Exile (The Oneness Cycle) Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I know.”
    Diane watched them go, padding across the damp ground to a car that was shiny and new and probably Richard’s. He seemed like a man with a good job and a good paycheck, the kind who would do well in the world if he wanted to. But he wouldn’t—not when he was one of them.
    “I hope she turns up soon!” Diane called out, adding a well-wish to the promise she’d made to contact them if she saw anything. And she meant it.
    The Oneness weren’t her enemies, she knew that.
    But that didn’t make her any less afraid.
     
    * * *
     
    Richard kept his eyes on the road as he drove back up the cliff road to the house, not looking his companion’s way. But the air between them was thick all the same.
    Just as he turned up the road that would take them home, he said, “You have a history with that woman.”
    “It’s not just me,” Mary said. “We all do. Couldn’t you sense it?”
    He was quiet a moment. “Yes, I suppose I could.”
    Mary sighed as she clenched and relaxed her hands, trying to let out some of the tension she’d been carrying from the minute April should have arrived and hadn’t. “You know she didn’t tell us everything.”
    “It’s not like we could force a confession.” He sounded unhappy about it.
    “I believe her, though—when she said she’d tell us if she could help us. She knows something, but she doesn’t really think it would help or she would tell.”
    He shook his head. “I’ve never met one like her before.”
    Mary was silent as they pulled into the driveway. She rested her hand on the door handle and thought back, letting the memories play out. “They’re not common,” she finally said. “But it’s not without reason, how she is. I’ve wished a thousand times I could go back and change what happened, but …”
    “You know that’s not in your hands,” he said gently, putting the car in park. “And right now we’ve got to concentrate on getting April back.” Even as he said the words, his face seemed to age with worry. “What do you think happened to her, Mary?”
    Mary shook her head, the creases around her mouth and eyes strained.
    Things are dark, they had told Diane. They had not explained what they meant—why they were so sure April had not just gone off to get some time alone, or lost track of time and decided to stay somewhere. Things were happening that they could not explain, not only here in their little village overlooking the bay, but out in the wider world—the letters, the dreams, the unsettled sense of a storm building. They had been expecting an attack.
    April was only a beginning. They had to find her, yes, but equally they had to find some way to understand what was happening—before the enemy could move in full force and find them defenceless. But neither voiced that now.
    They sat in the car in silence, both with their eyes closed, feeling the pressure of a storm front coming.
     
    * * *
     
    April awoke to pain spiking through her head so badly that she rolled over onto her stomach and tried desperately not to be sick. It took a few disoriented minutes to realize she was lying on a hard, rough rock surface, and that her hands were tied.
    It was dark.
    Confused and still battling stabs of pain from the back of her skull, she tried to sort out the last things she remembered. The fishing shack … the boy. Leaving. The view down the narrow passage and the sun on the other side, and then …
    She remembered. Twisting herself around, she sat up and lowered her forehead to her knees, pulled up against her chest. For a moment when the first man had stepped around that corner, she’d thought she was back in her own childhood. That was her father stepping around the corner. The grab for her, the blow, were expected.
    But she had been wrong; she’d realized that quickly. She didn’t know these men. She still didn’t know why they had attacked her, or why they had brought her here, or where here was.
    She held her head very still,