Immortal Games

Chapter 1 Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones. Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966 She stared at the last three seconds of her life. A red double-decker full of passengers was racing straight at her, and she couldn’t do anything but stare at it. Like the traffic and everything else surrounding it, the bus seemed to move in slow motion, but Madeline was more than certain that it was zooming in full speed in reality. The bus was going to crush her the same way the kidnap and ransom ordeal had cut short Jo’s life. Jo was like her sister. They had grown up together, but they might not grow old together. Madeline kept staring at the bus. It was real. It was enormous. And her psychic ability didn’t seem to help at all—if she did have such ability. Five seconds ago, Madeline had seen it—the haunting blue dot hovering in the air, giving her guidance. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She was a psychic after all. The blue dot glared at her and blinked. That’s unusual, she had thought. It had been three days that she’d stalked this place, and now her psychic ability had finally decided to kick in. About damn time! She could save Jo now, and her life would be back to the way it was. Not that her life had been spectacular, but it was much better than her current situation. The second blue dot appeared, blinking at her. She gazed at the dots, and then they were no longer blinking. They weren’t blue, either, but a bright yellow. And they came with sound. Honking. Shouting. She blinked. They weren’t her psychic blue dots but the headlights of a double-decker racing at her in full speed. She glanced around. In a blur of motion, she realized she had just stepped out in front of ongoing traffic in the middle of a busy road in the center of London. She now stood in her reality and froze.