"No id-"
But before Isaac got to finish his sentence, the front door burst open and a dark-haired beauty shot through and whipped the note out of Isaac's hands. She read it, her jaw set and her lip pressed in a grim, firm line.
"Zella what -" Taylor began.
"She sure has her naive moments doesn't she?" Zella sneered, more to herself than anyone else.
"Who does?" Diana asked. "And who are you? What are you doing here?"
Zella's eyes met Diana's briefly, then she sighed and turned her head slightly.
To everyone's shock, they saw Zella shape shift into another person for a few seconds, then returned to the form they were more familiar with.
"You're an anomaly too?" Isaac asked.
"The Goblin is the one with naive moments." Zella replied, ignoring the question. "But don't ever make the mistake of judging her by them."
"Her?" Taylor repeated.
Zella sighed impatiently.
"Look, you don't seem to realise how bad this situation is. The Goblin has Zac. And you can be sure that by having Zac in her possession she's completed a step in her latest scheme."
"Scheme for what?"
"What do you think? Look, this is not the time for questions. I'm going to arrange for a couple of friends to keep an eye on you. Myself and -"
"Who said you could call the shots?" Isaac interrupted.
Zella stared at him with one of those "don't you dare argue with me" looks. Isaac held her gaze for a moment, then looked away.
"Myself and a few teams will search for Zac. Don't worry. We will bring him back." Zella continued.
"Can't we help? We have powers too you know." Jess asked.
"Until you fully understand who and what we're up against, you are nothing but a liability. You'll know my people when you see them."
And before anyone really seemed to realise what had happened, Zella had left. The Hansons stared at each other.
"Jess? Taylor?" Walker asked. "Do you think we can trust her?"
The two empaths looked at each other.
"I believe so." Taylor said at last. "She was being sincere."
"You don't sound so sure." Isaac commented.
"There's something strange about her empathic signature." Jess said. "It was fragmented. I mean, fragmented signatures aren't all that uncommon. It usually means we haven't gotten quite close enough to them to absorb the whole thing but..."
"But at that short distance, we should have been able to get it." Taylor finished. "In fact, thinking about it, I probably should have realised that when I went on that double date with her, Zac and Mary Anne."
"You were probably so used to fragmented empathic signatures, you didn't think anything of it." Jess suggested.
"Probably." Taylor agreed.
"Fragmented?" Walker asked.
"When a signature is fragmented it just means we can't feel all of their personality traits." Taylor explained.
"Oh, ok."