CHAPTER 10

CONFRONTATION

Kayla and Taku finally arrived at Shadow's house after their evening walk.

The brown hybrid looked up and down at where Kayla had lived and was impressed with her house. "Whoa, nice house."

"Heh, thanks." As she was about to turn away and walk inside, she was grabbed by her waist and fell into Taku's arms. She blushed deeply as Taku held her tightly, so tight it was as if he didn't want to let go. "Taku…"

He took her body away from his and faced her, "You weren't gonna leave me without saying goodbye were you?"

With her still blushing, she had the power to look at his smiling face, "Of course not."

His smile never faded from his face,. "I really like you, Kayla. Everyone thinks your evil and everything just because you have that demon inside of you, but…that's not you at all. You're really nice and cute too."

The squirrel really didn't know what to say to him. She could tell he was being honest towards her and she never had anyone be so straight forward to her before. "Re-really? You too." She then saw him raising his hand towards her head and started to stroke his fingers through her black hair. "Well, goodnight, Kayla."

She couldn't help but to giggle a bit as he played with her hair. "Heh, goodnight, Taku."

When Taku began to walk out of sight, Kayla sighed in bliss and finally walked inside. When she walked inside, she saw her father standing in front of her with his arms crossed. Judging by the expression on his face, he looked upset about something, but she tried to put him in a better mood. "Oh hey, dad. How was work?"

"Who the hell was that?"

"Eh?" the squirrel jumped back from her father's behavior.

"That boy…who was that boy?"

"Oh him?" Kayla didn't seem surprised that Shadow was overreacting to the sight of seeing Taku since he was a guy who was hanging around her. "His name is Taku."

The hedgehog rose an eyebrow at the name, "Taku? Don't tell me he's your new boyfriend. I thought we were over this…"

"He's not my boyfriend, dad. He's just a friend and…I think he's a real friend."

Shadow's angered expression soon turned into a calm one, "Well, I can't judge your friends Kayla, because I'm not you. However, he does seem like a nice boy."

A smile formed on her face because it wasn't often that Shadow would approve the boys she hangs around. She watched him sit on the white sofa in the living room while he took a pack of cigarettes.

He placed a cigarette in his mouth. "Just don't let me catch him putting his hands on you and the boy can keep his dick."

"Oh, dad! Stop making threats already!" As she watched her father light his cigarette, Taku kept entering her mind. 'Oh! I…I think I like Taku!'

Later that night at the Chaotix, everything was locked and secure for the rest of the night when everyone had went home. Outside of the main door, a black creature had appeared at the glass door and tried to open it, but it was locked. "Locked door?" He raised his sharp claws at the handle of the door, "No problem…", he spoke with a deep laugh.

The next morning, Vector was the first one to get to the Chaotix along with Charmy at his side.

The bee flying beside the green crocodile yawned because he was so tired. "Looks like another boring day."

"With you bugging the crap out of everyone, I doubt it." Vector got to the main door of the Chaotix building, pulled the handle to the door, and the door flung wide open. "Wha? What?"

Charmy's eyes widened at the sight, "Hey boss, didn't you lock the door last night?" Suddenly with his heart beating nonstop, he looked over to Vector and just knew something was wrong.

They both rushed inside and didn't see anything out of place or destroyed.

Vector placed his finger to his chin and began to think as he looked around the main lobby. "What the hell is going on? The lock to the door is broken, but nothing looks out of place."

Charmy began to think of a place that could've been touched, until he remembered something that was in the garage with the rest of his experiments. "Oh no! The vault!"

At Charmy's words, Vector began to rush to the garage along with Charmy to check the vault. When they got there, they saw the vault door open and nothing was missing inside of it except one thing.

Charmy searched the entire vault to see if anything else was missing.

"Well, Charms? Is there anything missing?" Vector asked nervously.

"Everything seems to be here except…" He turned to the worried crocodile in fright. "Except the Demon Release Glove…it's gone! The Demon Release Glove is missing!"

"What? That's stupid! Who would want that glove? The only thing it does is extract demons from their hosts."

They both froze and turned to each other again in worry.

"You don't think…" Charmy began.

"…Shadow's daughter would never…" Vector didn't want to assume it was Kayla who took the glove, but he couldn't think of another individual who would want the glove.

Later at Shadow's house, Shadow was in the living room trying to gather his things for work until he heard his cell phone ring in his pants pocket. "Oh come the fuck on! It's fucking seven in the morning!" When he checked the caller id on the phone, he saw Espio's name on it. "Es? What does he want?" He answered the phone, "What's up, Es?"

"Shadow! There's been a murder!"

With Espio's shouting over the phone, it had hurt Shadow's ears a little. "Whoa, Es! Calm the fuck down! I'm sure the police are already on it."

"But you don't understand. It's not just any murder. The guy was slaughtered, Shadow!"

"A slaughter? Maybe it was another Almas…"

"Can an Almas write a subliminal message into a disfigured corpse?"

"…What?" Shadow thought about it and it was true. No Almas can communicate in either way. All an Almas can do is kill and drink the blood of their victims. "What are you saying? Another powerful demon?"

"…Exactly."

Meanwhile at Kayla's school, Kayla was sitting at a table during lunch with Taku, Rai, and Mesu.

"So there's this really cool party I've been hearing about going on Saturday. You guys wanna go with me?"

"I'm in!" Mesu shouted with excitement.

"Me too", Rai spoke as she was chewing gum.

Taku looked over to Kayla, "What about you, Kayla?"

The squirrel paused for a moment and never imagined herself going to a party before, but as long as it was with Taku she didn't seem to care. She made a small nod, "Yeah!"

"Sweet!" Taku spoke with an excited look, "This is going to be awesome!"

Mesu stared at the way Kayla was looking at Taku and got suspicious. 'Kayla…do you really like Taku?'

After school, Kayla decided to go on home for the day so she had already said goodbye to everyone. While she walked along the sidewalk, she began to shiver because of the cold wind. "Wow, it's getting colder already." She stopped in her tracks when she heard a whisper call out to her.

"Cold? Little girl?"

The voice sounded like it came from behind her. She slowly turned around and saw a black hedgehog who almost reminded her of her father. 'Dad?' She had thought as looked harder. The mysterious hedgehog had blood red eyes and long black hair and was wearing a red shirt, a burgundy trench coat with the sleeves up, gray pants, a red scarf covering his neck and mouth, black and white shoes, and gauze was almost covering his arms and hands. 'No, that's not dad.' She watched him take out a huge red glove. She began to get nervous at the sight of him and especially with no one else around. "Um, were you talking to me, sir?"

The mysterious hedgehog never took his eyes away from the frightened squirrel. "No need to get nervous, girl." He raised his hand at her and suddenly pulled her close to him.

While Kayla was being dragged over to him, she thought that he had some sort of telekinesis power. "Wha? What's going on? What are you?"

He grabbed her arm tightly and held her against the wall of a building.

"Please stop!"

He began to whisper in her ear in a deep and hoarse voice. "Don't scream. Don't even make a sound. Now be a good girl and just let me do my work."

She watched him place his hand over her mouth with his mouth getting closer and closer to her neck. 'Who is this psycho? What does he want from me? Someone help me!'

A/N:

Kayla: You...who are you? What did you just do? My demon...

Demitri: What a figure of elegance and divinity...

Espio: What the hell could've done this?

Shadow: Rebirth...

Tonya: Shadow! Did you know that the Demon Release Glove was stolen?

Shadow: Kayla! What happened to you?

Kayla: Dad...I felt like I was attacked but I...