Chapter 51 - Congratulations, Bo: Part III
5:35 pm - Nursing Home
"What?!" Trick exclaimed after having listened to what Tamsin had found out at the other Yama-uba's place. "Bo's brother is behind this?"
He studied the pictures that Tamsin showed him - some sharpened images of Bo's brother caught on the camera at the other Yama-uba's place. "So he went to that Yama-uba's place...wait, did he visit Lillian too?"
"We don't know that for sure, but the old lady did have a disposable cup in the trash can, which she didn't use. She definitely had a visitor right before she shut herself down," Tamsin explained. "It's gotta be him. I mean, who else could it possibly be?"
"But...why? What does he want exactly? Why these Yama-ubas? W-what did he do to them?" Trick fired his questions out as he looked at Lillian. After a short pause, he added, "wait, you didn't mean...does this have something to do with him? Did he somehow cause her to shut her mind down?"
"That is my theory," Tamsin nodded slightly.
"How? I mean...you can't just give people dementia."
"No, he didn't give them dementia," Tamsin sighed. "He hypnotized them."
"He hypnotized them into dementia?"
"No..." Tamsin explained. "Well, I guess you could say that. He hypnotized them into this...into tuning themselves out from this world. At least that's what I think happened. We've already known that he can hypnotize people in a weird way. He can convince people to do things that are not possible. Remember one of the arsonists we caught a long time ago? Bo's brother somehow convinced him that he was not Fae but a human, and tricked that dude's body into thinking that it was a human body. I mean...if you can do that, you can certainly convince people to...shut down."
"Okay, let's say that he did do all this. What does he want?" Trick asked as he started to panic again.
"To fuck with us? To show that he can do it? Just enjoying being a total jerk?" Tamsin growled. "I don't know, Gramps, but if he's behind all this…."
She trailed off, pondering. Then, she asked, "how's your research going? Found anything yet?"
"Well, I did find something," Trick immediately went back to his book. "Someone explained how a Yama-uba's power works. Normally, once the victim's conscious mind, or soul, if you will, enters the parallel universe inside the Yama-uba's mind, it will stay there forever. The soul goes in, the Yama-uba devours the flesh of the victim, so there is nothing for the soul to return to. However, in rare cases, if the victim's body is still alive, if the soul can leave the parallel universe that exists in the Yama-uba's mind, it can come back."
"What do we need to do to get her soul back then?" Tamsin asked impatiently.
"There is no known method, but I did find a handful of documented cases where the victim's soul has come back safely, quote unquote, under guidance."
"Well, that's good thing, right? So she needs guidance. I mean, her soul needs guidance and then it can come out from the old lady's head...what kind of guidance are we talking about?"
"There is no clear explanation on that, but in one of the scrolls, it says that the worlds are linked somehow. Our world, the world in Lillian's mind, or in other Yama-uba's mind, are all linked. There is a...a-"
He stopped as he tried to pronounce a sentence with difficult words that came from a dead language. A series of weird grunts and hums left his mouth, before he explained, "I think the best translation here would be that...those who find the key shall leave."
"Ok, so she needs a key...are we talking about a real key, or something else?"
"I don't know, but I think that it's not a real key. It's probably referring to the key link between worlds...Bo needs to follow that key link to come back."
"Well, does she know that? Do we need to tell her that? We do need to tell her that, right?"
"I think the question, really, is how," Trick said as he glanced at Lillian. "How can we tell her that?"
- Meanwhile In Thomasina's Flying Vessel -
"Whoa...this is...weird," Bo murmured as she stared into the night sky. A part of her started to wonder if she was really inside an old flying vessel.
"You've never been in one of these before?" Thomasina asked curiously.
Bo shook her head. "Planes, yes, cars, yes, flying vessels? Nope."
Fascinated by the steam propelled device, she watched the thin pieces on the side of the main body fanning out right outside the window. They operated like fish fins, and the flying vessel looked like nothing but a fish swiftly navigating through the night sky.
"No flying vessels? Your world is fucked up then," Thomasina commented with a genuine frown. She was about to say something else, but a bright flare behind her stopped her. She took a glance, and cursed.
"What's wrong?" Bo asked.
Thomasina quickly pulled the vessel into an airdock nearby. After taking a glance at a large vessel that was tailing her, she nervously turned to Bo. "It's the Crimson Watchers."
"The Crimson Watchers? Who are they?" Bo frowned as she took a peek at the vessel behind them. It was a large, dark vessel, with some sort of deep red pattern painted on the side.
"Just shut up and behave, okay?" Thomasina told her in a whisper. "Don't say anything, understand?"
Bo nodded nervously, suddenly starting to wonder why Thomasina seemed so afraid all of the so-called Crimson Watchers.
In the rearview mirror, she saw a bulky guy exiting the vessel. He came towards them slowly with a humming jetpack on his back.
Bo watched him closely. He was bald, and he was muscular. He had goggles on and most of his face was covered by a mask that seemed to have been made of junk gears and bolts.
He was wearing a crimson outfit, with both of his hands exposed. On the back of his left hand, there was a red salamander pattern, which looked like a bloody scar. His right hand was covered in metal, and Bo couldn't tell whether he was wearing a bronze glove, or he actually had a robotic hand.
The Crimson Watcher stopped beside them and studied them for a while. Then, he reached his bronze hand out at Thomasina. As his fingers slowly stretched out, Bo could hear some gear turning underneath the metal surface.
"Your PI," the man demanded in a slow voice. It sounded like synthesized voice being pushed out through an air filled tube.
Thomasina handed him her personal identification card. It was a piece of metal with punch holes. The Crimson Watcher took it, and slid it into a device that was embedded into his left forearm. The device had a card reader slot, some buttons and a small screen.
The device buzzed, and they all waited while Bo's heart dangling. So he's randomly checking people's ID or something? But I don't have one! She thought as she dodged his gaze, panicking.
After a rather soft ding, the Crimson Watcher looked down at his arm, where the profile from the card had been displayed on the black and white screen. "Investigator from Langside station," he acknowledged simply as he looked at Thomasina, "why are you out here at this time of night?"
"We are...working on a case, a murder case," Thomasina replied. She kept her voice calm, but Bo did notice a subtle tremor of nervousness underneath. "The Docker case."
The Crimson Watcher gave her a simple nod. He gave her her card back, before he reached his hand out at Bo.
Bo's heart jumped into the back of her throat now. She wondered what would happen if the Crimson Watcher found out that she didn't have a PI card.
She nervously glanced at Thomasia, and the blonde gave the Crimson Watcher a nod. "We are following an important lead," she explained. "We have to meet someone and we are already late."
"They can wait," the Crimson Watcher simply stated. He turned to Bo again and demanded, "your PI."
"I-" Bo stuttered. Before she came up with an excuse, she heard a loud music coming from behind them. Or rather, a series of unpleasant noise maybe?
The Crimson Watcher became alerted all of a sudden. He gave Bo a last glance, before he returned to his vessel and left in a hurry.
Thomasina let out a deep breath. "You are damn lucky," she commented as she started her vessel again and quickly left the scene before the Crimson Watcher could come back.
"Who is him exactly? Why are you so afraid of him?" Bo asked curiously.
"They are the enforcers," Thomasina replied. "You absolutely do not want to engage them, since you are a traveller."
"What they hate travellers or something?"
"No, they don't hate you. They can't hate."
"What do you mean they can't hate? They are not humans?"
"Hell, I have no idea. They might be pure machines as far as I concern. Maybe machines have more feelings that they do," Thomasina told her. "They only have one job. They arrest people. If they find out that you are a traveller, they will not hesitate to take you away. "
"So if they find out that I'm from another world, what's gonna happen to me? Will they kill me or something?" Bo murmured.
"No, they will not kill you. They will do other things to you, things that you'd wish they'd kill you sooner."
"Why would they do that?"
"They are just following orders."
"Whose orders might that be?"
"The governor's. You really should stop asking questions," Thomasina told Bo. "Just help me catch the killer and I'll get you outta here, okay?"
"Fine," Bo drawled.
As the darkness enveloped the flying vessel again, Bo noticed a faint glow afar.
A star? She wondered, but it was twinkling in a way too weirdly to be a star. Before she had figured it out, it went away.
7:20 - Nursing Home
When Tamsin's phone had rang for the third time, she finally picked it up. "I really don't have time for the rest of the world right now, Dyson," she whined.
"Calm down, Tammers," Dyson replied. "Just want to deliver a piece of new info on behalf of the tech team."
"What news and is it good news?"
"Well, yes and no," Dyson answered. "The good part is that they've figured out how to decipher Bo's brother's journal."
"Then why would that be a yes and no?"
"The not so good part is that...they can't actually decipher it until they have the key," Dyson explained.
Tamsin groaned. "Why does everything suddenly require a key now?" She complained.
"They told me that it's been encrypted with some sort of...key word or something. Could be a phrase or a sentence too. If they know what that is, they can use that to decipher the entire text."
"Can't they just let the computer figure that out?"
"They are trying but they are not going anywhere. Do you have any idea what the key might be?"
"No I don't, Dyson. I don't know anything about either keys," Tamsin growled.
"They told me that it might be something that Bo's brother is obsessed about," Dyson told her.
"Yeah that could be anything from bloodshed to serial killing," Tamsin murmured. She covered her forehead with her empty hand and closed her eyes in frustration. She wanted to give Dyson some useful suggestion but she was too anxious to do so.
After a deep sigh, she admitted, "I'm sorry. I really can't think straight right now. Bo is-I need to get her out of there asap before I do anything else."
"I understand," Dyson said. "I'll swing by later and help too."
- Meanwhile At One of the Crime Scenes -
Bo stood there rather bored as she watched Thomasina scanning the crime scene with a weird device.
She looked around at the room. It seemed to have not been occupied for a long, long time. The moonlight came through the broken windows, as pale as dead people's face.
The scanner buzzed softly, and Bo watched Thomasina closely. Thomasina rolled her eyes at her when she notice Bo's gaze.
"You do know that I'm not her, right?"
Bo chuckled as she nodded, a little embarrassed. She knew it was not her Tamsin, but it was nice to have that face to look at when she was in a strange world and had no idea what could happen next.
"So, what is she like?" Thomasina asked.
"Huh?" Bo raised her eyebrows.
"The other me. What is she like?"
"Oh, hmmm..." Bo murmured. "I guess she's a lot like you but at the same time, not really."
Her answered got a loud snort out from Thomasina.
"What are you doing again? What are you scanning?" Bo asked.
"I am scanning the whole place so I can figure out where your brother is at."
"You can tell that by scanning this place? How?"
"Ummm, energy residue?" Thomasina explained. She quickly realized that the technology she was used to was beyond Bo's imagination. "Or magic," she added.
"Okay, magic it is," Bo nodded along. She paced inside the room, waiting for Thomasina to tell her what to do next.
As the moon started to sink, she heard someone behind her. She spun around, gasping when she saw a young boy standing there. He seemed to have come out from nowhere.
He looked exactly like she had seen in Lisa's memory, a bit thin and pale, with sharp eyes and an indifferent look.
"Are you looking for me, Isabo?" The boy asked her as he completely ignored the presence of Thomasina.
8:50 pm - Nursing Home
Tamsin groaned and tossed another book away. She was too exhausted to continue reading but she couldn't rest at all.
"Have you found anything, gramps?" She asked with a weak voice.
"So far, still, following the key link is the key," Trick answered.
Tamsin fussed loudly as she rubbed her palms against her face. Then, she went into the bathroom and cooled herself down by spraying cold water into her face.
She pressed her forehead against the mirror and sighed. Her heart trembled in great fear as she asked herself what if they couldn't figure out how to get Bo back.
No, that wouldn't happen. That would never happen, because that shouldn't happen. Bo would return to her safely, well maybe with a few bruises and cuts, nothing a good feeding sex wouldn't fix, but she would return safely.
At least that was what she wanted to believe. A part of her told herself that everything would be fine. They had faced unknown danger many times before. Whether it had been near a death situation or an life threatening case, they had always come through. This time, it shouldn't be any different.
She just wanted to know what was going on with Bo in the other world. She wanted to know if she was in any danger or if she needed help. She had no way to communicate and she had no way to know. It was the not knowing part that was eating her inside out.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, she swallowed all her fear and walked out of the bathroom.
She sat down beside Bo and held her hand gently. She squeezed it while desperately hoping that Bo would suddenly squeeze her hand back.
Bo's face was plain. Her eyes were out of focus, like she was gazing at somewhere far, far away. They looked just like Lillian's eyes.
Tamsin numbly looked at the two women in front of her, until something suddenly occurred to her.
"Hey, Trick," she called. "What makes a Yuma-uba to decide whose soul to suck out?"
"Huh? What do you mean? They can suck the soul out of anyone I suppose," Trick answered absentmindedly.
"I mean, how do they determine their victims, like who to feed off?"
"They just feed off whoever they like, I guess. I have no idea what types of victims they like, though."
"No matter what types of victims they prefer, they have to make a decision, right?" Tamsin murmured. "In order to do that, you have to have a lucid mind, or at least have a mind, but the old lady here-"
She pointed at Lillian. "Her mind is gone. She can't possibly target anyone specifically. Why hasn't she fed off other people? Of all the people who has visited her since she became this way, she chose Bo. Why not the others? Why not me?"
"Well, if Bo's brother is indeed behind all this, I would assume that he gave her some sort of orders so she'd target Bo only?"
"Then, why didn't she attack her the moment we walked in?" Tamsin frowned. "Her mind wasn't there when we arrived, but when she sucked Bo in, I could swear that for a moment her mind was back. Something must have happened at that very moment. Bo's brother must have planted a trigger or something, so when it happens, she'd wake up shortly, suck Bo in and then tune herself out again."
"Okay, then what exactly happened before she sucked Bo's soul out?" Trick asked.
Tamsin pondered. "Everything seemed to have been normal at first...she sat there like she wasn't there anymore. Then, Bo said she might be able to get her talk if she'd glow her. She glowed her, and then-"
She paused, before she murmured, "Bo said, I'm Bo. That was when Lillian-that must be the trigger. Bo identified herself, and somehow that awakened the old lady for a brief moment. That must be it...he must have told her not to wake up till Bo identifies herself…."
"Yeah, that's possible, but...does it have anything to do with how to get Bo out?"
"Yes, yes I think it might," Tamsin replied. "It means that Lillian can still hear things, and she can still register what's happening in this world even if her mind isn't really here. A link. A link between our world and the parallel universe in her mind. If-if she could hear us or something, she might pass that information into that universe inside her mind, right?"
"What are you proposing? That we talk to Lillian until she released Bo's soul voluntarily?"
"I don't know..." Tamsin murmured, shaking her head, "but...but that's one idea, right?"
- Meanwhile At the Crime Scene -
"Freeze!" Thomasina yelled at Bo's brother as she raised her gun at him.
The boy smiled subtly as he looked at Bo. "Now," he let that word fall out from his mouth crisply.
The next thing Bo knew, was that Thomasina had suddenly disappeared. So had all the things that were around her.
She was no longer at the crime scene. She was no longer in that old building. The pale moonlight was no longer there either. The sky somehow turn cloudy and heavy.
"What did you do to her?!" Bo hissed at the boy as she pulled out her dagger.
"Nothing," the boyd grinned. "Besides, it's not like she's real or anything."
"Real or not, what did you do to her?!" Bo demanded.
"I told you, I did nothing. I simply created a bubble around you and me so we could talk. She's not in the bubble at this moment."
"Too bad, you can't stay inside your bubble forever," Bo told him. "I will find you, no matter where you are."
"I'm sure you will. Just a matter of time, right? Or should I say, a matter of how many more lives I'd take before you find me, hmmm?"
"If this is a joke, I'm not liking it," Bo bit out. "You killed those people, didn't you? You killed the Docker woman, and all the other women, didn't you?"
"Me? No, no, it wasn't me. The boy you see-" he answered as he pointed at himself, "-is nothing but an illusion, a phantom of me, an idea I implanted into this world when I hypnotized Lillian Clere."
"You...you hypnotized her. You made her that way? Why? Just so you could fuck with me?! Why am I here? Why did you drag me over into this weird place?"
"I don't know," the boy answered her honestly. "I guess I just wanted to talk to you, Isabo."
"If you want to talk to me, ring the doorbell, give me a call, write a damn letter, or turn yourself in. You don't just suck me into a parallel universe like this!" Bo yelled in anger. "And I am not I-sa-bo. Stop calling me that. I'm Bo."
"I know," the boy nodded as he raised his head and looked at Bo, "but for years, you were Isabo to me. I don't know when I heard that name...I must have heard it from our father before he sent me to Lab 539. Isabo, my twin sister whom I've never really met. You never really existed."
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Bo frowned.
The boy smiled at her wickedly. He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
And everything around Bo changed again. This time she was on the top of a skyscraper. The clouds got heavier and thicker. They swirled above her. The smell of an upcoming storm filled the air while thunders humming afar.
In the dim light, she saw her brother standing beside her. The look in his eyes was too complicate for Bo to understand.
The building was so high. Just looking down gave Bo some cold sweat on her back. It was pitch dark underneath, like the entrance of hell.
"One day, everything will fall, and you will fall with me too," he said.
"Yeah, right, I am not crazy," Bo scoffed. The moment she opened her mouth, the pouring rain came. Rain drops hammered her skin. They were hot, like drops of flames.
"Because you don't want to, or because I'm not worth it?" The boy asked as he looked at Bo intently.
"What?" Bo yelled again. She could barely hear him in the downpour. She tried to figure him out but she couldn't.
The boy didn't answer her. He just stared at her through the veil of rain. When the storm passed away, he said, "the killer you are looking for, do you know who that is?"
"Well, it's our uncle," Bo said.
The boy shook his head. "That was in our world, Isabo," he said. "I was talking about the killer in this world."
"There's another Bible John in this world?" Bo furrowed her eyebrows. She studied the look on his face, before she said, "and it isn't you?"
"No," the boy shook his head in a smile. "I couldn't be the killer even if I wanted to. I don't exist in this world, and neither do you, Isabo. "
"Good to know, cuz I don't think this world can afford another you," Bo replied.
"Do you know why we don't exist here?"
Bo shrugged. "Should I care?"
The boy looked at the lead gray sky. "We don't exist here because our birth parents never met. In fact, our birth mother never existed either. Our uncle died when he was very young. Our father...well, I'm not sure what exactly happened to him but he lived and became the killer instead."
"What?! The Bible John in this world is our father?!"
"Fascinating, isn't it?" The boy shrugged. "Twins, you never know. One could turn out exactly like the other, or they could become someone completely different. Do you think they are really that different, or actually they are the same?"
"I don't' know, and honestly I don't care," Bo said. "Stop killing people and turn yourself in. Maybe then I can spare some time for all of your bullshit."
"That would be nice, because you were never there," the boy said with a gentle voice.
For a moment, Bo almost felt that the sorrow in his eyes were real. She wondered why her brother had to drag her here. She wondered why he had chosen this form, not other forms of himself. Why would he appear as the 10 year old boy instead of the 30 year old guy? Did it mean something, or it was all in her head?
She shook her head, as she laughed at herself for trying to figure out the mind of a wicked. However, strangely, she wanted to continue the conversation. Maybe she needed to understand him a little bit more. Maybe she wanted to figure out why he had turned this way.
"The girl from Lab 539," she said. "Lisa. She woke up. You put her into the endless REM cycle for twenty years. She woke up."
"Of course she did. Otherwise how would you figure out who Bible John was or what happened exactly?" The boy shrugged.
"I got into her memory. I saw everything. It was your way of leaving me a message, isn't it? It was sick to put someone into endless sleep, but you did leave me a message through her. Why?"
The boy looked back at her. "Because it was fun?"
"No, no it wasn't just that," Bo shook her head as she carefully studied him. "That girl, Lisa, she was kind special to you, wasn't she? Dr. Young...Theresa said that...you were making good progress in Lab 539. She said that you-"
"Progress?" The boy interrupted her. "No, I never understand it. I guess I learned to cope with all the pathetic things that they put me through. Sometimes it was fun. Other times it wasn't. Why? Are you trying to find that remaining soft spot of me by bringing up old memories? I don't think I have such a thing, Isabo."
"Me neither, but I think that there is a part of you that is not completely insane, at least not yet. You chose to leave me a message. You let Lisa live. You could have killed her and then I'd never figure out anything, but you didn't. That meant something."
"Ahh, are you trying to convince me that I cared about Lisa?" The boy frowned. "No, I don't think I ever cared about her. I guess she was a bit special to me, though, since your name and her name both came from the name Elizabeth."
"What do you want from me?" Bo interrupted him impatiently.
The boy tilted his head. He pondered, and then he shook his head. "That's a question I do not know the answer for," he said honestly. "When I was a kid, I looked forward seeing you. I wondered what you were like. I wondered if you were the same like me."
"You and me, we are not the same," Bo said firmly.
"Are we really that different, Isabo?" The boy tilted his head a little and stared into her eyes. "You know, in some other parallel universe, you might be the killer and I might be the good guy."
"Yeah, but in our world, you are the killer, and I am the one who's gonna catch you," Bo replied.
"What would you do when you do catch me, Isabo?" The boy asked her. "Would you kill me?"
It was a question too straightforward for Bo to answer. She had thought about it many times, though. A part of her despised him so much that she just wanted to put a bullet through his brain and be done with it. A part of her thought that she should hand him to the justice department and they'd lock him tight in some facility, but that would mean that he got to live while all the people he had killed never stood a chance.
"I don't know," she answered honestly, "but I know that I'll do everything I can to make sure that you don't kill anyone again."
The boy gave her a big, lazy shrug, as if he was asking why she would care about random strangers.
"Caring is not a weakness. It's not pathetic or stupid," Bo told him. "And maybe you should try it sometimes."
"Not my thing," the boy shook his head slightly.
Bo stared at him for a long time, before she asked, "what happened to you after you left Lab 539? Were you with our uncle all the time? W-what did you do exactly?"
"He trained me," the boy answered her. "I was his apprentice and he was my master."
"He trained you? As in he trained you into a killer?"
"No, I was born a killer, Isabo," the boy explained. "He provided some guidance, told me about our family history and helped me perfect my power."
Bo snorted and shook her head. "That was wrong."
"Was it really?" The boy raised his eyebrows at Bo. "Do you know that if our uncle hadn't had the mission of taking an apprentice, he'd have killed more people? I bet the death toll could have been 25 or so instead of 3."
"That's one fucked up logic and I'm not gonna stand here and listen to you. Get me out of here," Bo demanded. "Face me yourself instead of using a stupid phantom of yours. Stop being a coward."
"I will, soon," the boy said as he gave Bo a slight nod. "I promise."
"Get. me. Out. of. Here!" Bo bit out.
The boy didn't answer her request. Instead he turned to look at a faint light below a huge patch of rain clouds. "Ahh, I have to go," he announced.
Bo frowned as she turned to look at the faint seemed to be something bright floating in the air, like a feather.
"What is that?" She asked.
"That? Nothing," the boy smiled mischievously. He glanced at the light again, before he added, "ah, I almost forgot….Congratulations, Bo."
Confused, Bo stared back at him. Then, she quickly realized that he must be talking about her wedding. She had no idea how he could have known about that, but she figured that he must have some way to watch her closely. Fear and anger fueled her. "Stay out of my life," she warned.
Her brother gave her an evil smile, before he leaned forward and fell off the roof.
"Wait-" Bo reached out, trying to grab him, but he was completely gone.
Then, everything else around her started to fade away until she found herself standing inside the crime scene room facing the chipped wall.
Thomasina, stunned, standing in the corner. She still had her gun in her hand.
"What the f-" Thomasina murmured as she looked at the confused Bo. "Where the hell have you been? Where is brother?"
"He's...gone," Bo answered absentmindedly. She looked out of the window, and to her surprise, that bright, floating thing was still there. This time, it was hovering above a ferris wheel far away from the building.
10:10 pm - Nursing Home
Trick and Dyson went out for some food. Kenzi had left already. Tamsin hesitantly sat down beside Bo. She looked around cautiously, as if she was about to do something embarrassing and she was afraid of being caught.
She leaned in, and stroked the brunette's hair gently. "Bo..." she called. "If you could hear me in there-"
It sounded so stupid that she immediately stopped herself and jumped up. She felt like suddenly she had become someone in those shitty romance movie where a lover's voice awakened a coma person.
She could not believe that she was actually doing this, holding Bo's hand while calling her name like an idiot.
But, what other choices did she have right now? This was the only thing that might stand a chance. She knew that somehow, Lillian's brain must be able to process some of the information coming from outside. It might be the only thing that was connecting the two worlds. She had no idea if her voice could really reach Bo, or how it would be translated after it travelled into the world inside Lillian's mind. She just had to try.
"Well, if you could hear me, just...follow it and come out already, okay?" She eventually finished her sentence, making it half a plea half a threat.
- Meanwhile at the Crime Scene-
Bo turned her face sideways as she suddenly heard something. It was a murmur, a whisper, something that got carried over by the night wind. It might not even be real.
"Did you hear that?" She asked Thomasina, who was now packing up her devices.
"Hear what? All I hear is your loud voice," Thomasina drawled.
"I think..." Bo murmured as she closed her eyes and listened. "I think I heard someone calling my name."
It was a ridiculous thing to say. Had she been hearing things? Was it another trick of her brother's?
She did hear it, though. Not with her ears, but with her heart.
There was something there that resonated with that voice. Something fluttered along with it. Was that really a voice, or something completely different?
She heard it. She felt it. Someone was calling her name.
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: Finally! The third part! It took me forever to write but it's finally here!
Not many Valkubus moments, I know. These chapters are mainly for the plot and for Bo and her brother. I'll probably do a couple of fluffy chapters after Bo returns before I go back to the main plot again. Then there's gonna be the wedding chapter(s) after that! I've had the idea of the wedding chapter for a while now, and I hope everyone would like it when it's posted.
