Broken Ties (Prequel to The Mentalist Series)

by Kenechi Udogu

tell my attention made a difference.

  She needed me.

  I needed her.

  “I know it sounds a little crazy and fast, but we can leave this place, do whatever we want, go wherever we want. We won’t have to hide anymore. And it won’t be like the last time you tried. I’ll make sure we don’t get caught.”

  “A little crazy? Wait, you’re not kidding, are you?” The confusion in her eyes had grown to trepidation. I didn’t blame her for either of those emotions. I would have laughed if she’d suggested the same thing to me.

  I wasn’t just talking to convince her to run off with me. If what I feared was true and her Averter was there to change things between us, I needed to keep her preoccupied. She couldn’t be in the middle of a conversation if he was going to carry out a successful mind jig. If she carried on talking, maybe we’d have a chance of leaving the park without anything happening.

  “It’s not like we haven’t talked about it before.”

  Now she laughed. “No, Paul, we’ve joked about it. There’s a huge difference. I can’t just leave David alone with Agnes. And call me wacky but, I actually want to stick around, finish school then go to university. Besides, everyone will look for us. We won’t get past the next town before they find us.”

  Desperation quickened my thought process. “I didn’t say we’d have to be gone forever. Only for the rest of the summer. We’ve avoided talking about the huge cloud hanging over us all these weeks but we both know this might not last. If we take off for a while, if this summer is all we have, we’ll know we’d have finished it on our terms. All we have to do is make it to somewhere out on the coast; no one will find us unless we want them to.”

  I was surprised at how much sense I was making. I didn’t want to totally mess up her future. All I needed was to buy us some more time together. Maybe when we got back, her Averter would still have a chance to fix things. Surely, we were too good together for anything gruesome to come out of our relationship. Whatever he thought I was going to do to her couldn’t be that bad. I knew my rationalisation of the situation was biased, but all I wanted was a few more weeks.

  Nora hesitated, biting her lower lip and wrinkling her brows as she thought about what I’d said. I’d learned to read her expressions but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe I’d pushed too far, too hastily. My proposal sounded foolish and reckless, even to me, so I waited for her rejection.

  “Agnes will worry.”

  That wasn’t a no.

  “She will still worry if you’re here. Wouldn’t you rather get grounded for one really big act which deserves getting punished for, instead of sticking around and taking the blame for a hundred little things you haven’t done wrong?”

  I hated myself for what I did next but, I was desperate. Touching a fading dark mark on her right arm, I bent my head and planted a light kiss on the bruise. She hadn’t explained how or why she’d earned that one. It wasn’t right she had to be in that position at all. I felt her shiver at the touch of my lips on her skin, the tension in her body visibly easing.

  “And you’re sure we won’t get caught.”

  “We’re good at not getting caught.”

  I was grinning then because I knew she was only stalling. My eyes flickered back to the guy on the bench. He was finally looking at us but he didn’t seem alarmed. Why would he be? He hadn’t heard a word of what I’d said to Nora.

  “I have to tell someone, I can’t just leave town and scare everyone.” I pretty much had my answer. “Can I tell one of the girls? I’m sure Theresa suspects something’s up anyway.”

  “Tell whoever you want, as long as you don’t tell them where or when we’re going.” This time my lips met hers and she kissed me back with an intensity which was difficult to pull away from. It was time to lay the next shocker on her. “We have to leave today.”

  “What? Why? What’s the rush?” Fear returned to her face as she pulled away. The kiss wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped it would be.

  I knew it would be the most difficult part of my plan to sell. “Think about it. We only have a few weeks left before school starts. If we don’t leave now, we’ll never go. You’ll get home, take one look at Agnes and decide to stay.”

  “I won’t…” she began to protest but I interrupted.

  “This way, no one will have a chance to suspect anything because we won’t spend weeks planning and acting out of the ordinary. Let’s just grab a few things and go. It’s four o’clock and nobody will be home. I have some money saved up, definitely enough for our train fares and a room. Whenever the cash runs out, we’ll come back.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This will only work if we go now, you have to trust me.”

  I’d never considered pushing a thought into Nora’s head before, but I was very tempted to do so. I had to shake my head to dispel the thought. I might not have been a shining example for Averters but I wasn’t the kind of person who would mess with his girlfriend’s mind to get her to agree with him. If Nora wasn’t convinced about leaving, then I had to take a deep breath and leave her in the cruel hands of fate. Her Averter would probably do his thing before the day ended and we’d be over. Just like that. Done.

  “Alright.”

  It took a second or two for her whisper to register.

  “What?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she said a little louder, smiling as she pulled me into a hug. “I said yes, Paul Colt.” She chuckled as she pecked my cheek. “I’m not saying it doesn’t feel rushed but if you think now is the time to go, I trust you. Let’s do it. Climb every mountain, ford every stream…”

  “Please don’t say, follow every rainbow.”

  “…follow every rainbow.” She pecked my other cheek. “As long as we’re together, everything will be alright.”

  I should have been relieved by her words; instead a sense of guilt gripped me. She trusted me with every fibre of her being and I was lying to her. Lying so I could keep her close to me for how much longer? A few weeks? Months? What if I couldn’t protect her? What if what I was about to do was exactly what her Averter was there to prevent? And I was dragging her right into damnation?

  It was too late to start second guessing myself. Nora was slowly covering my face with pecks and I let myself drop the dark thoughts before they built into something I couldn’t control.

  For the first time in months, I walked her back to her building. Her Averter didn’t follow us as we left the park, but I wasn’t going to risk leaving her alone until I knew she was far away enough for his Orb not to work. Once I saw her disappear into the lift, I turned and headed home. The twenty minute journey had never felt longer and by the time I arrived at the flat, I’d worked out exactly what I needed to take with me. Underwear, a couple of shirts, jeans, toothbrush, my savings, my Orb…

  “Are you okay, son?”

  I hadn’t expected Dad to be home when I unlocked the door and made a beeline for my room. The shock of seeing him on the sofa must have added to the strain on my face.

  “Hey, I didn’t think you’d be here.” I tried to keep my voice even, hoping he couldn’t read the anxiety which practically oozed out of me. “You’re not working today?”

  He frowned and got up, running his fingers through his tousled hair. “I am. I had a couple of hours between jobs so I came back to take a nap. I‘ll leave in ten minutes. You didn’t answer my question.”

  He’d definitely noticed. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s nothing, really. I had a fight with Cheung and need some time to cool off.” I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I said nothing was bothering me.

  Dad came over to where I lurked in the doorway and placed his hand on my shoulder. His frown hadn’t shifted and I braced myself for the pearl of wisdom he was undoubtedly going to drop on me. “Listen, son, there’s nothing wrong with trying to keep friends at school, but sometimes we have to break ties to be better at what we do. This kid doesn’t sound good for your psyche and
you know how important it is to maintain balance at all times. If this friendship isn’t working out, walk away from it. It’ll only distract you from your duty. There is nothing more important than that. Nothing.”

  To be fair to Dad, it wasn’t the first time I’d used Cheung as a scapegoat when it came to my liaison with Nora. On the night I’d gone to her house to talk to her father, I’d come home pissed off and Cheung had been blamed. Then there had been one or two late night returns he’d supposedly been responsible for.

  Dad was only trying to look out for me and, on any other day, I would have been thankful he cared enough to try to protect me from the distractions of the world. But it wasn’t any other day. I was already rattled by the appearance of Nora’s Averter and our haphazard plan to flee the city. At that moment, all I could hear was the two-facedness of my father’s words.

  Darren Colt, the hypocrite. Preaching balance and self-preservation when he had no intention of breaking ties with his precious Mrs Steelton. A few years back, I had been excited when he applied for a passport for me because we hardly ever went on holidays. After letting myself daydream about a fun family trip outside the country, I was baffled when no travel plans were mentioned that summer. I only figured out why he’d bothered to get the document when I overheard Mrs Steelton’s husband talking about his failed plans to emigrate to Australia with his family.

  My father had