Project Gemini (WATTYS 2016 WINNER!)

Chapter Three - The Chancellor.

She clenched her fist and released it, trying to focus and sooth her racing tempo.

"You must think I'm a freak," she said quietly, slowing until they walked side by side.

He inclined his head, "I'm trained not to."

"Ignore the training."

"I think that if it can't be helped it shouldn't be punished."

"That sounds like you've had experience."

"Or just police talk."

"Trust me," she said, "the police don't talk the same way as you do."

She knew the police. The proper police, and they spoke completely different to him. She craned to see his ID tattoo, to see which letter was imprinted on his wrist only just below his sleeve he wore a strategically placed watch to cover the tips of the black tattoo. She rubbed hers subconsciously and recoiled back from him.

You're hiding something.

She stopped in the street. "So what are you then?"

"Excuse me?" He looked back at her, slowing his pace.

"If you know about me then I should know about you," she said, "we're partners after all."

"We barely know each other." 

"Still."

"I'm not a Leader, and that's all you need to know."

She translated it as: I'm not here to save you, and that's all you need to know.

She hesitated, "Is he coming? The Leader?"

"If you ain't registered, he ain't gonna find you, is he?"

He peered down the street at the row of parked cars, amongst them, two black Jaguars with no number plates were sat outside of her house. The bodyguards—the cannon fodder to other much more violent Pariahs—stood a few metres from them. One of the bodyguards spoke into his radio and shifted his grip on his rifle. Her stomach jolted at the sight of them, it didn't take her much to figure out what they were watching.

Home.

Under bitter surveillance.

Kingsley pulled her back into the shadows, keeping one eye on them.

"Yours?" he asked, nodding at them.

She eyed them up and shook her head. There was no one she recognised, and most of the bodyguards on the street always made their presence known to the residents.

"Newbies around here," she said, "not anyone I know."

"Wow, I've even managed to catch the politician's daughter off-guard."

She shot him a cold look. She was so much more than that.

"It's not by choice."

"Hmph."

The niggling beneath her skin grew too much and she snapped, "What's your problem?"

"Oh I'm sorry, darling. Last night you tried to bring a building down on me. So I do apologise if I haven't been the warmest of partners." He ignored her and moved further along the sides of the walls, keeping close to the shadows. "Your place got a back door?"

Like that'd work.

The last thing she needed was to be caught by her parents sneaking into the house in the early hours of the morning. It wasn't as if she could blame it on attending a slightly illegal rave by the docklands—that wouldn't explain Kingsley—and if they'd heard of the terrorist Pariah attack from last night then she was definitely in for a royal bollocking after jeopardising the 'family image.' Forget the fact she was nineteen, most people didn't leave home until twenty-five.