The guard had been working for almost twelve hours. He would be changing his post in ten minutes. His eyes were already drooping over the grainy black and white images on the screens before him. Making Egypt's job all the more simple.
Will, not wanting to be associated with the crime, and I waited outside the multistory in which many wealthy business men stored their cars for the night. We were keeping watch, making sure we wouldn't get caught. Despite that, Will's little gift that notified him when someone untrustworthy is around wasn't much help when the twins were stealing a car.
I'd thought it would be better if they were caught rather than us. Two fourteen-year-old boys could have any number of reasons for breaking into a garage. A dare... Going to meet their girlfriends... They saw their dog run in here and wanted to get it back... Two adults however, did not.
With a soft purr and a flash of lights, Egypt parked the black Mercedes on the kerb and Cairo came jogging up behind it, two screwdrivers and a set of French number plates in his hands.
"They'll report it missing soon enough!" He whispered, chucking a screwdriver to Egypt and the white plate. They each set to work, swapping the plates and posting the others down the slats of the drain. "Hey London? You didn't happen to pack any cling film did you?"
I glared at him.
Will scoffed. "That doesn't actually work, you know?"
Egypt came striding around the car, dropping the old plate down the drain, he replied to Will, "Clearly, you have never seen my brother's work with the product." Cairo stood up and popped open the boot, dumping their bags in. "You drive." they pointed at Will.
"Why me?"
"We don't have time for this." I growled and gave him a shove towards the driver's side. Climbing into the passenger seat, I closed my eyes and with three other door slams, I delved into the future...
They'd try and go for us in Lyon... Egypt and I would be split up from Cairo and Will in Cannes... They were following us on the motorway out of Holland-
"Wait until the last minute, then take that exit, rejoin the motorway at the next entrance."
... Someone would go for Will eventually. When we were at our weakest, they would take the most treasured from me-
I gasped. "Watch out for uniforms. Don't trust them." I warned and I felt Wills hand brush my knee reassuringly before going back to the gear shift and accelerating.
Belle:
Having a brother like Paris can be a real pain in the neck. But even I have to admit that he has his uses. His gift for reading minds works well in staying hidden from certain eyes. According to him, everyone has a certain flavour, a different take on things, separating them from others. After the near miss escape in Brussels, he knows exactly who's following us. Well, he doesn't know their identity per se, but he knows when their minds are near. So with the sonic sonar flying around, we've managed to stay off the grid, taking the InterRail to Copenhagen.
I don't like it though, I can feel something lurking in the shadows. Whether that was my gift or just paranoia, I wasn't certain. My gift was to detect lies and secrets. I'd never even thought there could be this whole other dimension. Paris had picked up on this and so as night fell and the Little Mermaid depicted a slender sea-lion in the light pollution, we took shelter in one of the shipping containers on the harbour. It was packed three quarters full with cigarettes.
Considering we had been running for the best part of twenty four hours and staying awake for thirty six, we didn't notice when the container rattled a little, we didn't stir as the loud beeps and groans of machinery sounded outside, we only woke up when the gentle rocking was making Paris feel sea sick.
"Belle. Belle." Paris shook me awake, hissing in my ear.
"Whazgoinon?" I mumbled sleepily, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.
"Belle the container's on an oil tanker across the Atlantic!"
"What?" I glared furiously at my younger brother.
"Shh!" he hissed. "We slept through it. The crew are pretty rough after these things though, so with a bit of telekinesis and your excellent fibbing ability, we've got it covered!"
"Where are we docking?"
He cocked his head to the side... "Philadelphia."
"Right." I nodded. "Shit."
"What? Why? We're thousands of miles from the people who want us."
"Yeah," I scoffed, "But the states are a whole different ball game.
"Belle, we're running, it doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters." I snapped, "The whole point of leaving was to disappear, to blend in. Without green-cards or without visas, we cant do that."
"Yeah, but you forget who our sisters are." he rifled through his bag and pulled out a plastic wallet of paper work. Handing it to me, I read it in the light coming from the slice of daylight above the door. "Christ, they're bloody brilliant."
"Exactly. So what do you plan on telling the crew when we just walk out of the container?"
"How much money do we have left?"
"We're not paying them!"
"Okay!" I chewed on my lip as I considered it. "Sob story? Our mum abused us so we ran away and hid inside one of these? Or our mum locked us in one of these?"
"The first, if our mum locked us in, there would have been more noise."
"Good point."
Will:
Cairo was truly mad. Meaning when he said he knew where a safe house was in Grenoble, I shouldn't have been surprised when it turned out to be a cave. I say cave... I meant crevasse.
Thankfully, after a lot of squeezing through rock walls, "It seemed bigger when I was younger..." we entered a cavern. Our flashlight beams didn't reach the far end, but nothing dangerous was living in there, if anything was living at all. It was roomy with enough cracks in the ceiling that would allow smoke to pass through them without suffocating us.
When I pointed out we didn't have matches or a lighter, Cairo gave me a withering look and sparked his fingers with a snap.
I collected wood.
Once Cairo had got the fire going, he sat back on his sleeping bag and wrapped his gangly arms around his knees. I realised that Cairo was in fact, just a boy. He hadn't completely lost all the childish roundness in his face; he wasn't fully in proportion to his limbs; and his face was still smooth, lacking the stubble that I had. However his eyes seemed older.
He had grown up too quickly for his body. He shouldn't have to worry about all this. He should be getting annoyed because he was hungry; muttering to himself that nobody understands... But his priorities were fully in order. He knew what was important; love, family, self-acceptance...right now though, he was lacking most.
"What I don't get..." I started as I pulled out the freeze-dried blueberries London had packed, "Is how none of you seem surprised." I offered him the packet, he took one. "None of you seem worried about the others. And none of you seem to be inexperienced in running away."
"I trust Egypt." Cairo said. "And I trust London." all the joking, all the ditz was gone in his words. "I know they'll look out for each other, and that's enough to keep me sane." He took another blueberry. "Sydney and London have been running all of their lives. So I know Egypt and Vienna are in safe hands. Belle and Paris can be the ultimate chameleons when they want to be; because they don't hide, they blend... and trust me, its a big difference. Maddie, well you saw, she can pretty much become invisible. She can extend that to Rome and Rio too. They'd probably be the hardest target, if they do get hit however, Rome can fix them up and Rio has her own brand of morphine going...
"We're not inexperienced. Why do you think that we're all half siblings?"
"So you're saying... You're saying that your mom moved around and found new partners... to hide? To keep you safe?"
He nodded slowly.
"From who?"
"Will..." Cairo lolled his head back, he was exhausted, exhausted mentally. "What you have to understand... You have to understand the information you already know." And his dark eyes found mine, giving me a long, hard stare.
Sydney and London have been running all of their lives... This threat was old. It had been after them before they were born. It still was.
"From who's chasing us now?"
He nodded. "Rio's dad was our mother's soulfinder. That's why we stuck around in Brazil for so long." He ate another blueberry. "We were safe. Their gifts together worked a lot like Maddie's, except it was more of an implant. As long as they lived, we would be under their protection until we turned eighteen. When mum died... It broke...
"Syd and London had already moved to Amsterdam. They could be traced so they went to another hemisphere to protect the rest of us. They knew how to look after themselves and went 'camping' a lot." he raised his fingers in little air quotes. "There's a good reason why we attended one of the top schools in Europe. Rio's dad owned the house we lived in-"
"The one you blew up?"
"Yeah, he wont miss it." he brushed it off. "The house had some protection on it; mental barriers and technology firewalls. Courtesy of Maddie. They must have figured out where we were, but thankfully, London got us out."