Page 2 of The Scandal You Started
Rayna stood up, along with George, and moved closer to the glass screen. She thanked him for the black goggles he passed her—a line of them hanging on the right wall—and unfolded the arms to put them on.
The same woman’s voice echoed through the POTeM room and gallery again. “Countdown initiating in five…four…three…two…one.”
A buzz echoed all around signalling the room had been sealed, then the seven large, flat, silver triangles that had been on the floor around the circular platform rose to form a low barrier around it.
A mechanical voice replaced the female scientist’s one. “Returning to six-zero-two PR, day two-seven, month three in…ten…”
Poppy clasped Izzy’s offered hand as the mechanical voice counted down. The young girl looked up at the glass screen and lifted her hand in a wave. Rayna and George waved back.
Upon reaching zero, a bright white light flashed through the room. The light disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, and both Poppy and Izzy were gone.
“Departure successful,” the mechanical voice said before the same buzz that indicated the room had been sealed sounded,letting everyone know it’d been unsealed. “Now capturing signal of Izzy Jones.”
Rayna let out a sigh as she removed her goggles along with everyone else and handed them back to George to hang on the wall again.
“What are you gonna do now?” she asked as they moved towards the door to head down into the main room.
“Suffer through V’s food, just like you are,” George muttered lethargically. “You forgotten it’s Friday?”
She came to an abrupt stop at the top of the stairs and swung halfway around. “Bloody woods, is it V’s turn to cook?”
George half-grinned and half-grimaced. “Yup.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Rayna groaned.
Apparently, she wasn’t just saying goodbye to Poppy. She was waving goodbye to a flavourful dinner too.
Victor, or V as Rayna and George had always called him, might have been a head scientist with a master’s degree and a PhD in quantum physics, but for some reason, he’d never managed to learn the science behind cooking an edible meal.
Thankfully though, he decided two frozen pizzas and a bean salad would suffice. While Rayna wouldn’t have put it past Victor to burn a salad, it was a dish he’d mastered over the years and was actually pleasant to eat.
So later that evening, around the circular dining table in their family home, Rayna, along with George and Victor, ate spoons of salad between bites of slightly overcooked pizza and washed it down with glasses of still lemonade.
“Have you spoken to Dee about cleaning the holiday house?” Victor asked, picking up the last slice from one of the two plates between them.
George froze mid-lifting a slice to his mouth and pursed his lips in an O.
“Mm-hmm,” Rayna hummed, flashing him an accusing, tight-lipped smile.
He gave her a sheepish grin in return. “I’ll ring her tomorrow morning—”
“Don’t bother,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I already rang her. She said she’ll have it cleaned tomorrow.”
After nearly five months of continuous work as Guardians, Rayna had booked her and George a flight to their family holiday home in the south of Khaas to relax and recuperate for a month. She’d booked the flight, so she’d asked George to ask the house sitter to have it cleaned for when they arrived. But had he remembered? Nope. Of course not.
While George gulped down his drink as if it would make him disappear from the room, Victor said, “I know you’re on break, but take your work phones with you. Just in case.”
“Okay,” Rayna agreed.
“Who, who’s coming back?” George then asked.
Victor set his slice of pizza down on his plate and leaned back in the leather dining chair. “Well, Tip and Izzy—once she’s returned Poppy—are staying out for other projects. But Carl is returning in a few days with information on a potential target Study, and he’ll go back next week when Zack returns from his break. Erin’s returning in twelve days with news of her target Study’s agreement. And either this week or the next, we’re expecting River with his target Study.”
“Who’s River bringing?” George said.
“A lord, I believe. But he said he’s been having some trouble reaching him again to finalise an arrival date, so it’s not completely set in stone.”
Rayna’s ears perked up with interest. “A lord?”
