening up just enough to let us through single file. The door whooshed closed as we pressed our index finger on the scanner, which then beeped as it clocked us into the building, which would allow the rest of the doors to open to our Maui swipe cards. Ella walked straight down the hallway and into the last room on the right. I followed her.

'Ella,' Trace said, frowning as she walked into the room. Victor closed his laptop lid slightly frowning at her. 'I thought you were asleep – in hospital,'

'Nope,' She said, popping the "p" as she sat on a chair.

'Where are Joe and Sam? And the kids?' Victor asked her gently.

'They're asleep in hospital. We're not,' I added and they both frowned at me but they seemed to understand.

'What's the plan?' Ella whispered, running her hand through her hair.

'We're working on it now, Els, go back to bed.' Trace told her gently and she shook her head.

'No point,' Ella sighed.

There was a heavy silence between us. Trace and Victor looked at each other with concern visible wondering what to do exactly; I could see Will and Uriel sitting in the dark shadows in the room on a tablet-like device, both of them with thick puffed headphones on so they wouldn't be able to hear what was being said – and I wasn't entirely sure they knew we were in the room either.

'This is about Cameron and Chris, isn't it?'

'Partially,' Ella owned up. 'Have you got their statements for us to read?'

'Not yet,' Vick told her, gently hugging her. 'But we appear to know more about the crash now,'

'What do you mean?' Ella asked.

'You know investigators thought it was staged, set up, as revenge for the work your parents did with Maui when it was first set up?' Vick asked and we nodded, 'Well, it was more staged that we originally thought. The ambulance crews that came were actually fake,'

'They can't be – we got to hospital,' I interrupted.

'Yes, the plan for the crash was to have you alone on the road and then have the fake ambulanced cart your family away so it would appear everyone was dead. However, the situation never happened like that; your parents did die in the crash, as well as Sophie, Jodie and Marcus. One of the cars who were behind you who witnessed the crash called the police and the ambulance, which is how you two got out. They never picked up on the fact the other ambulance crew were phonies. They took Cameron and Chris, who had life-threatening injuries back to Kingdom where they had people who's gifts were medical, such as Jason and Xav's gifts, to fix them up. It took them a little over two years to get them good as new, and then they were trained into Kingdoms regime. However, they tried to remove the memories of what had happened from them, to use them both as a weapon against you two, and our entire family, it never worked. They were aware of what had happened and were already fucking the system around to make sure nothing had happened to you. Chris was higher up than Cameron, but Cameron was the one who kept risking everything to make sure you were safe. Neither of them knew what had happened last year until after you broke out, but Cameron was the one who kept the guys who tried to kill you, Ella, in Cornwall away from you. He kept hacking into the system and giving them leads elsewhere.' Victor explained and Ella frowned before resting her head on the table. I went immediately to her side.

'It's a lot to take in – they understand that like we do,' Trace said to her softly.

I looked over at Ella, and she was just frowning at the table. Someone had wanted to kill our entire family? For our parents helping to set up Maui? The entire crash was planned – they paid someone to drive down the road the wrong side but it turned sour pretty prompt, with them actually murdering people. A fake ambulance took Cameron and Chris away from us, whilst myself and Ella were actually rescued and taken to hospital. They could have very easily taken us with them, too. Our entire family would have thought that Ella and I would have died at the same time when in theory we were all alive, just slaving away in Kingdom.

'It adds up to what Lucy says too – she remembers Cameron from her time in Kingdom, he was referred to as Agent 1021. He helped make the plans to get her out of there before she would have been married off. She had no idea the links he had to our family.' Trace said and we just nodded.

'What's the plan?' Ella sighed wanting to change the subject – a sure sign that she wasn't coping okay or wouldn't quite comprehend what she was told. Her brothers looked at her, and then each other.

'Er, we're moving you back to Wrickenridge,'

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We pulled over outside my house in the absolute darkness, and I pulled into the turning circle. Victor had told us we were flying out the second we had our stuff and everyone was awake enough to sign the paperwork. We didn't know how long we would be there for, though, so we had six bags and a few boxes to fill with things that we would put on the plane for our temporary house. Victor had explained to us that the FBI had rented out two houses for us, opposite each other down one of the smaller roads in Wrickenridge, quite close to where Sky used to live with her parents. It leads on near the woods. Ella grew up scaling the woods and knew the shortcuts through fields around the back of the town that led to her parent's house. It would be a safe place for us to stay, and the kids could go to Kindergarten there so it wouldn't affect their education at all and during the day, we would do what we could to try and bring down Kingdom. Lucy, Jason and Tyler were moving over too, but they had a house two down from us. It wasn't safe for them either. Cameron and Chris were staying with Victor as well, so we could deal with this.

We had already gone around to Ella's house, packed down clothes for everyone, Charlie's baby stuff and Lily's toys. She had done it emotionlessly, but she seemed so sad when she handed over her dog to Jake to look after. Her stuff had been sent back to Maui in a van to be packed into the jet – we were using one of the limited aircraft Maui had to fly off the books to Colorado. We were to pack down my stuff into the car, and we would have a few hours.

We walked down the door in silence, using the new key from the new locksmith who had visited at some point in the last two days since Nic was taken to open the door. I sighed audibly and Ella frowned at me. Sam won't be happy with me – she'll blame herself for us having to go to Colorado. But she had Nic back so hopefully she won't be as down as she was before but I knew what she was like – I knew she would blame herself for us having to move across the world, away from everyone she knows into a job – bringing down Kingdom with the help of Maui and the FBI – that she's never done before. Ella spoke to Vick about her plan and he agreed to think into it, but she never told me.

'How do I convince Sam that none of this is her fault?' I asked Ella as we both walked upstairs to the bedrooms. We stopped in the corridor.

'Er, I just guess tell her that this kind of thing has happened before but not to you, it's not completely uncommon, and that she never had any part to play in this so how can it be her fault,' Ella said. 'I'll do Nic's stuff,' She said, obviously not wanting me to go into that room. They had left the blood from the cut on her head in the room, as it was a crime scene. I nodded, thankful I wouldn't have to see that a second time.

'Can you find her bunny and take it with you, not pack it down?' I asked her, remembering how before she was kidnapped she never wanted to be parted from her bunny. She would need some resemblance of home. She's only a kid – so is Lily. Why have they been dragged into this?

'Yeah,' Ella said, taking two of the big sports holdalls into the room with her – they were the two and a half foot bags with compartments and a solid base, and Ella had developed what I call "retailers folding," where she would fold clothes up incredibly neatly and in an order, like they do in clothes shops, and they would be able to fit in any sized compartment. Ella doing Nic's room would be incredible, she could pack down all of her clothes into a bag and still have another one free.

I walked into mine and Sam's room, and immediately paused on the threshold. It was like walking into the room of a relative who passed; there was an eerie silence and an ominous feeling about this room. The broken window was replaced, and the box that was filled with gas has been removed and the scissors used to cut Sam's jogging bottoms open had all been removed but everything else was still here including the blood from Sam where they had hurt her. The duvet was still pushed back on the bed, revealing the mattress protector. Sam's charger remained on the side, where I had taken her phone before taking her to Maui, and it was still turned on. There were tissues on the bed too – did she cry? Why would she cry? It hit me hard that I was the reason she would have cried that night because I stormed out because I read her thoughts. I was so self indulged I didn't realise I was in the wrong for reading her mind to start with. My entire gift focuses on the bad in people, and not the good. Of course I would read the dark thoughts. I've lived with this curse long enough and I should know not to freak out – but I did anyway. Sam is different. I love Sam; I don't think I can go back to a life that wouldn't involve her. The second she was in pain or in conflict, I panicked and needed to help her.

I threw the four bags on the bed, opening one as I went through Sam's drawers taking things she would want me to take for her; a few dog earred books that she would read before bed when I was up doing paperwork, a notepad and some pens she swears are gifts from the Gods because of how well the ink flows, body butter and moisturiser which smelt of vanilla cupcakes. A Yankee candle in a jar. I sat on the bed, rolling the items in my hands as I thought of the memories each item held. I never realised how precious she was until this moment. I hadn't been the best person to her, and she deserved better than myself. I had filled not even a quarter of the bag when I finished the drawer, and frowned as I saw an envelope in the bottom. It had no name on. It was a padded envelope and I could feel a book or something in it.

I flicked it over in my hand, weighing it up. I didn't want to open it, as it wasn't addressed to me. But it wasn't addressed to anyone. And I couldn't just pack down something that I didn't know what it was. Against my judgement, I emptied the envelope content onto the bed.

There were photographs that were yellowing with age and little memorabilia but the main bulks were two A5 reporters pads – one with wavy pages and well thumbed pages and the other with a few pages in use. I opened the elder book in my hand.

It appeared to be a dream journal; each page had six or seven dreams on. The dates all went back to when – I did the maths in my head – when she was twelve. I went thought dreams of schools, lessons, private moments, and beside each one was a neatly printed "came true," in a light green pen. My mouth dropped as I went through six years of the dreams that had all come true for Sam, and not in a cute sense. I read one that described her graduation from Blakeley in a lot of detail and the same green pen. The day after, there was one about her gaining a child over night, but the book ended. I flicked through the next book, and there was a year or two absences, but it started up again on the day she got Nic. The dream journal simply said, "Nic was handed to me – the last dream came true" before it started up again.

I wondered if she had kept this going when we were together. I flicked to the last few pages of writing, and sure enough it had. Sam had been having a recurring dream about losing Nic, and had describe how panicked she had been at Blakeley about losing Nic. She thought it would be a custody thing but it linked in with the dreams. She had honestly thought there would be a custody battle between myself and her which would involve her losing Nic, but what had happened was thousands times worse. She didn't write anything next to it in green pen, though, but her losing Nic against her will had most definitely come true. However, it was the last dream that made the world stop. Considering how one word could cause this, I realised exactly what had happened and what the dream journal meant. My girlfriend and Soulfinder could see the future in her dreams. And the second thing was, her most recent dream she had on the night she had moved in, the last one she had document, she had wrote very plainly and with a distinct lack of detail, "pregnant,"

I shouldn't be reading this, I thought to myself in a panic. I put the two notebooks into the envelopes and the pictures as well and threw it into the bag. Was the room suddenly really hot? And spinning? Where had all of the air gone too? I laid down, realising I was very close to passing out – something that had only happened to me once and that was when I found out Ella was pregnant – and tried to breathe deeply. Just because she dreamt it doesn't mean it'll happen – and if it does it could be years away. There was quite a few years gap between the two notebooks.

'How many toys do you think Nic should – why are you having a nap?' Ella came around the corner before she frowned at me.

'Er, just tired,' I lied – I was no okay. But how would I bring this up with Sam? She had never even mentioned the dreams, let alone she thinks she can see the future in dream format. And she would brutally murder me if she knew I was snooping through her stuff. But I couldn't not talk to her about it either.

'I appreciate you're a terrible liar, but you need to try harder,' Ella said but thankfully she didn't probe as to why I was having a mental breakdown. 'I'll continue with how many toys I think is enough, I've left her bunny out, any other requests?' Ella asked me and I just shook my head when wanting to ask her about what I had just found. She frowned at me, before shaking her head as she walked out. She has no bloody clue!

I sat up again trying extremely hard to breathe, and be calm. It might not be as catastrophic as it seems. Sure, my girlfriend can see the future in her dreams and she saw/dreamed that she was pregnant. I wasn't ready for that. I realised very quickly that I wasn't ready for it. But there was a part of me that was ready, who wanted it more than anything. But, not at the moment. When Kingdom was still around, I wouldn't want to risk it.

I looked out the window to see the sun was rising; it had started to fill the sky with a deep orange colour and the wind had picked up slightly. However, it had only turned half five. How long had we been here for? No – the question would be how long was I breaking down over something that hasn't happened yet. I didn't even know if Sam could see the future despite the evidence I had just read. I had to keep reminding myself that there was years between the two books – the last dream before her graduation was gaining Nic. She didn't get Nic until four years ago. That was... I couldn't do the maths quickly enough but that was a long time. So perhaps this was really into the future and I just needed to chill. My brain continued to run at a thousand times a minute as I continued to pack down all of Sam's clothes into the two holdalls and just over half of mine into the bags, as well as other essentials. Near the end, we had gutted all the essentials from the house and managed to Tetris them into the bags, and we had put the bags in the back. My breath shook slightly knowing I had to confront Sam later. I couldn't hold this to my chest, and she said she wants no more secrets despite hiding this. So, I'll talk to her later.

She'll hate me, but I need to know.

Hello! Sorry this took a while, I started university this week and also I'm kind of loosing motivation. Time is a bit tight and the only way I know people like it is through reviews and I haven't got many recently but hopefully im back on track but please let me know if you like it! :D