Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

who’d brought them by discarding them! That would be just too rude!

It made her unhappy, though, that Caleb seemed to be angry with her about it—and resentful. It had made her feel guilty, as if she’d done something wrong.

And pretty damned miserable all the way around, actually! She’d been so thrilled when he’d come to collect her, and not just because she was sick to death of the hospital.

She’d been hungry for the sight of him, anxious to see that he really was alright. She’d been hopeful that she might get a kiss at the very least—talk to him, see him smile, listen to him telling her news if nothing else, anything! Instead, he’d taken one look at the mound of gifts, flipped through the cards, and … sulked about it ever since.

She was eager to retreat to whatever room they’d given her by the time Caleb had helped her climb out of the little sub and into the atrium. She discovered when she, Caleb, and Joshua reached the living area, though, that Simon and Ian were waiting. Her heart instantly took flight. Relief and hopefulness beat in her breast as she looked them over anxiously to be sure they were alright.

Simon flicked a look at her that he might have trained on a complete stranger. “I know you’re probably tired and anxious to settle in, but I thought we’d just take a preliminary statement from you before you go to your room since we haven’t had the opportunity before.

The swiftness of her descent from hopefulness to dismay was almost nauseating.

It took her several moments to recover enough to realize everyone was waiting for her to sit down. She settled in the spot it seemed they’d left for her on the couch. The urge to draw in upon herself was strong enough that she’d already drawn her knees up before she realized she was still too bruised to sit that way comfortably. She settled for folding her legs together to one side, but that twisted her torso and it wasn’t actually very comfortable either. Her ribs were pretty much healed, or knitted anyway, but she thought it would probably be a long while before she could move or sit or breathe ‘normally’ without discomfort.

Simon leaned forward and set a recording device on the low table between the two facing couches. “Now, Dr. Blake, if you could just tell us in your words what happened on the night of April, 15th, 2098 ...?”

Anna stared at the recorder and then at him. “Where do I start?”

“Anywhere,” Ian said soothingly. “Just where ever you think it would pertain to the case.”

“Start with why you were in your yard so late in the evening.”

Anna studied Simon searchingly, wondering if there was an accusation in the way he’d said it or if she just felt like there was. “Could you turn that off? I mean, could I ask you something off the record first?” she added hastily when Ian and Simon exchanged a look that she thought was of suspicion.

Simon leaned forward and turned off the recorder.

“I was going out to talk to you and Ian. I’m just not sure I should say that on the recorder.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed on Simon. Simon’s face darkened faintly. “About what?”

“Actually, I just wanted to give you a copy of my research for safe keeping,” Anna amended.

Simon frowned. “And it was so urgent you needed to do it right then?”

She sent him a resentful look. “Well! Considering how nasty you were to me before, I certainly wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t thought it was urgent!”

His complexion darkened more noticeably. “Does it pertain to the case in any way?”

“Yes.”

“Then it should go in the statement.”

Anna was still doubtful when they’d seemed so angry that she knew someone was out there watching her, but she merely nodded and he turned the recorder on again.

“I discovered I’d made a break-through in my research.” She couldn’t help the excitement that threaded her voice as she brought the memories back. Before she knew it she was telling them about her attempts to find a way to cook the vegetable so that it would be edible.

Simon turned off the recorder. “I don’t think we need all that.”

She gaped at him a moment before indignation and irritation surged through her.

“You said ….”

“Yes, but I don’t see how it pertains to this.”

She glared at him. “If you’d let me finish, damn it, I’d explain it!”

Simon’s lips tightened. “This is only a sixty minute chip. At this rate it’ll be full before we get to the kidnapping,” he said with determined patience.

She supposed it shouldn’t have stung that they didn’t seem to have any interest at all in her work, but it did. She glared at him a little resentfully when he turned the recorder on again.

“The discovery I made was so significant,” she began again after a moment, “that I felt the need to protect it. I don’t really know why I had the sudden feeling that something might happen to it, but I did. I knew I was under electronic surveillance but not who it was. So I copied the files onto a storage chip and hid it in my reader. I thought I’d take it out to Officers Simon and Ian for safekeeping since I also knew they were watching in case my father tried to contact me again.”

Simon asked her for specifics of the conversation she’d had with Paul, but she’d been too afraid to recall it with clarity. She repeated it to the best of her memory and everything else that happened right up until Ian and