2
"Where is she?"
Kai groaned and ran his sore, but somehow only bruised hand down his face. The hospital room had been flooded with sunlight that his eyes refuse to adjust to, and he had the distinct impression that a long time had passed. Ray sat in the chair Ayah had occupied, his legs and arms crossed and looking none too happy.
"What time is it?" He sounded gravely to his own ears. His throat was parched and raw as sandpaper.
"About ten. You've been asleep for three days. Tyson's proud."
Kai groaned again. That would explain why he was starving too. "Damn it."
"Where is Ayah?"
"Like I'd know."
Ray reached over to the side table and tossed something onto Kai's lap. Ayah's little yellow-paged notebook. Her last note spread across the front with her usual nigh-illegible handwriting.
Bladebreakers,
I've only been able to take care of his superficial burns. Some damage may remain beneath the skin. He will sleep a lot and will be very hungry when he wakes up, but should be better. Please be sure he gets what he needs.
Ayah
He dropped the notepad towards Ray and rubbed his eyes hard, begging them to stop watering. "She started buzzing like a bee and I passed out, that's all I know."
And that was all he was saying.
"Before you went to the hospital she said something about some people threatening you, or did you think we'd just ignore the fact you were half-burned to a crisp in the catwalks for some unknown reason?"
"Has it ever occurred to you that I don't respond well to demands?" He glared up at the tiger through his fingers. "Even from you?"
Ray didn't withdraw, his returning gaze hard as stone. "Pardon, captain, let me rephrase my question: where did your friends take her? They wanted her, didn't they?"
"Did she tell you that?"
"I guessed from her look. I don't think she's that good at lying."
Kai let loose a sigh. God, he was tired. And hungry. And beyond patience. "I don't know. Go away."
"What did you say to her? Don't tell me you told her to get lost or hand herself over!"
"Whoa, what's with all the yelling? This is a sick peoples place, Ray, tone it down."
Tyson had appeared in the doorway, flanked by hamster lipped Max and wary Kenny.
"We brought food!" he sang.
"Tyson brought food," said Max. "Not like he knew you'd be awake, though, they're just his snacks."
"More like second breakfast," added Kenny.
"Aw, shut it. It was my Kai senses tingling. She said he'd be starving when he woke up after all."
Ray got out of the way as Tyson pulled out the hospital bed's serving table and started laying out the contents of the grocer bag in his hand: half of a watermelon, an energy drink, two sweet bean buns, a bag of chips, an apple, two boxes of Pocky, and finally a sweating cup of ice cream.
"I'd eat the ice cream before it melts. But what's hanging, Ray?"
"How can you be so calm?" Ray asked, having found a place at the foot of Kai's bed with Kenny. Max had taken up Kai's other side. "He's the only clue as to who kidnapped Ayah."
"Kidnapped is a strong word," said Kenny cautiously. "For all we know, she just left."
Kai knew for a fact that couldn't be true. The girl didn't even want to sleep apart from Tyson and the others, let alone leave them entirely. She wouldn't have left for any other reason than what she had told him, and as he busied himself swallowing the ice cream without a second thought, he debated on telling his team. Knowing them, they'd probably just run around like chickens with their heads cut off in search for clues as to where the Abbey's assassins could have gone. Kai doubted Ayah would have gone far. She hadn't been under much protection with his unconscious self in the first place. It seemed almost superfluous that they would have had to threaten Kai at all.
His eyes widened. No. They couldn't have been there for him. They could have easily taken her, even with him around, why hadn't they? They had gone there for her, hadn't they?
'Even without that stunt you pulled two nights ago, he would have found you. You have his girl. If you don't cooperate with him, BladeBreakers will start dying. When we come back, don't make us have to kill one to get you to listen.'
He nearly dropped the bean bun he'd been holding. They'd be coming back for him. Something had organized them, or rather someone, and they still considered Kai theirs.
"I'm telling you, she wouldn't just run away," Tyson was saying. "You didn't hear—" he caught himself, cheeks suddenly pink. "Trust me, she loved staying with grandpa and me. At least, for the few days she did stay with us…"
"If you just give me a moment, I can check," said Kenny, sounding more than a little on edge. He had opened up his laptop near Kai's foot. Max had given him his chair to use as he typed. "The hospital has security cameras. I can check to see where she went—"
"Why didn't you do this before?" asked Ray.
"Whoa, calm down. This isn't like you," Max said to Ray, putting a hand on his shoulders and giving them a friendly squeeze.
"Look, I'm not a hacker, and security cameras aren't exactly on wi-fi frequencies," said Kenny. "This is the first time I've been in the same room with one of those."
He pointed up to the corner, where a small black globe attempted to be inconspicuous beneath the TV hanging in the adjacent corner.
"Don't look at it, Max! They'll catch on!" Tyson flung himself at Max, who lost his balance and crashed to the floor.
Kenny put a hand to his head with an exasperated grunt. "Really, you two. Do you think they have nothing better to do than watch all 546 patient rooms? They're offline unless a particular patient needs constant surveillance, for whatever reason. So if you'd stop being weird, one of you keep watch and someone help me get this cord into its adapter port."
As Max ran to the door and Ray, with his feline balance and dexterity, pushed over the chair to reach the camera's globe, Kai was left to chew his food and wonder once more why they felt the need to do all this with him in the center. What was he, a homing beacon? The only one he even cared at all for being there was Tyson, and that was only because he had brought food.
Granted, he had been more than relieved at seeing them nearby, but it wasn't like he'd be able to do much to protect them in this state should an assassin's blade break through the window.
Which reminded him. "Where's Dranzer?"
"Right here, buddy." Tyson reached to somewhere out of sight beneath the bed and pulled out the navy blue blade. "By the way, what's with that wicked looking knife ring you got in there? I almost cut myself on it."
Kai wanted to throw what remained of the bean bun at his face. While Tyson was at it, why didn't he just shout nice and loud that Kai was a bonified beyblade assassin? So much for the idiot being able to keep a secret.
Kenny's typing froze. Ray glanced back, the small black camera's bowl in his hands.
At Kai's sharp glare, Tyson blanched. "I-I-I mean the one on your pocket knife! What, do you use it to open bottles or something, ha! A bit young to drink wine, don't you think?"
"Metal bottle caps are on soda and juice too, Tyson," said Kenny, but his typing resumed as though nothing had happened. Ray also turned back to searching the little gray square of a camera.
Tyson laughed and shot Kai a questioning look, but the captain ignored him. He had to, else he might break the younger boy's nose.
As Ray and Kenny went about hacking into the camera systems (of which Kai felt no obligation to save them from, as it distracted them from talking to him), Tyson fidgeted and tried to prompt something from Kai with more big eyes. Kai tossed him the box of Pocky to stop this. Another reason why he considered Tyson his best friend: he was the easiest to distract.
Which left him with some blessed peace to mull over what he had to do next. If Biovolt was up and running, or at least some of its soldiers were, and they'd be coming around to recruit him like the others, what could be the end goal? And who could be leading them? The idea of Boris or his grandfather doing that from prison was laughable, especially Boris, as he had always been a man obsessed with money. It had been his grandfather who had interests in politics. While Boris looked to make money from their secret services, his grandfather had intended to gain some world political power through threats, murder, and coercion.
Again, jail limited one's ability to organize one's secret organization. Especially the Black Dolphin Russian jail, which housed Russia's most infamous criminals, including Boris and his grandfather.
It was possible that whoever had had hands on Ayah in the first place had connections to Biovolt and the remaining children who had been trained there. It would explain how they knew about her. But what else would that entail? He could always break into the mansion again—but he retracted that thought. His leg had been cut, and by the swollen feeling he could sense past the remains of whatever pain killer they had given him, it had been deep. Muscle took time to heal. And it was unlikely that they would be caught off guard by him again. He had been trained as an assassin, not a spy. His ninja-breaking-in skills only went so far.
"Oh, this reminds me," Kenny reinserted the cord into another USB port. "Did you guys hear about what happened in Russia last night?"
Speak of the devil.
Ray just shrugged and Tyson didn't even pause in his speedy devouring of chocolate coated biscuit sticks as he said, "Nuh uh."
Kenny gawked at them. "For reals? What rock do you guys live under?"
Tyson paused to pick biscuit out of his molars. "Why did you even ask if you thought we'd know? Just get out it, Chief."
"Well, the President of the United States was assassinated on his visit to Russia."
That got the boys' attention. If Kai had had any doubts as to whether this could be important news, he didn't now.
"THE president? Of THE United States?" said Tyson.
Even Max leaned his head in from around the doorframe, though he didn't look nearly as surprised. Maybe being half-American gave him extra initiative to be up to date on the current events of his country.
"It's been all over the news," Max chirped. "His throat was cut in front of everyone, and the only person who was around him was the Russian vice president. They found the knife on him and everything, but he still insists that he didn't do it."
"He probably didn't."
All eyes turned to Kai, who did his best not to turn feral at all the expectant attention. But he had to say something. If the new leader of the assassin's had an interest in his cooperation, his teammates would be the ones in danger. Kai was a strong believer of killing ignorance before it killed you, if there was a chance of it doing so, that is. Tyson's ignorance was his much needed comic relief, after all.
"What makes you say that?" asked Kenny, a bit cautiously, he noted. That annoyed him.
"Stop playing innocent," he snapped. "Ray, you remember those accuracy exercises I taught you?"
"Yeah? What of them?"
"I'm going to need you to teach the others while I'm in here. And make sure everyone keeps a beyblade on hand."
"Good gravy, Kai, no one thinks your arrogant mysterious act is cool anymore, so just come out with it!" snapped Tyson. "This has to do with your Abbey skills, yeah, but what of it?"
Thus, in the end, he had no choice but to tell them. It was probably the most empty space he had voluntarily talked into since the frozen ice mess of Black Dranzer. But the assassination of the President had changed everything. Whoever had their hands on the Abbey assassins now was out for something big, and Kai couldn't always promise to do that which would keep his team out of harm's way.
