So, this was it, huh? No one could here him scream, Norm, if that was his real name, had already said no one came down here except for the yearly inventory count.
There had to be some way out of here, but quite frankly, Ryan was tired. Nothing made sense, and it was all just too much to deal with at the moment.
How long had he been in here? It felt like hours upon hours, but he guessed that realistically about 23 minutes. The only thing on his mind was how he would love to use all of that equipment on Caleb. He had already been planning on ways he would like to do the deed.
However, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the box again. That wooden box that was displayed upon the wall. He could just break the damn thing open and take a look-see what was inside...
But first thing's first. If he shot at the door, the bullets would probably ricochet, so that plan was tossed out. He had tried yelling for help, but no one came. He walked around, banging on the walls to find a hollow point, but none existed. No vents either. The Vault door was the only way in, or out.
"Well, I hope whatever's inside that damn thing's useful." he said to himself as he walked up to the case. He lifted it up, and found it wasn't very heavy at all. He sat it upon the table, and stared. running his hands upon the smooth surface, his fingers came across the lock.
Breaking it was simply done by busting the small pad with the handle of the small pistol. To his surprise, it only took one strike to break the small lock, and it fell broken on the table.
Opening it, he found the last thing he would have expected. A small key. Nothing particularly special about it, just a small silver key.
It seemed that this time, Ryan was at his end. He couldn't punch through steele, the bullets wouldn't be able to penetrate, he didn't have rays that come out of his eyes (though that would have been useful at the moment), he had nothing. And, in about 13 hours, judging by the cubic area of the room, he wouldn't even have oxygen. Of course Ryan didn't know how to determin the volume or area of a closed space, so he was in the dark about the oxygen as well.
There was nothing he could do about it this time. This had become his tomb.
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It seemed that everyone wanted to see Caleb now. Why couldn't they just leave him the fuck alone? Beggars, of course, the only thing anyone wanted from him was his money.
"Sir, should I let her in?" he heard the intercom, and then in the background he heard 'of course you let me in! I'm his daughter!'
"Send her in..." he sighed. He was edging a migrane from hell, and the last thing he needed was more 'family' coming to see him.
When the doors opened before him, he saw blonde hair following the rage of Kirsten. The conference room was empty, and she stormed right around the loong table up to him.
"What the HELL are you doing?" he hissed at him. He only shook his head and turned away from her. "I don't need this right now Kirsten."
"You don't need this right now? I though that we left all of that behind us! So what the hell is going on, huh?" She told him, crossing her arms.
"Nothing you should be concerned about."
"Ha! I did a little research of my own, you know. And you know what I found? You've still been doing business with the Antonioni's!"
He slowly turned to face her, and saw the look on her face. Her lips pursed together to a small line, her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles white. It had been quite some time since he had seen so much reverance in her.
"For nineteen years, I thought it was all done and over with." She said.
"Just go home. We'll discuss this later. There's nothing to worry about."
"How can you be so fucking calm? Your grandson was killed by Him!"
"No, he wasn't." Caleb said, and he turned and faced the large, open winows that overlooked the landscape. Kirsten sat down in one of the chairs, and looked at him.
"What?"
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Ryan had found it hard to remain focused. It was so hot in there, he was drifting in and out of conciousness.
It must have been hours, but no sure way to find out. He was, however, glad that for once, Kirsten had stuffed the hell out of him last night when she cooked, so at least he wasn't hungry...yet.
He was slumped in against the door, and had his head leaned back against it. The florescent light was slightly flickering, and he felt tired. So, he did the only thing he could think of. He laid down on the floor, and drifted off.
He had a dream. It was strange, because Ryan usually didn't have dreams. It was all too hectic to recall, but he remembered seeing Seth's lifeless body in his arms, on the gravel of that parking lot.
Those eyes. They weren't like his. They were distant, unfocused, staring right back into Ryan's. Almost accusingly. And then something Ryan most definitely did not notice when he was there in that reality, was that Seth was already wearing the matching ring.
This could have just at well been fabricated by Ryan's mind, or perhaps it had remembered the unnoticable detail.
When Ryan came to, he was still in the vault. Of course he had hoped it was a dream, he had hoped the entire affair was just one long dream. But it wasn't.
He lied in the same spot, staring up at the ceiling, when he noticed that the room had cooled. He sat up, and it was there that he saw the door open. Wide open freedom. He imediately stood, and strode to the open exit.
He looked at the door, and etched in the metal was one word. RUN.
So, he decided that the best thing to do would be the take the advice, and "RUN". He quickly rushed to the table, and put all back in it's place. slinging the strap of the black case, caontaining the "equipment", he grabbed one of the containers of money, seeing as there was so much that he needed only one.
As he walked out of the Vault, he saw the dead, blood-gorged body of "Norm", sprawled out all over the floor. Ryan looked down on him, and simply thought 'serves him right, son-of-a-bitch...'
He made his way around the corner, up the stairs, and out of the back door. Day light never looked so good. It was dusk, and he had somewhere to go. A certain someone to see...
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"So anyway, I'm lying all over the bed, ice cream on my chest, and the dog jumped right on top of me and started licking it off of me! I had to fight to get it off." Summer laughed. "Hence, why I'm no longer a dog person."
Matt Mortgenson, a reporter for the New Port Times, was a good listener. Maybe from all those interviews, or maybe naturally, but he was a really, really, good listener. And that was all Summer needed.
"So, Matt, are you an only child?" she asked. He sat his bowl of Ice Cream next to hers, and swallowed his mouth ful, which he had almost lost, laughing from her previous experience.
"No, uh, actually I come from seven sisters, and three brothers." he said. Summer's jaw litterally dropped. How could one woman have so many? His parents must have been one happily married couple.
"It's not as bad as it sounds, but they're all in New York, so I never see them. Sometimes I talk to my sister, Marie, but it has been a long time since I've been home."
She nodded, listening. She really thought that they clicked, and he had kept his promise about coming back. She glanced at the clock. They had been talking for three hours straight. She smiled, and looked back to him.
"Listen, my ass is starting to hurt from sitting so long, so do you mind if I go outside for a few minutes?" he said. She shhok her head no, and watched him stand up. As he stretched his arms up, his shirt lifted, and of course summer had to look. It was just above his jeans, showing a little bit of flesh, but the view was shortly gone, and she looked back up to him and smiled again.
"Um, do you wanna come with?" he asked her. She looked up to him, one eye brow raised. "Well, I was just thinking, when I broke my hip when I was younger, I used to go around the hospitol in a wheel chair. And, I happened to notice you had one in the corner, so, you know..."
She glanced, and saw the folded chair that she hadn't noticed before now. She then quickly nodded, and regretted it, for thinking that she probably looked too eager. He laughed, and made his way to the opposite side of the room.
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"What?"
Caleb sighed, still facing away from his daughter. "Remember when you were goin into labor, and Sandy had tried to rush you to the hospitol in time..." She nodded, recalling the moment he was refurring to.
"When you were delivering, and then you passed out...The baby died during delivery. The umbellical cord had wrapped around its neck, and they couldn't save it in time."
Kirsten sat, unable to process what he was telling her. So, he continued.
"There was a woman who had given birth, and died during delivery. Of course, the child would have gone into the system, but we all decided to just...well," he paused.
She looked up to him, and couldn't believe what he was saying. "You mean my child, who I held when he had a bad dream, who I took care of when he was sick, whom I did everything under the sun for, wasn't my real baby?"
He stood in silence, not wanting to reply. The long silence had settled, and he heard her sobbing.
"Did Sandy know?" she asked. He only replied "yes", and she stared at the hard marble surface of the conference table.
He then heard her walk up to him. She paused for a moment, and then placed a hand on his shoulder. "Dad?" he heard her say. He turned to face her and then...
WHAM!
She gave him full force of her fist. "You SONOFABITCH!" she screamed. Caleb was lucky that the windows were shatter-proof, or else he would have fallen to a painfull grave.
Kirsten strod out of the conference room, leaving him rubbing his jaw.
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"Y'know, I haven't heard you say anything about friends, etcetera. In fact, no one's come by to check on you today, since I've been here."
The night air was cool, and Summer liked being pushed around like royalty. She couldn't help but laugh at how attentive Matt was whenever there was a pivot in the ground, and such.
"My best friend died of an over-dosage six months ago." she replied. He was surprised at how calmly she had said it. "Sorry." he said. She laughed.
"I don't need your condolences." she told him.
He pulled a pack of cigarettes, and pulled one out. He then began searching his pockets for his lighter, but found that it was not to be found. "It must've fell out somewhere...oh well..."
"So, what does such a charismatic woman such as yourself do on her free time?" he asked, putting the small thing back in it's pack. Summer sighed. "I put up with other people." she said. He laughed, and she thought his laugh was cute as well.
"Actually, I'm working on opening up my own business." she said. He raised an eyebrow, looking impressed. "Usually when I ask that, they reply 'achieving world peace'."
Summer smiled, and looked out across the hospitol parking lot. The sky was clear, and she looked up to admire its canvas.
"The sky's usually not this clear." she said aloud. He looked up after sitting down on the curb by her chair.
"I used to study astronomy in college." he said. He pointed up to the moon. "See that star right to the right of it?" he told her. She looked, and sure enough, it was the only star near the position.
"It's a white dwarf. In '89, it was a red giant. It went into a supernova, and it was a huge deal - all over the news. I saw it when I was a kid, and...it was beautiful. Of course, at 8 years old, I said "awesome" because it wasn't cool for a boy to say "beautiful", but the fact remained." he laughed.
"But what amazes me is that any of those other stars could have gone by now, and we just cant see it because it takes hundreds of thousands of light years for the image to reach us, y'know?"
Summer hadn't thought about stars, or planets, or all that stuff much in her life, but after hearing that, it was all kind of, in a wierd way, as he said, beautiful. It was that moment that she looked at him, just as he happened to look at her. They drew closer, and she was, as she had been, hypnotically tranced by those eyes.
And there, under the clear sky, Summer had her first kiss. Sure, he had kissed other guys before, but always in a lusted-for, heated way. This was different. It was soft, slow, simple. So, it was sort of like being kissed for the first time all over again.
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A/N: This chapter wasn't really meant to be action-packed. I just felt that I had been neglecting Summer in the others (even though it IS supposed to be Ryan/Seth he he he). But anyway, I've gotten a few e-mails about being confused about how Seth "came back". And, If you're confused, then I'm doing my job ; D