We touched down at an airport on the coast between Grindavik and Keflavik. (A/N-yes, they are real places!). It was about a mile to the beach, and it was summer and Iceland in summer is pretty much like England in summer, except with mosquitoes.
So, we decided to walk (after spraying copious amounts of mosquito repellent on).
On the way I noticed scars criss-crossing over her wrist. She obviously had been self-harming. Why? Depression? I asked her about it. "Well," she said, turning her head away. "If you want the truth," she hesitated. "I was bullied at school." "So?" I pointed out. "So do most people. Even I did…before Butler sorted them out." I smiled, remembering how Christopher Hayford came to school with a limp and a black eye the next day.
But Megan shook her head. "No," she said quietly. "You think its because I was rich, don't you? But it wasn't." She bowed her head. "It was because I was fat. And unattractive. They took the micky out of my nose as well." I noticed for the first time that it was a little larger than your average pretty girl's. Also that she was curvier than your average model. But she had bundles of attitude to counter that.
She'd built up a shell around herself in Atlantis, thought it would be strong enough against the world. But I had broken it down as easily as a chocolate egg. Just by making her think about her faults, and her past. I'd worn her tough wall down, and she was left cowering, weak, with nowhere to hide.
We had reached the edge of the beach. Megan sat down on a barnacle-covered rock.
I suddenly realised that behind the professional façade, behind the no-nonsense confidence, that Megan Robbins was just a girl. Just a girl. And she wasn't perfect. Nobody is perfect. Anybody who thinks they are is deluded.
I made up my mind on that beach. You know, when you're trying to decide if you can trust a person enough to be your acquaintance. To know that a secret will stay a secret with them. "Megan?" I said, clambering clumsily over the rocks to get to the adjacent rock. She looked up, eyes red and cheeks stained with tears. "You've got a friend." I said, extending my pale hand to her even paler one. She took it, shook it and picked off a barnacle from the one she was sitting on, then jammed it into a crevice. A hole opened at the base of the rock. She jumped off the rock and into the pale sand, peering into the hole. She looked up at me.
"Yes." She said. "And we've got a vehicle." She place her hand on a small space of barnacle free rock and the rock suddenly broke away fom the other rocks and hovered in front of us. She pushed in through the open hole. I followed her nervously inside. And gaped at the silk seats and controls jammed into the space, "Seatbelts on!" Megan barked. Seatbelts immediately slid across me. Megan turned to me. "Are you ready, sir?" She said. "Because we are going for one hell of a ride!"
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