Argent Eye II

25

It had been a whole week since the argument with Kate. In that time, she'd stayed well away from me. She hadn't spoken a word to Irina. She had spoken to David though, so my guess was that she didn't know he was half Argent. I presumed that David had no intention of telling her, either, which was good. It would only make things worse than they already were.

"Are you sure?" Irina asked Ronan.

David, Irina, Ronan and I were all sat in David's office, by Ronan's request.

"Yes." Ronan said. "Well, I'm sure that's what the others told me. I won't be one hundred percent sure of its reliability until I see it for myself, but I trust the source."

Ronan had just heard news that it was possible a number of students from the university were involved with Doctor Geralds, but not like Kate was. They were involved like the other girl we'd seen a few weeks back.

They had powers.

But, because they weren't proper Argents, David couldn't sense their whereabouts or who they were, or if they even existed.

"What makes the other Dreamwalkers think this?" I asked, curious.

"A similar thing happened over the other side of London about a decade ago." He said. "It's taken me weeks to even find someone who knows anything about this, but the other day I bumped into an old friend who's been away for a while. He was telling me of a time when five students could somehow manipulate an unnatural form of one of the elements. Of course, the incident seemed minuscule at the time. The students were contained and dealt with, and that was the end of it. Nobody ever spoke of it again. But nobody ever found the source of the unnatural elements, either."

I didn't ask what Ronan meant by dealt with. "It had to have been Doctor Geralds." I said instead.

"It's likely." Ronan said. "Going by what's happened and what's happening, it sounds as though this Doctor Geralds has been in hiding for a while. He's obviously still working on it, though. That girl in the toilets, who was burning from the inside out? I told my friend about her, and he said the same thing had happened then. Except before, the individual exposed to the strange flames literally exploded."

"Jesus." David muttered.

"I think that Millie may have saved her life." Ronan said. "But my bet is that there were ones that weren't so lucky. And that there are others who have been exposed to other elements, too."

"And you think those individuals are students, from the university?" David asked.

Ronan nodded. "It's likely. The ideal candidate would be a strong, young individual. Students fit the bill, especially when they're living away from home. No parents to tie them down or anything."

"But how come that girl didn't remember anything?" I asked.

Ronan pursed his lips. "I haven't got an answer for that yet." He admitted.

Everyone thought in silence for a few moments.

"So we find these students?" Irina suggested.

"Yes, but it's going to be tricky." Ronan said. "David can't sense them, and we don't know what they remember."

"Can't we just go to Doctor Geralds?" I asked. "We know where he is. With the right number of people, we can rescue all those other Argents."

"Not yet." Ronan said. "I was speaking to Lydia again yesterday. She said she doesn't know how you made it out last time, but there have been several Argents trying to get out together- of course, they've been unsuccessful. If they can't do it, then we need to be absolutely sure what and who we're dealing with. We hardly know anything."