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Chapter 35 (Emily) - The Other Emily

Getting into mother’s Overlord mobile was not something I was particularly happy about, but I did not want to stay near Laura either. Her boyfriend and Jonas had tried to do horrible things to me, and she had lured me into the trap with her lies about the pregnancy.

‘Did you have a good time with Laura? Is she feeling better now?’

‘If we are in so much danger that we have to move in with Harry, how is it that you are just cruising around the town?’

Before mother had the time to answer, her phone rang. ‘Yes, she is here with me now.’

That must have been Harry. Keeping a happy smile on my face might be more than I was capable of at that moment, so I turned my head and focused on the houses whooshing past us in the darkness. I didn’t want to look at mother. They say that the eye is a window to your soul. After what it had just experienced, my soul was too confused to be put on display.

Had it really been necessary for Robert to kill Alex and Jonas? I couldn’t help but think how Roberts’s eyes had looked like when the folder containing Alex’s picture disintegrated over the back seat of his car. Robert always pretended to flirt with me, but his eyes revealed that it was just a game. However, when I was looking at the picture of Alex, Robert’s eyes had stopped playing games, and tonight, he shot him. I tried to visualise Robert’s eyes to see if I would see some explanation. My imagination has always been good, and it looked like the window suddenly turned into a high-tech screen that was cycling through all the times I had looked him in the eyes.

‘Excuse me, young lady?’

At some point, I had stopped gazing at the window and was having a staring competition with mother.

‘What?’

‘I do know, and don’t use that kind of language ever again. Besides, it was not Harry.’

‘What do you mean it was not Harry?’

Mother kept her crazy-drilling-sergeant face and didn’t answer. I turned back to look at the window. It was transparent again. We were zigzagging through small roads, so it was difficult to say how long had we been travelling. It could not have been more than a few minutes.

‘Emily...’

She waited for me to turn back towards her before continuing.

‘I’m sorry. I should have told you this a long time ago. Your father and I have gotten mixed up with some really bad people. Harry is one of them, but he is on our side. He even tried to stop kidnappers as soon he learned about it, but it was too late.’

‘Oh, he even tried to stop me from getting kidnapped by his own people, and you think it’s somehow a good thing. Lucky for you, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of that sort of thing myself.’

‘Emily—’

I swung back to look out through the window. Whatever it was that I had said a moment ago must have been powerful to make her open up. Sometimes, you need to blast everything out in the open to get things moving. It usually happens when something inside of you is just dying to get out, and then, one day, you get pushed over the limit, and the dam breaks. At that moment, you break through the barrier to the other side of good and evil. You are no longer yourself but something far more powerful. I wish that I could remember what I said. Releasing all that repressed energy must have felt empowering.

‘You’re right to be angry, but can’t you at least give him a chance?’

‘Why?’

‘Because everybody deserves a chance to prove themselves. What do you really know about Harry?’

‘No. I mean, why did you and dad get mixed up with them?’

Mother stayed silent. So, that’s how it was then.

‘Don’t do that,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t doing anything.’

‘You started slipping into another world again. You can’t always just withdraw behind a wall whenever things get uncomfortable. Sometimes I’m afraid for you when you do. You turn into a completely different person. It’s not healthy. I’d wish you’d rather talk with me.’

The driver’s voice over the intercom startled me.

‘Ma’am, we have to stop for a while. The police are patrolling the area between us and Legion’s Court. We have contacted the Community to give us clear access. They will radio back as soon as a corridor opens.’

‘Does the Overlord Community control the Police?’ I asked.

‘How do you know their name?’

‘I didn’t until just now. So, you and dad are working for the MI5 and investigating them with Robert?’

That question must have at least touched the truth because, for a split second, mother looked alarmed. She couldn’t regain her composure fast enough to stop her eyes from glancing at the two Overlord guards in the front behind the bulletproof glass. Of course! The Overlord people could hear everything. There probably weren’t police anywhere. They didn’t want the journey to end when we were just about to blurt out something. I quickly reviewed everything we had said, everything I remembered, anyway. I never had any recollection of the stuff I said or did when I turned into this ‘completely different person’. It’s only now that I’m beginning to understand why.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t be so judgemental, but I just don’t want a new father.’

My reasonable tone of voice took mother by surprise.

Making yourself cry is not as easy as people make it seem, but when I imagined that it was Charlie who Robert had shot, tears started flowing. ‘I know it’s silly, and I understand that you are lonely, but... but...’

‘Oh, Emily!’

Mother was crying too. I’m sure that her tears were just as genuine as mine. We hugged, and between the sobs, said all sorts of nonsense about being sorry and trying our best to make everything work. The guards quickly got tired of spying on two incoherent, crying women. They told us that a transport corridor was now open, and we had to go through it really fast.

Like a homing missile, my hand located its target. My fingers wrapped themselves tightly around mother’s hand. For the first time in a long time, I felt that we were on the same side. I had missed her, even though I hadn’t realised it until then.

The Overlord mobile flew through the empty streets like a humvee trying to outrun a helicopter. There clearly wasn’t police anywhere. We were attracting enough attention for even the crows to get suspicious.

‘The driver is crazy!’

‘We drove a lot faster when coming the other way.’

‘I’m glad you came.’

It only took a few minutes to reach the Legion’s Court. The two fighters guarding the gate looked like battle drones. They saluted mother as we drove through. The familiar smell of coal smoke greeted us.

To my surprise, the power had not been cut, even though it was almost two o’clock at night. It felt wrong, just the kind of situation where you say to the unit under your command that someone somewhere higher messed up. Mother’s worry reeked like one-month-old Turdis. After a moment of deliberation, she took out her phone.

‘There is no signal.’

She ordered the two Overlord guards to return to the gate to help the two battle drones.

‘Those fools will let anyone in.’

‘Mr English ordered us to—’

‘I don’t care. If someone gets all the way to our flat undetected, you two standing there won’t make an ounce of difference. Radio me if you can’t stop someone you don’t like from getting inside the estate.’