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Chapter 28: Feeding the Fire
Kyra sat on the ground on the roof patio, leaning against the bars. She had her eyes closed, listening to the sound of the creatures surrounding the mansion as the warm breeze tickled her face.
It had been entirely too long since she'd been able to just sit up here and relax; but she was still troubled.
Troubled by Helen's odd behavior as well as Connor's.
She had fallen asleep sometime during her musings as a strangely familiar dream came rushing back.
The building was on fire, people were screaming and running. There was a small girl, not much older than 3 or 4, who stood in the corridor confused and crying looking for her parents.
Nick Cutter ran to the small child with Claudia Brown's hand in his.
He held the girl in his arms tightly and then pulled her back so that they were looking at each other eye to eye.
"Kyra, listen to me, you're gonna go with your mum. There are some bad people that have gotten into the ARC and if I don't stop them they'll destroy everything."
Tears were still pouring from the child's eyes, "but I want you to come with us, daddy."
Cutter wiped the child's tears away, "its okay, everything's gonna be alright."
"But-but you always say that when you know it's not and something bad's gonna happen. I don't want you to get hurt!" Kyra cried as Claudia picked her up, Cutter embracing and kissing them both as Claudia began to run with Kyra in her arms.
Kyra screamed after Cutter, who ran back towards the fire.
Gunshots were heard and the two of them got scared.
Claudia set Kyra down on the ground, "listen to me darling ok?"
Kyra nodded.
"I'm gonna go and find your dad. I want you to run outside and hide away from the building ok?"
Kyra nodded. "You're not gonna leave too?"
"I will my darling, but I'm just gonna get your dad and we'll come find you. It-it's kinda like that game you love so much, hide and seek? Go, I'll start counting. One, two, three…"
Kyra did as she was told and ran as fast as her small legs could carry her. Only, Kyra couldn't remember how to get out of the building. She was in a part of the ARC she'd never been in before and grew very scared.
Suddenly, a tall woman came around the corner and bent down to Kyra. "Come with me." She said.
"Mommy says I shouldn't talk to strangers."
Helen smiled, "But I'm not a stranger, I'm your guardian angel. I'm here to take you to safety."
"What about mommy and daddy?"
"They'll be just fine." Helen lied.
She picked the girl up and pulled out a device and opened an anomaly.
"Daddy said I should stay away from those shiny circles." Kyra announced.
"These aren't dangerous, love. They'll take us to fantastical places." Helen replied as she stepped through the anomaly carrying the small child in her arms.
Kyra shot awake and looked around, before remembering where she was, still on the rooftop.
She couldn't figure out why she didn't remember all this time. It all seemed like some livid, reoccurring nightmare that her imagination conjured; and she was so young at the time.
Helen had the answers Kyra needed.
Why Connor had become a traitor and why she kept having nightmares in which Helen was behind the deaths/disappearances of her parents.
Stephen opened his eyes to see Abby lying on his bare chest, his arms around her.
He smiled to himself as he ran his fingers through her hair.
Abby groaned as she picked up her head to see Stephen's blue eyes staring back at hers.
"Morning beautiful." Stephen smiled.
Abby smiled back. "Morning; but I probably look horrible."
"What? No." Stephen answered as he hugged her.
"I just woke up, Stephen. My hair's probably a mess and—"
Stephen cut her off by crushing his lips against hers. "You look perfect."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Stephen." Abby said as laid on top of him and kissed him back.
Stephen rolled over so that he was over Abby.
"I'd say that it's gotten me far, so far." Stephen spoke as he leaned in and kissed Abby.
Abby pulled him closer and deepened the kiss.
A cell phone ringing interrupted them.
"It's Cutter." Stephen said as he rolled over and answered the phone.
"Hello?" Stephen answered, trying to keep his breathing steady,
"Stephen, I need you and Abby to get to the ARC as soon as humanly possible. Something's come up." Cutter explained.
"What?"
"I don't want to say anything over the phone, just hurry and get here."
"On our way." Stephen said as he hung up.
"Time to go. Cutter found something." Stephen explained as he kissed Abby once more before getting out of bed and getting dressed.
"What are you going to do if and when we have another run-in with Helen, K.C., and Connor?" Jenny asked.
"I don't know yet; but I'm wondering if Helen's playing some sort of game with us. Something to throw us off of what she's really after." Cutter answered.
"You know that if we do run into them again, we have to treat them like our enemies." Jenny explained.
"I don't believe that Connor would just turn on us like this. K.C.'s a different story."
"Nick, maybe she was meant to be against us."
Cutter looked up at Jenny. "And Connor? Do you think that he was meant to be against us as well?"
"That's not what I said." Jenny defended.
"We're here." Abby announced as she and Stephen entered Cutter's office.
"We've got a slight problem." Cutter began.
"K.C. is not dead." Jenny cut-in. "It was all a ruse."
"But we don't know that for sure." Cutter retorted.
Jenny was about to say some thing when Stephen jumped in.
"So what do we do? I mean, I know that we have no idea of knowing exactly where to find them. Hell, we don't even know why Connor joined them in the first place."
"Maybe that's the ruse." Abby interjected.
"A red-herring more like," Jenny responded.
"Helen's using the pair of them, she has to be." Nick reasoned.
"But like you said, Nick, we don't know for sure." Stephen argued.
Kyra returned to the lower levels of the mansion. She remembered seeing Helen wandering near a door quite a lot recently and wondered if maybe her answers were somewhere behind that door. She also noticed that it was the only door in the entire mansion that had a lock on it.
As she walked down the corridor, she half-wondered if Helen was watching her or if Helen was even in the mansion. Perhaps, Connor was lurking somewhere nearby.
'What could Helen possibly be hiding behind that door, that she couldn't trust me enough to tell me?' Kyra thought as she approached the door.
Her heart froze as she saw Connor come around the corner.
"Where are you going?" He asked casually.
"I'm taking a walk. Why do you care?" Kyra answered coldly.
"I'm not allowed to care?"
"No, not really."
"A couple of days ago you wanted to kiss me. Now, you want nothing to do with me."
'I'll have to check it another time, when he's not lurking in the hallway.' Kyra thought to herself.
"I've got to carry on with my walk. So, if you don't terribly mind, I'm going to continue on my way." Kyra said as she stepped around him.
"I'll come with you." Connor said as he turned and started to walk alongside her.
"What for?"
"Our mission's gonna start soon, and it'll be a lot easier if all of us aren't in completely different parts of the mansion." Connor explained.
"What mission?"
"We're going to take over the ARC."
Some long-awaited answers to come in the next chap!
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