Double-Cross by Sophie McKenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

what to say. I knew so little about my mum’s life before she met Fergus. She was Italian – a student over here to learn English – who got pregnant, then met Fergus and his brother, William Fox. It was William who, unbeknown to either my mum or Fergus, had injected her with the Medusa gene that created my powers – and killed her.
    For the first time it struck me that Fergus must have felt unbearably guilty about that. He loved my mum – and yet it was because of his brother that she’d died.
    ‘Your mother never spoke to me about your birth dad. I know nothing about him and she certainly never said who he was,’ Laura went on. ‘To be honest, from what Fergus let slip at the time, I don’t think she talked about him with anyone.’
    I nodded. I was used to not knowing.
    A few minutes later we arrived at the airfield. The pilot was eager to set off so Laura assured me again that I’d meet up with the others in Helsinki and went back to her car.
    The journey to Sydney was long but uneventful. Despite all my anxieties, I loved the first part of the trip – by myself, on the small plane to Helsinki. The flight stayed low, like the helicopters I’d ridden in twice before – once when Ed and I had sneaked on board a commercial ride to follow Ketty from London to Devon and once flying over the desert in Spain a few weeks ago. However, I’d been hiding under a jacket the first time and unconscious the second, so this was my first real experience of what the landscape looks like when you’re a little way above ground.
    The others arrived in Helsinki just a few hours after me and we found the main airport easily enough. Once on the jumbo jet to Sydney, we kept ourselves to ourselves for most of the journey. Dylan, as usual, had jammed on her headphones and was listening to that fast dance music she likes so much. Ed spent most of the long journey looking like he was trying not to be sick. Ketty and I talked for a bit, then she said she was going to try and have a vision of the future and spent most of the rest of the journey with her eyes focused on the middle distance. I didn’t disturb her. I know she gets stressed out when she loses control of her gift . . . It certainly seems a lot harder to manage than any of the others.
    Ed had done a little more research on Avery Jones. We hadn’t yet found either a home or work address for him, but I was sure all the details would prove easier to locate once we’d arrived and made contact with Laura’s friend.
    Dylan made a few digs at me for going off on my own to the clinic without saying anything . . . and for forgetting to take the Clusterchaos software program that Harry had left us. It was a hacker’s program – useful, to be sure, though if I was honest, I didn’t really understand how to use it. Not that I was going to admit it.
    ‘You could have hacked into the clinic files with Clusterchaos,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Ed’s shown me how to use it; it’s real simple.’
    ‘I knew I wouldn’t need it,’ I lied.
    ‘Oh yeah, I forgot. You know everything,’ Dylan snapped.
    I ignored this. Dylan was often rude. There was no point taking it personally. The next minute she was asking if Laura had said anything about Harry. She was trying to hide her interest, but it was obvious.
    I pointed this out to Ketty, hoping to make her laugh, but Ketty still seemed preoccupied with trying to have a vision of the future so I went back to the in-flight movie selection.
    We all fell asleep during the last few hours of the flight. When I woke, it was dawn and we were coming in low over a large forest. Huge, blue-tinged hills were visible in the misty distance.
    ‘Those must be the Blue Mountains,’ Ed said. ‘They’re just outside Sydney.’
    We were met at the airport by Laura’s friend, Sam Hastings, a smiling, ruddy-cheeked man with a paunch. He chatted to me about Laura while we walked to his car, going into a long, convoluted tale about when they were