Edge of Time by Susan M. MacDonald Page B

the drab yellow contents. He pulled it out and sucked off the mustard. “Yuck, this is awful. Riley, eat something.”
    Riley wiped the tear from her face, smearing the black track into an unbecoming smudge. “I’m not hungry.”
    â€œYou are. There are other methods of proving your general dissatisfaction than self-starvation. You are not your sister.”
    â€œLeave me alone.” But a loud grumbling of her stomach compromised the strength of her argument. Alec smothered his grin and began rooting in the untidy cupboards for glasses.
    Humming to himself, Darius began dividing up the crusty bread and the cheese.
    â€œCan you teach me to read minds?” Alec asked. This could be a useful skill, if he could learn it before escaping.
    â€œSorry, no.” Darius placed several slices of cheese on a plate already laden with several thick slabs of bread and a large bunch of grapes and handed it to Alec.
    â€œWhy not?”
    Darius shrugged and popped a grape into his mouth. He spoke while chewing. “You don’t have the gift. It’s not something you can learn. You either have it or you don’t. Like Riley.” He handed her a plate of food, then picked up a bottle of soda and began to unscrew the top.
    â€œStop!” yelled Alec, but it was too late. The excessive swinging had stirred up the carbonated liquid magnificently. Cola spewed in all directions.
    Darius yelped, dropped the bottle and jumped back like a scalded cat.
    Riley got to it first. With a quick twist of her wrist she closed the cap and carried the bottle at arm’s length. She stepped onto the deck and carefully held the bottle over the side while she removed the lid. Excess soda foamed over the neck. Once finished she returned inside.
    Darius was mopping his face and shirt with a rag that wasn’t much cleaner. He raised his eyebrows. “I suppose you enjoyed that?”
    Riley shrugged a thin shoulder but didn’t smile. She handed him the bottle and sat back down on the couch, pulling her plate onto her lap. She picked up a grape. “Where exactly are we going?”
    â€œNewfoundland.” Darius didn’t seem to notice Riley’s wide-eyed stare or hear Alec’s gasp of surprise. He was carefully pouring himself a tall glass of cola. He took a tentative sip and sighed with profound appreciation.
    â€œNewfoundland? You’ve got to be joking.” Riley jammed a hunk of cheese into her mouth, seemingly oblivious to what she was doing. “What on earth is in Newfoundland that you want?’
    â€œHome Base,” Darius replied. “We needed somewhere near the two main locations of Potentials: Ireland and Canada. Also somewhere off the beaten track but close enough to civilization so we can come and go without raising attention. Newfoundland has lots of little uninhabited islands. It’s perfect.” He took another swallow, then another. He drained the glass and poured one more. “This stuff is really good. I never got to have this before I left Earth.”
    â€œNewfoundland is about a thousand kilometres from here, across a famously treacherous sea. And we’re in a
houseboat
, you idiot,” Riley gasped.
    â€œI don’t have the time or the energy to regen enough to transport both of you,” Darius explained. “In case you’ve forgotten, we were attacked recently and Anna and I had to fight off the Others, which happens to take a lot of energy. Add to that trying to control the teleport of a completely untrained and nearly unmanageable Potential,” he gave a pointed look at Alec, “
and
enough mind control to hold your former boss in check, give us this boat and stop him from calling the police. Alec doesn’t have any ID for an airplane trip and I don’t have access to funds right at the moment.”
    â€œWe could be killed out here.” Riley shot to her feet.
    â€œWe
would have been
killed if we’d stayed in