Strings of Fate by Kit Bryan
Chapter 179

Strings of Fate

179- Teamwork and timelines

Another night, another murder. I see Kiara is forced to reach out again. It has to be connected to her magic in some way. Her species magic. Not her magic as a representative of fate. The poor girl barely even made a sound during this one. She moved around like a zombie afterwards and when she was finally able to collapse onto the floor, she just sobbed until she passed out. I wake up seriously stupidly early in the morning. I don’t want to face the day yet and accept that once again, there is nothing I can actually DO. So I end up just curling up with Bellamy who is still sleeping. He does wake up and check on me. Peering at me through bleary eyes as I move around, but at this point I don’t really want to talk. So I just hug him close and for a while, I try not to think. It is probably another two hours until Bellamy really wakes up. He strokes a hand over my hair and pushes it away from my face, then moves back a little so that he can see my face.

“Morning love.” He greets me with a smile but it quickly falls off his face when he realises that I’m not returning it.

“Another bad night?” He asks sympathetically.

“The worst. Another murder I think.” I confirm croakily. My eyes hurt and as I rub at them I realise they’re wet. How long have I been crying? Based on how sticky my eyes feel, I’m going to go with probably a long while. I sit up and pull a blanket up to my chin, not so much because I’m cold but more because it’s kind of comforting. It’s even more comforting when Bellamy puts an arm over my shoulder and pulls me into his side.

“Sweetheart, I want to fix this for you. I wish I knew what to do.” I nod against his shoulder. He is quiet for a couple minutes as he contemplates.

“We’ll call a meeting. Get everyone over here and we can try to figure out if we’ve missed anything or if there is any new information. Maybe if we go over everything from the beginning we can work this out.” He says firmly. I’m not totally sure how it will go, but at this point I’ll try anything. Bellamy sends out a message asking everyone to meet us for lunch today.

Come lunch time, people start arriving. Megan, Bellamy and I set up food on the dining room table. It was Megan’s idea. She said she figures that everyone can eat while we think, since this might take a while. Aaron and Darrien are the first to arrive. Aaron silently follows behind Darrien who makes a big deal out of greeting Megan even though he saw her yesterday. Shaun and Alex turn up not long after. Their blue thread sitting between them. Alex sets up his laptop and Shaun organises a pile of paperwork and files that they must have printed out before coming. We’re just getting ready to start going over things when there’s a loud knocking at the door. Aaron answers and I’m confused when he returns with Harry and Cam? Did Bellamy invite them to this meeting? I didn’t realise. A glance at Bellamy shows that he’s as confused as me.

“Hey guys.” I greet them. Harry cheerfully responds.

“Hey Ry, we’re here for your meeting thing.” He grins. Cam rolls her eyes at him and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Apparently.” She mutters.

“Oh, I mean, that’s cool. But… who fold you about the meeting? I didn’t–think-” I’m cut off by another cheerful voice.

“Oh that was me!” Amber chimes in from the still open doorway.

“I figured the more people working on the problem the better the chance of replaceing a solution. Also, I brought some

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179–Teamwork and timelines

extra food.” She says holding up a couple of brown paper bags.

“More guests means more stomachs to feed. Since I invited myself and these guys along. I brought extra food too.” She explains.

“Oh, well in that case, come on in I guess.” I gesture for the three of them to join us. With ten of us there aren’t enough chairs, but Aaron and Cam both decide to pull up the kitchen barstools and chill on them instead of sitting around the table which seats the other eight of us. It’s interesting. Every single person in this room is connected to someone with a thread. Red threats between Shaun and Amber, myself and Bellamy, Megan and Darien, Harry and Cam. Then blue threads between Alex and Shaun as well as Megan and I. Actually, I’m wrong Aaron has no threads to anyone in this room. It’s strange because he fits in so well with us all. Yet it’s not fated. He has just made the decision to stay with us all. With all these threads floating around it’s actually a little overwhelming. I am just going to have to do my best to focus despite them. At least these are all nice threads. No black ones or anything

We all have something to eat, then we get started. As a group, we systematically go through every single thing we know about the psyches. We spit up the files about the murder victims and take turns explaining everything we know about them. We even go over the details of the threats I was sent. We make a timeline of everything that happened.

“What we’re really missing here is a starting point. The threats against Ryann can’t be the first interaction she had with the psychos. Something had to trigger them. You don’t just get up one day and decide to threaten a random woman or kidnap a child or go on a killing spree.” Darrien observes.

“Well. Yeah. But we don’t know what that trigger is. Megan points out.

“Why would someone who was targeting Ryann suddenly start murdering people? I mean, kidnapping Kirkes a vague sort of sense since there is obviously a connection between the two of you, even if you didn’t know it at first. But why start killing people? Is it part of some ritual? Are these people related to you in some way?” Cam asks from

where she sits next to Aaron.

“I don’t know any of them. Also I don’t think there is any kind of ritual, unless it involves Kiara’s powers in some way.” I respond with a sigh

“It’s strange that after you came here there were no more threats, not even any attempts at threats towards you. ! mean, I know you moved here to be safe, but you’re not completely inaccessible. They could be texted to you, emailed to you, delivered to a friend, left at the entrance of the compound. There are plenty of ways that someone could get to you. So after going to all that effort to scare you, why just stop all of a sudden?” Shaun adds.

“I’m not sure that’s right.” Alex replies softly. We all turn to face him. With a crowd this big, he’s been fairly quiet, only really speaking when spoken to

“Explain.” Bellamy demands. Alex looks pule

“Please Alex, feel free to share what you were thinking I tell him gently, hoping to help him relax.

“Well it’s just… has anyone else looked at the pictures?” He asks shyly.

“The pictures?” I prompt.

“The pictures of the victims. They’re in the back of the files. It only just occurred to me while looking at the most recent victim.” He adds. Bellamy frowns. I don’t think we really have looked at the pictures. We’ve been too busy

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looking for connections between the girls or connections to me. Everyone in the group takes out the pictures from the files and we lay them out on the table. Everyone stares at them in stunned silence.

“Oh.” I say weakly. Bellamy is out of his seat in seconds and pulls me out of my spot. When he sits back down, he takes- me with him. Keeping me on his lap. Megan is the one to say what we’re all thinking.

“Ry… All of those girls… They look just like you.”

Chapter Comments

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Wait that legit didn’t occur to any of them??

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