Strings of Fate

119-Focus and flow | sleep late and wake up alone. The growling of my stomach when | wake up tellsthat | have slept in for at least a couple hours. | check the bedside table and sure enough, there's a handwritten note from Bellamy.

Good morning, | didn’t mean to keep you up so late last night. | hope you're sleeping peacefully, you need. the rest. I'll call and wake you if you up by eleven since you have plans for lunch. So if aren’ you're reading this | guess it isn’t eleven yet...

I'm heading out this morning with Alex to meet with sof the local Shifters that knew the Brooks family. It might not lead to anything and there are plenty of non-Shifters we should talk to as well, but at least if we start with the Shifters | can be sure that they are telling us the truth and it might give us a bit of a general background for the family.

| plan to be back by late afternoon.

Good luck talking to your Oracle friend and callif you need or want anything.

-Bellamy It’s nice waking up knowing that Bellamy was thinking about me, even if | was asleep. | weirdly adore Bellamy’s little letters, | sort of want to start keeping them. Is that weird? | don’t know. Either way, | slip it into the bottom of the drawer that I'm using to keep my underwear. | make sure it's completely tucked away and out of sight. | check the tand find it’s ten forty five. Fifteen more minutes and Bellamy would have called to wakeup anyway. | send him a quick text.

Ryann- Good morning, | just woke up. Thanks for lettingsleep and for helping with investigating the Brooks family. I'm sure you have more important things you should be doing with your day.

Bellamy- Morning gorgeous. Don’t be silly. This is important to you so it’s important to me. Besides, a missing child is always urgent. For bonus importance, this could be linked to +1 Bo 04 1/4 119- Focus and flow whoever is after you and since | have no leads to follow from that angle, I'll take what | can get.

Bellamy- I'll tell you more about it when | get home, but so far I've mostly been told that the Brooks family was reasonably well liked, very quiet and private. It tracks with what we learned online. It's possible they were hiding something, but also entirely possible that they just don’t like to splash their lives all over social media and in people's faces. I'll keep trying to get more information.

Ryann- Thankyou and good luck! I'm going to go get ready and ask Shaun to pick up Amber forsoon. I'll see you later! Bellamy- Counting the seconds until | see you again.

Ryann- Lame. | give it a cheesiness score of 8/10.

Bellamy- All for you I roll my eyes and text Shaun next.

Ryann- Hi Shaun! | need a favour. Can you please pick up my friend Amber from the corner near Borderline and bring her here? We're meant to be meeting for lunch so she can tellmore about Oracles and stuff.

Shaun- Sure, how will | recognise her? Any distinguishing features? Weird outfit choices? Flashing neon signs? +10 Ryann- LOL. No, just pull up to the corner and she will be there. I'm pretty sure she will recognise you.

Bon 04: Shaun- ??? Have | met her before? Ryann- Nah, but she’s an Oracle, she always knows way too much and she knew | was planning on sending you before | even decided. It'll work out fine.

Shaun- Aaaaah an Oracle. Easy peasy. I'll just go with the flow then. What tshould | pick her up? 2/4 119- Focus and flow Ryann- Whenever you're ready. She didn’t give a time.

Shaun- Okay. I'm free to go in about twenty minutes.

| send back a thumbs up then start getting my stuff together. I've already missed breakfast, but | should have tfor a super quick shower. | also want to check in on Megan. She’s been coping really well lately, but | know she’s not completely herself. She's been throwing herself into her studies a lot. | just want to be sure she isn’t completely ignoring her own wellbeing and emotions. | shower quickly, too quickly. | step out of the shower and dry off, then realise that | haven't washed the conditioner out the ends of my hair properly and it still feels all sticky. As a result of this, | spend an extra five minutes stepping back into the shower to rinse it out again AFTER | had already dried off and towel dried my hair. Once my hair is actually properly clean, | get dressed and head across the hall to knock on Megan's door.

“CIN!” She calls. | throw her door open and drop onto the end of her bed. She is sitting at the desk she has up by the window. Her laptop is open and she has headphones on. She pushes them back and spins in her chair to face me.

“Morning sleepyhead. You're up just in tfor your lunch date.” She comments. | nod.

“Yep, but | figured | would cand harass you for a few minutes first. Whatcha up to?” I say in my best childish gossipy voice. As | had hoped, Megan laughs.

“I'm going over slectures. | want to get a few of them done early since | now have more written assignments to do. They tend to take a bit longer than face-to-face classes.” She explains.

“Ah, fair enough. Do you have a lot to do?” | question. Megan sighs.

+10 Bon “Sadly yes. Before my failed wedding I had sort of... fallen behind. Not a lot, but | wasn’t focussing on classes the way | used to. My grades weren't what | wanted. | want to fix that, so I'm aiming for my next few assignments to be as well written as possible. | need to put in a lot of work. After my non- wedding | threw myself into ATTENDING classes, as I'm sure you've noticed, but | don’t think | was processing much of it because I'm going back over the lecture notes and | swear | haven't heard most of it before. So, I'm going to re- do them online. I've decided to dedicate today to catching up on lectures so that | can start the assignments while being up to date on everything else at least.” She confesses.

04: 3/4 119- Focus and flow “So you're basically tellingthat you're busy all day and | should go away?” | say, getting to my feet. Megan looks alarmed.

“I didn’t mean it like that! I just wanted to explain why I'm not inviting you to hang out or something..” she trails off awkwardly and I laugh.

1 “It's fine Meg, don’t stress about it. | have to chat with Amber anyway. I'll make sure to send you up lunch and snacks or whatever throughout the afternoon.” | promise as | make my way towards the door. Megan agrees cheerfully and | exit, carefully closing the door behind me. Well, she seems to be doing okay. She's working towards her future goals and organising herself. No wallowing in grief or anything. | know she has strust issues she’s going to have to sort out, but somehow I think that Darrien is the one who will have to deal with those since they mostly seem to apply to men. I'm going to keep an eye out for relapses though. It's almost disturbing how well she’s doing after everything that happened. There have got to be unresolved issues still. | make my way downstairs just in tto hear the slamming of a car door from outside.