Read The Fall for Free Online

his eyes. ‘Tired, but still beautiful.’
    She blushed. ‘How many days do you think until we leave here?’ she asked.
    ‘Three or four max. I expect Seton will be off tomorrow to get the disc analysed and sort us out with a contact and a safehouse.’
    ‘Do you mind leaving?’
    ‘It’s not forever.’ So he planned to come back? If she got safely away, she never wanted to return.
    ‘My dad will guess I’m with you. He may try to find me here.’
    ‘No one from the Communities has ever come into the Project unless they’re trying to disappear, and vice versa. It’s an unspoken agreement that protects both sides. If your dad violates that, he endangers the safety of the Pure Community he’s supposed to be protecting.’
    Ana wasn’t so sure. Her father didn’t like losing control of a situation. And his team had killed a government minister for the disc. He wouldn’t let the disc – or her – go easily.
    Cole saw her discomfort. ‘The Project’s been involved in a lot of stuff,’ he said. ‘Helping Novastra employees disappear. Helping people like Tom and Jasper Taurell. And in all these years, no one has ever come over the wall. There’s too much at stake for both sides.’
    ‘No one except me,’ she said quietly.
    ‘Yeah. Except you. And the Shaman Tengeri,’ he added. ‘Unless you believe – like Lila does – that he was able to astral project himself here from Siberia.’
    ‘Me and the shaman?’
    Cole finished chewing. ‘Yeah, that’s why you might have noticed a few odd reactions to the fact that you climbed over the wall.’ He frowned. ‘Or maybe that was the swimsuit.’ She caught his eye and a lopsided grin broke across his face. He was teasing her. ‘Actually,’ he said, shifting in his seat. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you something. A lot of people here follow the shaman’s Writings. And there’s this poem that they think is prophetic.’ He stopped, rubbed his chin with the back of his hand and continued to pick his words cautiously. ‘It involves an angel appearing in the Project during a full moon.’
    ‘An angel?’
    ‘These things can be pretty loosely interpreted.’
    Ana reached into her pocket and felt her moon necklace. ‘Tell me, Clemence doesn’t think I could be the angel?’
    ‘Well,’ he cleared his throat. ‘They might think it’s a sign.’
    She pushed her food across the table and moved around the bench. He scooted along so that there was room for her to sit beside him.
    ‘Of what?’ she asked, aware of his thigh pressed against hers, only flimsy cotton dividing their flesh.
    ‘They think the angel has something to do with the fall of the Board. I don’t really know much more than that. I never studied the Writings.’ He began delicately tracing her wrist with his finger.
    The physical contact sent her heart racing. She swallowed, attempting to concentrate on the conversation. Perhaps Seton had told him about the angel and the moon when she’d gone off to change before meeting the representatives. Maybe that was why he seemed different when she saw him afterwards. ‘You . . . this poem . . . don’t you believe in it at all?’ The words came out of her mouth jumbled.
    ‘No,’ he answered. His finger lifted away and hovered above her skin. She felt paralysed, waiting for him to touch her again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘just in case you’re right about your dad, I think you should stay with me tonight.’
    A change of subject. He wasn’t sure about the poem. Her body flushed with desire and frustration and something she barely understood.
    ‘Just as a precaution?’ she asked.
    He chuckled, then abruptly stood up. ‘Lila!’ he called. Ana followed his gaze across the clearing. A dark-haired girl dressed in white stood by one of the picnic tables.
    Lila? Wearing a flowery summer skirt and white blouse, hair in a dozen narrow plaits, Lila looked like the sweet, feminine twin of the fifteen-year-old black leathered diva Ana had met in