Quantum (25 page)

“What am I doing here in the first place?” I asked as softly as I could, so as not to provoke him in any way, but I could see his face clouding over.

“You are here as our
guest
,” he said firmly, and got up. “I shall leave you in Luna and Stan’s capable hands. Have a good day and I’ll see you at breakfast again tomorrow.” With that, he disappeared out of the dining room, leaving me rolling my eyes at Luna.

“
You
said that I would get some answers,” I said accusingly, staring her down with my best death glare.

“What do you want to know?” she asked. “I’ll try to answer what I can.”

“First of all, what the
heck
am I doing here? What gives you–or your dad–the right to just take me from my home and hold me captive? Answer that for starters. I am seriously pissed off!”

Luna took a deep breath, clearly startled by my outburst while Stan muffled a snicker.

“Oh, go on and snicker if you want, you overgrown Sigma puppy.”

That was it. Stan was practically on the floor chortling with his mouth open. Not a pretty sight. I grabbed Luna’s arm and pulled her all the way back to my room and threw her onto my bed. “Well? Start talking or I’m going to thump you!”

“You’re planning to get violent?” she asked, surprised, as that would have been the least possible scenario that she could have anticipated.

“Yeah, so start talking.”

Luna cowered; I felt a bit ashamed. I was obviously not going to hit her–probably.

“Start by telling me what I’m doing here.”

“Your Highness, you are our leverage to gain control over your grandfather.”

“Say what?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Well, my dad wants control of the Sigma-W,” she explained patiently. “Since your grandfather has control at the moment, we need leverage to make him step down. You are part of that plan.”

There was absolutely no point telling her that my grandfather died a long time ago and that he had
so not
been a Wanderer. I was piecing it all together slowly. This had to do with Gramadea, I was sure of that. She was the only Sigma-W I knew in our
family
. Apparently Rupert was a dormant one…. I sighed. Grandfather. The must mean Gramadea’s husband.
They thought I was Rupert’s kid
. I had never been told anything about Rupert’s dad. Could he be the leader? Gramadea was married to the leader of the Sigma-W? It would all make sense if that was the case. So I was now deeply submerged in a paranormal royalty-fest, with takeovers thrown in. How jolly! Mom’s head must be exploding!

“Your Highness?” Luna whispered.

I had totally forgotten about her as I was pondering the possibilities. What was it that I needed to ask her? “Where’s Justin?”

“He is at training with Olivier this morning. Simla is with them, as is Madison.”

Oh, so Simla was back. I wondered what they did to persuade her to rejoin them. What was their role in this takeover? “I’d like to see them.”

“You will, at dinner. Would you like Stan and me to show you about in London in the meantime?” She pointed to the Ferris wheel. “We could take a ride on the wheel, I haven’t been before, but I’ve heard that the view is spectacular,” she said, trying her best to placate me.

Perfect. What to do about Justin, though? If I got a chance to escape, I had to take it. Anything else would be utterly foolish. I would come back for Justin and Simla. I needed some time to think this through. This would be a one-chance deal and it had to be successful. “Luna, I’m going to get changed before we go. Can you give me some privacy?”

“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll go and get Stan organized to come.”

“Can’t it just be the two of us? We could go shopping after, at Harrods and Harvey Nicks. Does he have to come?” I asked, rolling my eyes at her to compound the need for male-free shopping time.

“No problem. As you wish. I’ll go and get changed as well. I’ll be back in about half an hour, is that long enough?”

“Yup,” I said, and grabbed my cell as soon as she left. I stopped myself from calling Kellan right away. I had to think this through first. If Kellan and David had made any concrete escape plans, I’m sure he’d have told me during our last conversation. They probably assumed that we would somehow make a run for it through the streets of London and then catch a flight home.
That was not going to work
. Luna would whisk me off to another world before I could say burger. We had to be smart.

I needed David to transport me off quickly before Luna could comprehend what was going on. That would, however, mean leaving Kellan behind as David could only wander with one person at a time. That was not going to happen. There was no way was I leaving Kellan behind. I needed David to get Kellan to safety first and then come back and wait for me by the wheel. It was time to call them.

“Kell?”

“Arizona, are you coming? We’re at the London Eye already. How long are you gonna be?”

“I’ve been thinking about how we’re going to do this, a plan, you know, and I was thinking that David needs to get you to saf….”

“Shrimp,” Kellan interrupted. “My phone is running out of juice. Don’t worry about the details, just get here ASAP!” And he cut the call.

I called him right back, we had to agree on a plan or this would never work. He wasn’t picking up, his cell must have died. What now? I hurriedly changed into jeans, t-shirt and a hoodie. Then I stepped into a pair of black sneakers. I was ready to run. I was going to have to run, as there was no way I was going to let David take me while leaving Kellan behind. This sucked. However, I would at least get to see Kellan, even momentarily. It was better than nothing. I missed him like crazy. And, it was certainly possible that they actually had a plan. Or so I hoped. Whatever way this was going to play out, I’d find out soon enough, as Luna walked into the room.

“Ready, Your Highness?” I had become sadly used to the
Your Highness
thing.

I nodded and got up to follow her out.

We walked down to the Millennium Bridge and crossed over to the south side of the Thames, to Victoria Embankment. Although there are numerous bridges across the Thames, I remembered that this was the first pedestrian-only bridge built in the last century. I remember Ella having a tantrum on this bridge the last time we crossed it.

“Shall we head up to Harvey Nicks for tea after our ride?” Luna inquired.

“Sounds good,” I said, feeling a bit bad for her. She seemed like a really nice girl. Too bad she was caught up in her father’s schemes. I didn’t take my eyes off the big Ferris wheel as we approached it. We walked toward the ticket booth and I immediately spied Kellan. My heart skipped a beat. It took everything I had to pretend to ignore him. I didn’t want to give Luna any indication that I was up to something. Thankfully, Kellan did the same, standing leaning against a fence, looking casual as he chatted with David, who didn’t even glance at me. They were talking to a third person, with her back to me. She came into view as we brushed passed them on out way to the booth. Gramadea.

I let Luna get in front of me as we walked to the ticket stand and took our places at the back of the line. I noticed that Gramadea left David and Kellan chatting with each other and then took her place in the line, right behind me. As Luna stepped up to the kiosk to pay for the tickets, Gramadea laid her hands on my shoulders. I shut my eyes and felt the weightless sensation of wandering.

W
hen I felt my feet come into contact with a solid surface, I opened my eyes and steadied myself, holding on to Gramadea’s arm, but not for long. I found myself pulled from her and enveloped in a warm, tight embrace. I didn’t have to look to see who it was, I could breath him in as my nose nuzzled against his neck. Kellan. We stood there for ages, not moving, standing dead-still, stuck to one another, hoping time would do what it wanted around us as long as it left us alone.

“Shrimp, you okay?” Kellan whispered into my ear. The warmth of his breath made me quiver. “Arizona?”

“I’m fine. Really. I’m just so tired. So tired of being away from you.”

He pulled me even closer as I heard a cough from behind me. He didn’t loosen his grip.

“Gramadea?” he queried.

“Kellan, we should go inside,” she said.

“We’ll join you in a bit,” he said firmly, not showing any indication of following her or loosening his grip around me. I could feel her leave; we were alone. Kellan let go of me with one arm, the other one still wrapped around me and we walked over to a bench and sat down as closely as we could next to each other.

Kellan let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes as he leaned back–with me still attached to him–to rest his back against the wall behind us. It was a stone wall, about eight-feet tall, so I couldn’t see over it. In front of us was a mansion clad in stone. It looked really old, with the stones of uneven shape, but they had been cleaned. My eyes were drawn to the thatched roof. I remember this type of roof from the Tudor mansions I saw on my previous visits to London.

“Kellan, are we still in London?” I whispered gently, so as to not wake him up had he fallen asleep.

He stroked my hair and put his head against mine. “Yes. We’re in Wimbledon Village.”

“Is that such a good idea? Shouldn’t we be further away from Potomal?”

“Shrimp, we’re safe. Though I’m not going to let go of you for even a sec,” he said, squeezing my hand. “We’re in a different dimension from Potomal. It would take him some time to figure out in which one.”

“Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense. Where’s David?”

“He’s inside the house waiting with the rest of them.”

“The rest of them? You mean Gramadea? How did she get here anyway? How did you all get here?”

“Well, all I know is that Gramadea and David are in there waiting for us. I have no idea if there’s anyone else. David tracked you using his
sense
of you,” Kellan said, with a slight edge to his voice. “I want to know more about that by the way. Did you know about his connection with you?”

I nodded. “So he tracked me to the right dimension?”

“Yeah. And then he came and got me. We weren’t sure what to do next, but then you called! We reported everything to your grandmother, I mean Gramadea, who came back with us. I hoped she’d have some kind of plan.”

“We should probably go in. Besides, I want to thank David for bringing you back safely. Then we’ve got to go back to rescue Justin and Simla,” I added.

“You’re kidding, right?”