Thank you guys so much for the reviews! But we still don't know what really happened to Bonnie, do we?

Chapter 56

January 1992, a week later

"I'm telling you that I saw him!" Bonnie said, her voice agitated as she paced the floor in front of the sofa. Clara didn't think her sister had stopped since she had returned from school and she was watching Bonnie intently, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Seen who?" Clara wanted to know.

"O'Neill!" her sister yelled at her. Her breathing was ragged and looking at her sister, Clara thought she looked like a nervous wreck. The calm, composed woman she had met before had vanished and been replaced by someone who feared for her life.

That, in turn, made Clara feel on edge. "When?"

Bonnie inhaled deeply, trying her best to stay calm despite obviously failing in her attempt. "This morning," she said. "I went out to get some fresh air and I saw him. He followed me here!"

"Are you completely sure it's him?" Clara enquired cautiously. Maybe it was all just in her sister's mind and then they'd be panicking over nothing. However, if it actually was O'Neill, then they would both be in trouble. "I mean, Brian Williams often takes his morning walks around here."

"It wasn't Brian Williams!" Bonnie spat back at her and finally came to a halt right in front of the spot where Clara was sat. "I spent over a year infiltrating the IRA and I know O'Neill! It was him!"

Still, Clara didn't quite believe it. She didn't want to believe it. If Bonnie was in danger from this man, then so was she. There had to be an explanation for what Bonnie had seen.

"How could he possibly find you here?" Clara asked and she realised that the despair was audible in her voice as was the need to deny the obvious. "You came here using my passport. You have no connection to the island. Why would O'Neill look for you here?"

"Maybe he figured out the connection!" her sister argued frantically. "Maybe he figured out that you're my sister and he followed me here!"

"You've only been here a week-"

"Why does it matter how long I've been here for?!" Bonnie had raised her voice so much that she was shouting now. If she hadn't believed that her sister was afraid for her life until then, Clara certainly believed it now. It was real. "We have to do something! We have to leave!"

The solution came to her in an instant, but it wasn't the one Bonnie had suggested and Clara wasn't quite sure how her twin would react. Slowly, she rose from her seat and racked her brain for the best way to phrase her suggestion.

"We need to go to the police," Clara said, not knowing how else to express it. It was their only option now that O'Neill had found them. Bonnie's editor still couldn't be reached and Clara wasn't willing to risk her life for the contents of Bonnie's box. It was the only way. "We need to give them the box and tell them what you know. They'll protect you."

Bonnie shook her head. "Out of the question!" she said harshly. "That box is my life's work and I'm not going to give it up now when I'm this close."

For emphasis, Bonnie raised her hand, holding thumb and index finger only millimetres apart.

"Ciaran O'Neill is going to kill you if he finds you!" Clara argued. "And he's going to kill me too. You know I want my revenge, but I'm not prepared to die for it! Are you?"

Her sister only glared at her.

"Are you actually willing to die to protect your career?!"

"There has to be a better way!" Bonnie replied and then started pacing again. Clara knew that it was no use talking to her now because in her current state of mind, her sister would never see sense. Once she had calmed down, she would understand, she would know that the police were their best bet and she would agree with her, but right now, it was up to Clara to make the reasonable decision.

"Fine," she spat. "If you're not going to do it, then I will."

Bonnie stopped and glowered at her. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh, I would," Clara snapped. "You've made me your accomplice in this and I'm not going to sit here and wait for O'Neill to come and murder us both! I'm going to the police!"

"You're a selfish bitch, Clara, do you know that?!"

For a moment, Clara was too shocked by her sister's choice of words to yell anything equally insulting back at her and by the time she had come up with a decent comeback, her sister was already continuing: "You don't care about me or how hard I worked to put all of this together! You only care about putting O'Neill in prison!"

"That's not true!" Clara lied even though technically it was. Bonnie was just the necessary evil she put up with to get what she wanted.

"It is and you know it!" Bonnie spat. She reached out and pushed Clara's shoulder, shoving her just a little. "I should never have trusted you!"

Before Clara could reply or do anything else, Bonnie turned around on her heels and headed towards the door. There was no time to ask what she was planning before Bonnie opened the door and darted outside into the storm.

"Bonnie!" Clara yelled after her. "Bonnie, come back!"

Her sister didn't listen and Clara had half a mind to just leave her out there in the rain until she had calmed down. It was dark and rainy and the elements would soon change her mind and force her to come back inside. And yet… her guilty conscience won her over. Both of them had their reasons for acting the way they did. Clara cared more about her revenge than her sister and that wasn't how it should be, so as soon as this was over, she vowed to make an honest effort with Bonnie even if would lead nowhere. Her sister had risked her life to get where she was now and she was protecting her life's work. If Clara was in her place, she would most likely do the exact same thing, so she reached for her jacket and decided to follow Bonnie. There had to be another option; one that didn't involve either of them dying or giving up on what they wanted most.

Clara pulled the hood up and wrapped her coat tightly around her body to keep the rain from running down her neck as it was whipped into her face by the rough gale. Would she have moved to Scotland if she had known what the weather would be like? Clara couldn't say and it didn't matter now because she was here. All that mattered was that Bonnie was nowhere to be seen.

"Bonnie?!" Clara called out and she could hear the storm carry her voice away. There was no way her sister would be able to hear her over the sound of the wind and the waves crashing against the nearby shore. "Bonnie, where are you?!"

Clara tried again and again, attempting to scream louder each time, but she soon felt her voice fail her. The whole endeavour was utterly pointless. The most reasonable thing would be to walk back to the house, dry herself off and wait for Bonnie to find her way back. The lights from the windows would guide her, Clara knew that much.

Just as she was about to give up, Clara finally spotted her. She had to squint her eyes to make out the vague shape of her sister in the darkness, but Bonnie was right ahead of her, her silhouette growing smaller as she headed towards the coast.

"Bonnie!" Clara tried it one more time, but her sister either didn't hear her or she was deliberately ignoring her shouts. Where was she even headed? Clara couldn't figure it out and she doubted that Bonnie knew because she was heading straight towards the cliffs. Clara only knew because she had walked this patch of land almost every single day ever since she had arrived and she knew the route from her house to the cliffs better than the inside of her pockets. But did Bonnie know? The night was pitch black and the rain was impeding her sight even more.

It dawned on her a little too late that Bonnie was worried more about the dangers that were following her than the ones that lay straight ahead. She didn't see it. She didn't know. Clara's heart jumped in her chest and she broke out into a run.

"Bonnie!" she called out in a last desperate attempt to reach her sister in time. Bonnie must have almost reached the edge. "Bonnie! The cliffs!"

The air stung in her lungs from the unexpected exercise as she ran, trying her best to catch up with her sister and she didn't have enough breath left in her to yell any more. All she could hope was that Bonnie would stop on her own. While she was running, Clara kept her eyes firmly on the figure in front of her, but Bonnie didn't stop and the silhouette didn't grow any nearer. Bonnie was heading further and further away from her. She had to see it. She would see the precipice once it was right in front of her.

"Bonnie!" Clara shouted at the top of her lungs and then came to an abrupt halt as the figured vanished from view in the blink of an eye. She heard a scream and then there was only the sound of the storm howling in her ears, Clara's body growing rigid as though she were frozen to the spot.

In her mind, Clara went through every possible scenario that could have happened, but it was nothing more than her brain's way of coping with the shock of watching her own sister fall to her death. Her mind wouldn't accept what she had seen with her own two eyes and Clara would have stood there for hours, praying for a miracle, hoping for her sister to emerge from the depths if it hadn't been for the second silhouette that she hadn't noticed before.

A man was standing in the rain, watching her from a distance and even though there was no way to see his face in the darkness, Clara's instinct told her that it couldn't be anyone but Ciaran O'Neill. And Bonnie had seen him long before Clara had.