Breathless, Cora stood.
Her body screamed in protest, sharp needles stabbing her stomach where Lukas had kicked her, her jaw on fire. She pushed against the pain, consciously slowing every movement. Holding the sunshine pebble ahead of her where Lukas could see it, she began to move.
The eyes of the police officers were on her, heads nodding in encouragement as she shuffled forward. Kate Bennett, Drew Ellis beside her, Dave Wheeler’s tight smile. Uniformed officers, some of whom she recognised. Steph Lanehan and Rilla Davis, their identical frowns willing her onwards.
Her police family.
It had taken three years and too many false starts, but she finally felt it. The closeness she heard Minshull and the others referring to, the feeling of a unified purpose, of having a team at your back.
She forced her face to relax into a smile as she headed for Lukas Hall. Despite her rising fear. Despite the still swirling growls of defiance coming from his thoughts, louder than anything he was saying as he lay on the woodland floor. The pebble was her shield, her ability the one advantage she had over him.
My power.
Reaching his side, she brightened her smile, holding the pebble down near the grizzling baby. ‘See, Amelie? It’s a Find Me stone. That’s what brings people to you when you want them to see you. That’s right, isn’t it, Lukas?’
The flash of recognition in the prone man’s face gave her the chance she’d prayed for.
In a single movement, Cora threw the pebble down into Lukas Hall’s eye and stamped hard on his bent elbow, whisking the baby from his hands as he screamed out in pain.
Amelie screamed in unison as Cora cradled her close, stumbling away into the sodden bracken as the police officers piled onto Lukas Hall.
His shouts and screams sent the woodland birds fleeing from the trees, the frantic beating of wings adding to the rush of sound that assaulted her from every side. But Cora held Amelie tightly, the warmth of the baby in her arms enough to counter it all.
And finally, after what had felt like a lifetime, she grasped the ugly snarls and terrified screams of Lukas Hall’s thought-voices, firmly muting them to silence.