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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
I didn’t like my original plan, so I talked things over with Jennifer, Kat, Sky, Rock and Celestine. This wasn’t going to be easy, since I don’t want anyone to think that we organized a prison break for Carmeline. To ensure that we are not implicated in this, Celestine and I will head back home. Well, Sky will take us to a point in the city where we meet regularly and Sienna will have a couple of vans waiting there for us and we will drive that last hour home. The timing will fit with the travel time from Hungary to here, so it will look like we drove back home all through the night, and we will arrive at the chateau suitably tired in time for breakfast.
Fortunately Kat and her Wildcats are not officially part of the Investigators, just like the Black Wolves. The guys we had with us will have to come home with us too since they have been seen with us. I did want to leave some of the guys with them, but Kat assured me it wouldn’t be necessary. Meanwhile, back at the prison. It was now time for dinner for the inmates, except for Carmeline, the guards told her she had to stay behind as punishment. Her two cellmates laughed as they walked out leaving Carmeline alone, or at least, that’s what they thought.
Sky wasn’t happy about that so she communicated this with Kat and a few minutes later Sky disappeared, then returned with a hamburger and something to drink for Carmeline. “But they will see me eating,” said Carmeline. “No, nothing will show up on their security cameras,” said Sky, “so eat quickly before the others return.” Sky also brought some food for the cats. “Don’t you 3 need to eat too?” asked Carmeline. “No, we have been trained to go long periods without food,” said Kitty smiling.
Carmeline devoured her hamburger and drink, that’s when she told the girls that this was the second day they hadn’t fed her. A little later her cellmates returned smiling and laughing. “I wonder why they are so happy?” asked Sky. “Apparently they have a new toy,” said Friskie, “it’s a round ball of some sort and once they activate it, they toss it at Carmeline. When she tries to catch it, or even if it just hits her, some sharp blades come out and slice her up badly.”
“Please don’t let them hurt me, please!” pleaded Carmeline, “They always find different ways to hurt me.” “Don’t worry Carmeline,” said Sky, “no one will hurt you with us here to protect you.” Soon one of the cellmates threw her ball toward Carmeline. Sky wanted to throw it back, but she knew Carmeline would be blamed for it if she did. So, she caught it and kept it hanging in midair for a bit, then it suddenly just disintegrated before their eyes! Those two ladies didn’t know what to make of that, but the other woman tried hers and the same thing happened.
They looked at each other not knowing what to think. “Hmm, seems they also have a sharp knife, a small one,” said Friskie, “it’s in the pocket of the dark haired woman.” Kitty went over and took the knife out of her pocket while the two women looked on in amazement. Kitty then handed it to Sky who promptly melted it while the two woman watched with wide eyes at what was happening. “Are you 3 women real, or aliens, or what?” asked Carmeline. “I’m sorry Carmeline,” said Kitty, “please, you will just have to trust us for now. Remember, we are Celestine’s friends and also your friends now as well.”
“And tomorrow morning you will be out of this horrible place,” said Sky, “and we will take you to a safe place where we will hide you for a while with Celestine until we can find your brother and whoever is working with him.” “His wife is working with him,” said Carmeline, “apparently her uncle was some great inventor and she managed to acquire some of his inventions. She is a very evil person and has killed people just for fun. She isn’t satisfied with the family inheritance either, she wants my little treasure too. That’s why I haven’t been killed yet, I guess, she wants me to tell where my treasure is hidden.”
“Your treasure?” asked Sky, “What is it that she could possibly want so badly?” “It’s some gemstones that my grandmother gave me when I turned 16,” said Carmeline, “she told me they were worth a lot of money, but she might have just thought they were worth a lot. I don’t even remember the names of some of them. I hid them because my brother kept wanting me to show them to him and I didn’t trust him. But I guess it doesn’t really matter now, I’m stuck here the rest of my life, which likely won’t be long with those two in here with me.” “Hey now,” said Sky, “we told you that we are getting you out of here and we will.”
“I know you three can do some amazing things,” said Carmeline, “but getting me out of this prison just doesn’t seem possible.” “Just trust us,” said Friskie, “now, you need to get some sleep, it’s going to be a big day tomorrow and we will be watching over you, including the cats.” It really didn’t take too long and Carmeline was asleep. Kat and her Wildcats had totally different vans than we did and the rest of our team headed out of Hungary very early the next morning, driving up to Germany and waiting at a designated meeting place, where we also had a jet waiting to pick up the Wildcats and take them to the next location.
At the right time the cats woke up Carmeline and Sky took her and Kitty outside to the parking lot where Kat was waiting in her van. Then back she went for Friskie and the cats and quickly returned to Kat and they drove away. Fortunately we have a way to interfere with their security cameras so nothing would be picked up of Kat’s van, coming or going. “Am I actually awake, or am I dreaming?” asked Carmeline, “I mean, this is so impossible, and a little scary too.” “Don’t be scared,” said Kat, “always remember, we are your friends and you will soon be with Celestine again.”
“But, once they notice I’m not in my cell,” said Carmeline, “there is no way you will get me out of Hungary.” “Leave that part up to us,” said Kat, “we are skilled in what we do and they won’t be looking for you with us. We have just enough time to get across the border before they notice you are gone and by that time it’s too late.” “But won’t they notify police in other countries to be looking for me,” asked Carmeline. “Probably, but they will need to share a picture of you,” said Kat, “and they no longer have one of you. We changed it with the photo of a person that has been dead for 10 years now.”
“Do you have any idea where your brother is living right now?” asked Sky. “Yep, he lives Athens,” she said, “his real name is Anders, though he prefers to use Harold. His wife’s name is Philly.” She then gave the address to Sky and she relayed it to us. I asked Cristy to find his computer fast so we can remove any photos he might have of Carmeline…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Well, we managed to get in and visit with Carmeline, though we didn’t have much time, only 10 minutes, which meant we couldn’t talk about much of anything important. However, we did tell her we would be taking her out of this prison later that day. Celestine, who is a friend of Carmeline, and I, will be leaving soon, but we would be back. Also, we brought Sky and Kitty in with us, though they remained invisible. They did show themselves to Carmeline though, but no one else would be able to see them.
That is a very handy thing that our ghosts can do. We also brought in 3 cats and they will stay with Carmeline, along with Sky and Kitty, who will protect Carmeline until we return. We can’t take her out with us right now, even though it would be possible, because we would likely be arrested by the police before we were able to leave the country. And everyone would know that we have rescued her. This is something we want to keep a secret for as long as possible, that way it would be hard for them to blame us.
Mostly though, I’m wanting to keep it a secret from Carmeline’s brother. I’m quite certain he is the one who sent us the warning note. Anyway, no matter what, we will not be taking Carmeline home with us at the moment. Instead, we will be using one of Mandar’s secret hideaways for a while until we see what happens. Vlora, who works for Mandar, will meet us there with teams 4 and 5 from Mandar. We haven’t used his teams for a long time since we have such a large team ourselves. But, we need to keep things business as usual at home, so we can’t take too many away to guard Carmeline.
However, the ghosts and cats will stay with her, as will some of the girls we have with us right now. I will shuttle back and forth with Sky just so I can make an appearance around the chateau too in case we are still being watched. Anyway, we are presently waiting for the guards to return and let Celestine and I out of here, our 10 minutes has already passed. Perhaps Carmeline is right, maybe they don’t intend to let us out. At that point, the two cellmates who were both rather big women, got up and came over and said something to us which we didn’t understand.
“They want you to move,” said Carmeline, “they said it was time for my exercise. That’s their way of saying they want to beat me again.” I told the women to sit down and leave us alone, which they likely didn’t understand. “They do understand English,” said Carmeline, “I don’t want them to hit me again.” She said that in a pleading tone with tears in her eyes. “Remember what you can do, my dear twin brother,” said Sky smiling. I told the women again to sit down. I didn’t really want to fight them though, that would give the authorities a perfect reason to keep us here.
“Okay Miss Kitty, it’s time to show yourself,” I said. Suddenly there was a large jaguar next to me growling at the two women and they backed up and then climbed to the top bunk! Only they could see Miss Kitty, any security cameras would not pick her up. I turned to Carmeline and said, “You don’t need to worry about them anymore, they won’t hurt you with Sky and Kitty watching you while we’re gone.” Carmeline was puzzled by the reaction of the two women since she only saw Kitty standing there, not Miss Kitty the jaguar.
Friskie had also come in with us, but she stayed in the office, invisibly, to see what was being planned, if anything, against us. She communicated with me that the warden, or whatever she calls herself, isn’t planning on letting Celestine and I leave the prison. How nice of her. I told Sky to go get Friskie and bring her back here to join us, which she did right away. “Sometimes I think maybe this is a dream,” said Carmeline, “I, I, just don’t see how it’s possible.”
“Don’t worry about it right now,” said Celestine as she sat beside her with her arm around Carmeline, “just know that we are here to get you out, and you know that I would never lie to you.” “Yep, we made a promise to each other when we were 8,” said Carmeline, “we would never lie to each other and I have kept that promise too. I’m scared Celestine, very scared. I know my brother did this to me. He killed our parents himself, I’m sure of that. He wants the whole inheritance for himself and he can have it too, I just want to be free again.”
She was really crying now with Celestine and Friskie comforting her. Sky and Kitty were angry and wanted to start a fight, but I reminded them we needed to be careful so we could get Carmeline out of here and to safety without the authorities being able to prove we took her out of prison with us. Finally I asked Sky to take us out, which she did and returned to the cell right away. We got into the van where Rock and Sherry were waiting for us and off we went.
Meanwhile, “Where did those two visitors go?” asked the warden. “They just disappeared,” said a man. “That’s impossible, people can’t just disappear!” she retorted. Then she sent the guards back to check on things. They found the cell door was still locked, but we were not inside anywhere. They asked the two cellmates of Carmeline what happened to the visitors, but they just frowned and said that no visitors had been in today.
The guards then took them back to the warden for a talk, but they still insisted that no one had come into the cell today. So they checked the security tape but strangely enough it showed Celestine and I going back outside to our van after talking with the warden, instead of following the guards. The guards, however, insisted that we had gone with them to visit Carmeline. The warden then went with them to the checkpoint and the two guards there also said that we had not come past them today.
That’s when the warden had those two original guards locked up. We left Storm, Ginger and Sneaker with the girls too, they are really helping Carmeline. When we got back to our hotel room it had obviously been searched and we expected that, so we didn’t leave anything important for them to find. Mac told us that the police had been around and searched each of our rooms and everyone cooperated with them without arguing.
They even searched each of the vans without finding anything, but we do have a way of hiding things in those vans where they can’t be found, without literally taking the vans apart, which they didn’t do. And, we still have Kat, Kristina and Angel, so they can help hide things right in the open. And they did. Now to finalize our plans for getting Carmeline out of that prison, which shouldn’t be too hard. However, getting her out of the country might be more difficult, though we could keep her invisible. But, they might try to keep us from leaving anyway, which is why we need a plan.
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
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