Taffer Notes: Look, it's a Halloween update!
In which Kyle Crane finds his agency ground into fine powder.
Chapter 15
A Man and His Brain Cell
2017
Tick tock, a watch which Kyle Crane did not, in fact, have on his person at this very moment, said.
Tick-tock.
What day is it?
What week is it?
Did I miss her birthday?
"Fi?"
Here, in his GRE-assigned box, with his back to the wall, his head pressed to the glass pane, and the hardest of grounds abusing his tailbone, Kyle called her name for no other reason than he had to.
He felt like shit, okay?
He hurt.
And not in the metaphysical sense of having his ass trapped in here, his optimism ground to a fine powder, but in the literal What the fuck is wrong with me sort of way.
Tick-tock, that stupid clock kept going, ticking away in his head.
His joints felt swollen. His throat sore. His eyes were two pulsing blobs lodged in too-hot sockets. Plus, his skin was way too tight; and wiggly. Stuffed full of ants.
"Baby, you there?"
Tick-tick-tock.
What Kyle wanted was to hear her scoff. Hear the Gross, don't call me that. What he got was silence. The same silence she'd given him for way too long now.
Kyle swallowed. The sensation was about as unpleasant as it could have been.
Baby, I got the man flu. Pamper me, he nearly said but then he grimaced, grimly aware that, no. He had no flu. He didn't even have a fucking cold. What he had was an overdose of UV light and too much Antizin in his blood, since that was all the GRE jackasses had been giving him as of late.
Same with Theo, the Volakid.
And probably Fi. The latter he didn't know because he couldn't fucking see or hear her, but he'd gotten a pretty good idea of what it did to Theo. The little guy kept shrinking. And shrinking.
Not, ah, literally. Just in the kind of way that made the kid fold in on himself, reducing him to a lump of skin, bone, and spikes, all sticking out of baggy clothes.
Kyle raised his arm and thumped it against the glass. Over by the lab's door, Dennis and Jacob didn't even flinch; they kept swiping left and right on Jakob's phone, with stupid grins on their stupid faces under their stupid helmets.
Probably looking at stupid cat pictures.
The thump got Theo's attention though, who lifted his head (weakly) and looked at Kyle for not even a second before his head got too heavy again. No big surprise there, with that bulky shock collar he wore. Theo's chin dropped back down and he returned to staring at the floor while he sat in the middle of his box.
Kyle knew Theo was worse off than him. So much worse. But what about Fi? Where on the scale of sad little dog turd left to dry in the sun and literal barbeque did she sit?
Was she okay?
He thumped his head against the wall and tried again.
"Fi?"
No response.
Just a whole lot of silence and— movement. The lab's access door slid open and in walked a bunch of, well, lab coats, with Fraser and some new dude at their helm. Carina was right behind them, along with two more guards/lab assistants; the ones with PHDs in manhandling illegal experiments.
Kyle watched.
What else was he supposed to do?
What else had he been doing?
What else could he have been doing?
The stupid watch Kyle didn't actually own ticked itself out. Whatever the UV light overdose had been for, this was probably it.
Bleary-eyed, Kyle's gaze slid over to the new dude, who was locked in lively dialogue with Fraser. And Fraser, may a great cactus find him and shove itself up his ass, stopped by Theo's cell, where he pointed, in turn, at all the occupied glass boxes; like he'd just brought his school buddy home and was showing off his collection of bugs that he liked to torture after he'd finished his homework.
Wow. That'd been a long string of thoughts right there, and it'd stretched awkwardly at the end, leaving Kyle with an odd sensation of falling.
Which, by itself, was disconce— discon— worrying.
Kyle squinted in an attempt to make out details on the new dude, but his vision quickly blurred. Plus, he couldn't even fucking hear them. In fact, he couldn't hear shit, like his eardrums had gotten stuffed with cotton.
So Kyle flexed his jaw and forced a yawn.
His ears popped.
Painfully.
Ow—
Two more lab goons came in. They pushed an empty cage in front of them.
And, suddenly, all the UV light and the Antizin made sense. A slow and a sluggish and a really fucking dire sense. But even as everything gradually clicked into place, Kyle's heart didn't manage to pick up its pace. All it had for him were slow, laboured lurches while he watched (helpless) as they pushed the cage against the hatch on Theo's glass box.
Worse, his thoughts began to slur; as if they'd been out for four consecutive happy hours.
Kyle got to his feet. It took a while; and by the time he was upright, they'd begun loading Theo into the small cage. The process involved a long electric baton, rifles, and a lot of stifling silence.
Kyle popped his ears again.
Any time he tried to meet Carina's eyes she blatantly ignored him. Right now she was over at the back of the lab. By the fridges. Prepping injections.
Kyle grimaced.
Well, shit, he managed to think before his thoughts slipped off their proverbial bar stools so they could drool on the floor. God, he kind of wanted to join them down there. But, nah. He couldn't. Shouldn't.
Stay awake.
He held on. Tried to push through the haze. And the haze got thicker. And thicker. And thicker.
So thick, he barely managed to work up a snarl when the new dude passed by Kyle's box and gave him one of those fleeting, professional glances that made Kyle feel a very specific kind of way that he couldn't currently slap a label on.
Speaking of labels though.
The dude's name tag swam by.
Dr. V. Waltz stood written on it. GRE, bla bla, something-or-the-other, total tool.
Dr. V. Waltz's mouth was moving. Which, theoretically, meant he was talking, right? But Kyle, still, couldn't hear shit.
. . .
He couldn't hear anything except his own heart beating loudly against his ears and his slow, irregular breathing.
Which meant they'd turned off the intercom.
Which meant Fi hadn't heard him either.
And if she'd been screaming his name; crying; calling for him; all of the above; he wouldn't have heard a damn thing.
Kyle's chest compressed. Fear battered his mind, but his thoughts remained laid out on the floor, slobbering and useless. Not even panic got them up. If anything, they drew farther and farther away.
That was (finally) when he tasted a funny something on the air.
Not ha-ha funny.
But Oh shit, funny.
I'm screwed, funny.
It was way too late to hold his breath.
By the time Kyle regained a sense of self, he'd lost a chunk of time to blurred images and vague ideas; not much unlike him passing out on the couch with the TV running, waking (barely) to catch scenes and glimpses, but losing all context in-between.
"Move," said Dennis. A hard point thumped between Kyle's shoulder blades.
A gun (likely). Or a dildo (unlikely, but he'd go with that, get used to it).
They'd stuck a black bag over Kyle's head. A heavy bag. With fabric so thick, he could see more light when he squeezed his eyes shut.
His ankles were shackled. Chained. He heard the clink of metal as he lurched into a shuffling walk.
A second jingle trailed him. Quieter. Timid.
"Fi," Kyle mumbled, damn well aware how he was the sorriest broken record you could chuck on a turntable right now, but not giving a single fuck about it.
Oh. And his hands were cuffed in front of him. And chained to his ankles.
The cuffs were painfully tight.
Kyle made it a few awkward steps (he couldn't even count how many, what with how his thoughts were still shitfaced on the floor), when a cold, rubber-gloved hand slipped into the crook of his elbow, stopping him.
"One moment," Carina said.
"What're you giving him?" That was Dennis. With his dildo still grinding against Kyle's spine.
"Antizin." A needle pricked Kyle's skin. Sharp and quick. "You don't want him to shake off the sedatives during transport, do you?"
"Yeah okay, whatever doc."
Kyle took a ragged breath. "Where you taking us?" he tried to ask, though he wasn't convinced he got the words out right. Not that it mattered. No one answered.
Dennis shoved. Kyle trudged on.
The lab's access door opened.
He kept walking.
Somewhere behind him (closer to Fi, to Fi, to Fi), he could hear Fraser, though most of what the jackass said would have flown right over Kyle's head on even his best of days. What he could make out were the simple bits; the parts about projects moving forward quickly. About Windfall being a perfect match for Waltz's research.
And— suddenly, without any foreplay —Kyle's previously shitfaced thoughts sobered up. Seriously. It was a) a bit freaky and b) revealing. Not literally, of course, since Kyle still had that stupid sack over his head, but it finally had him understand what was happening.
One, they were being moved. Not just moved to another room for more torture, moved. But properly relocated. Carina had confirmed as much.
Two, Carina did not want him drugged and complacent and whatever she'd jabbed him with hadn't been Antizin.
Three, this was their chance.
His chance.
Because even if Kyle didn't know the ins and outs of whatever plan Seb had hatched, it made sense that it'd happen during transport. It was what Kyle'd do. Transport was always the most vulnerable of moments. Ergo, so would Seb.
Did he wish he'd know more? Sure. Of course. But until then, Kyle decided to play along. He kept his head down. Kept his steps clumsy. And he listened.
They reached an elevator. How did Kyle know it was an elevator? Well, their doors coming open had a very distinct rattle. Plus there'd been a faint ding when it'd stopped.
Theo was sent up (or down?) first. His cage rolled into the elevator cabin, the door closed, and—
"Carina, radio us if you need anything," Fraser said behind him. "I'll be giving our guest a tour of the facility. This way."
"Of course," Carina replied, her voice ridiculously steady.
After that, two sets of footsteps moved off to the right, deeper into whatever house of horrors they were in.
A shame, Kyle thought, admitting to a pinch of disappointment. He'd have liked to get loose. Spend a little quality time with Fraser. Reflect on the past for a bit. Violently.
But.
Alas.
Kyle waited, the fury that'd wanted to boil over in his gut reduced to a quiet simmer.
Aaaand then he waited some more; a time he spent weaving back and forth between two exceptionally important questions:
Where exactly behind me is Fi? and Is anyone going to fill me on on the plan or what?
Just, like, a hint, you know?
A tiny one?
A Wait for the signal would do, really, because as things were right now he was quite literally in the dark.
Then again... did it matter? He'd figure it out. All he needed was the right moment — and if that moment didn't present itself on its own, or no one gave him a signal, ever, then he'd make a moment. Will it into being. He'd yank it out of fate's bloody jaws and he'd own it.
Overwhelmed by a sudden sense of purpose, Kyle almost laughed before he remembered he was supposed to be docile, drooling, and drugged. It felt… odd. Yeah. Odd. He'd had his agency relentlessly stripped from him in that shit box, but now? Now he could wrestle it all back.
And all he'd need was one moment.
DING.
The elevator shuddered open. Kyle walked in.
After four steps, Dennis stopped Kyle from bumping into the wall with a hard yank at his arm, turning him around to face the soft jingle of more chains and the shuffle of feet so quiet, Kyle had to strain to hear it.
"Fi?" he tried (once again). "You okay—"
The dildo jabbed at his side. Hard.
"No talking."
Kyle swallowed a growl before it could pop free, driven up his throat by that fury rising to another boil. He'd have loved to choose violence right then; carve that moment he craved out of thin air.
But.
Alas.
Kyle turned down the heat again and waited.
He fumbled for another thought instead. A kinder one.
Dude, that thought went. You're in the same room as her.
For once, there wasn't a wall between them. For once, she stood nearby, close enough to touch if he could only raise his arms. And if he didn't have a sack on his head, Kyle knew he could look at her. Actually, look. Properly look, but since Kyle hadn't learned how to see without his damn eyeballs, that'd have to wait.
Come to think of it, maybe learning that would have been a better time investment than teaching himself to fold paper.
Oh well.
Hindsight. 20/20. Etc.
(Or 0/0 in his case.)
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
Immediately, Kyle was met by the smell of an underground parking lot. He caught a whiff of exhaust. Wet asphalt. Car juices. All scents he'd figured he'd never get to suck down his nose again. Kyle inhaled deeply, tasting what wasn't endlessly recycled air and a hint of (dare he think it) We're going to get out of here.
"Walk." Dennis jabbed him and Kyle took a daring, blind step that made him dizzy. What if there'd been stairs after the elevator, huh? He'd have fallen flat on his handsome nose.
The acoustic had changed drastically, too. What'd been tight hallways opened up to a much wider space, every footfall echoing off into the distance, where it eventually met the steady (but muffled) rush of traffic.
A flat hand smacked into his chest.
Kyle stopped.
And Jesus Christ, did he hate this or what? He ground his teeth together. Flexed his fingers. And realised— with a faint grin peeling his lips back —that there mustn't have been any UV lights in the garage (or the elevator), because where there'd been molasses in his arms and legs earlier, there was now a renewed sense of control.
"We'll take them from here," said whoever the hand belonged to that'd intruded on Kyle's personal space.
The voice sounded familiar.
Kyle furrowed his brow under the sack.
More voices popped up around him. He could even hear the click of a pen, followed by it scratching across paper laid out on a clipboard. Someone was signing for them like they were a bunch of Amazon parcels. How shit was that?
Then Dennis gave him another hard jab and yet another lab goon said: "She goes into Waltz's van. These two are headed straight for X-13."
"Got it."
The words sunk in even as Kyle was manhandled forward; still blind; still tied up; still without a signal or a plan.
They were splitting them up.
They were taking her away.
Not one-wall-between-them away. But. Away.
This wasn't the opportunity he'd been waiting for, nor was it the moment he figured he'd create for himself. This? This was about the worst possible second to be set on fire from the inside out and to lunge for the man vaguely in front of him. But Kyle did it anyway, with his hands tied, his ankles chained together, and his head stuck up a fucking sack.
Kyle rushed forward.
Did he make it far?
No. Of course not. He managed absolutely nothing of consequence, except to have his neck locked in a firm grip.
"Easy, asshole," whispered the familiar voice from before. "We've got her."
Ohwhatthefuck.
. . .
Damien.
Damien.
Stupid baseball caps Damien. Sexy AWM 338 Damien. Real good shot Damien. That fucking Damien. Harran Damien. Matt Taylor's Damien.
"Now head butt me," Damien added, his voice still low and right by Kyle's ear.
And Kyle? Well, Kyle obliged. Months upon months after he'd first wanted to find out whose skull was thicker, Kyle snapped his head forward, resulting in a thump, a flash of colour behind his eyelids, and a whole lot of noise erupting around him.
Damien tossed Kyle into another box, shackled him to an uncomfortable bench, and slammed a door. Or that was what Kyle assumed, anyway. Still blind, remember?
Even so, Kyle tried to figure out his surroundings. First (educated) guess: He was in a van. Second guess: The van came with UV light fixtures, what with how his skin had gone back to tightening up from an overdue sunburn.
The van's engine came on. A second after that, a fist rapped a wall somewhere. The van began to move.
Kyle tilted his head.
They rolled over a bump. Hit a ramp. Went up, then left, where the muted rumble of traffic surrounded them, kept mostly at bay by solid soundproofing.
Kyle raised his arms. His chain clinked, then snagged. He pulled left, then right, until he could hear someone rise to their feet and thump up to him.
His heart thumped harder.
His fingers clenched into tight fists.
And then there was light.
"You really put a lot of feeling into that back there, didn't you," Damien said as he tore the sack from Kyle's head, leaving Kyle to squint against a sudden surplus of bright.
The light stung and so it took a while before Kyle could focus on the blurred face swimming in front of him; and before he could appreciate the familiarity of it and come to terms that the first face he saw after he'd got busted out wasn't Fi's. Or even Seb's.
No. Of course not. That'd have been too perfect. Instead, the first mug he got to stare at (and feel the overwhelming urge to kiss in a total bro kinda way) had to be Damien's.
"You asked," Kyle said. "I delivered."
Damien grew a toothy grin.
The man hadn't changed. He still bore that very same scruff he'd carried into Harran, with an ill-mannered beard, deep lines around his eyes, and solid white streaks in his otherwise dark blond hair. But he did wear a GRE uniform, which, even if fake, made Kyle want to bristle.
Least until Damien got down on a knee and popped the locks open which kept Kyle anchored to the bench. The cuffs went next, tumbling to the ground with a loud and final clatter. Kyle, taken by a sudden desire to play an active part in this whole busting him out saga, kicked the damn things with the side of his foot. They slid away.
"Where's Fi?"
"With your buddy. Hayn." Damien rose. "He said you'd be less likely to lose your shit if you know he has her."
Kyle exhaled. Slowly. He also took a moment to rub at his wrists, massaging out the now-gone cuff's phantom pressure. "He— yeah— okay. He wasn't wrong."
And then Kyle just… sat there. For a while (and he had absolutely no idea how long, because something back at that stupid ass box had fucked with his ability to group seconds into meaningful chunks), Kyle felt himself deflate as he wrestled for something consequential to say. Or to do.
My dude. Your moment is here. Get off your ass.
But his ass remained firmly planted. And nothing of value made it up his throat. Christ, it took Theo to say the words.
"Thank you," Theo rasped from the front of the van, where his cage had been neatly clamped in place. He'd abandoned the middle of the cage and had slid his long, thin fingers through the bars. They grasped the metal with a light, gentle grip. And from behind his knobby knuckles and claws, Theo looked at Damien and Kyle with large, doleful Volakid eyes. "Thank you," he repeated.
It didn't matter how long Theo had practised getting his voice box and cleft jaw to cooperate; his speech still carried an unmistakable not-human-any-more charm. A charm which Kyle had gotten used to during their time together in the lab. And one he anticipated to be lost on Damien.
But Damien shrugged. He didn't look startled. He didn't go What the hell, you talk?! Nope. All Damien did was bounce his shoulders and follow up with a dead-pan: "Least one of you two has manners."
. . .
"Hey. I'm still trying to wrap my head around getting busted out of that torture box without any— you know— explosions? Maybe a bit of gunfire? A side of rappelling action? I feel cheated."
"Boss lady wouldn't allow it," was Damien's excuse.
A window slid open. One of those small, square ones that'd offer a peek into the van's front cabin.
Carina peered at them from beyond it. "I couldn't let your friends risk an outright assault on the facility," she said. And was it weird seeing her without glass between them? Yeah. But Kyle adjusted. "It could have damaged containment in any number of the other labs." She stuck her arm through the window with a quiet grunt and held out a peg.
Well. No, not a peg. It was a key. A newfangled gizmo the GRE had replaced their old keycards with while he'd sat around in his box, watching them swap out all of the lab's main locking mechanisms. Including the ones on Theo's cage — and collar.
Kyle got up; right as Damien made to grab the key.
Kyle threw him a glance — and Damien sat down, gracing Kyle with the opportunity to do something.
"You three weren't Fraser's only project," Carina added as Kyle grabbed for the key. "He's been pulling Infected out of Harran for months now, you just happened to be the only ones unlikely to have us for lunch."
Kyle settled for a non-committal grunt in reply, refusing to think about what she'd said; about the part where they were an exception; about being allowed an escape while others weren't anywhere near as lucky. That very thought had haunted him on the regular since Carina had hinted at a breakout attempt. And much like all the times before, Kyle grabbed it by the throat and deposited it back into the box it'd busted out of.
The one labelled Reconsider later.
"Thanks," he said, awkwardly standing there with them trading a double-awkward look. "For the rescue. I mean it. But I'd be feeling a lot better if Fi was here. And if you could turn off those lights." Kyle indicated Theo with a wag of the key. "They're burning him up."
As if to confirm just that, Theo slid back into the middle of the cage to huddle there like a sad, lonely barnacle. A barnacle that could rip your face off, sure. But a barnacle regardless.
"You sure?" Carina asked. "The lights are keeping him—"
"Positive," Kyle cut in before she could say anything that'd make him dislike her. Because he wanted to like that woman. Honest to God, he did. She might not have stopped Fraser and his dipshit squad from carrying out their Evil Science routine, but she'd been gentle whenever they'd let her play.
The UV bulbs winked out. Theo let out a long, rattling breath. Relief.
And the van took a sharp right, nearly causing Kyle to lose his footing. Nearly. Not actually. Still, he played the awkward stumble off by grabbing the cage and getting right onto the hunt for a weird keyhole to match the equally weird key.
"So. About Fi," he said and shoved the square peg into its square hole.
"Sebastian is her driver," Carina confirmed. "He'll meet us at our first stop. Then we swap cars and leave the country."
The key beeped. So did the cage, and the small display on the key lit up green. An arrow pointed left. Kyle twisted the key that way.
CLACK
"Can we drive a little faster?"
While Kyle encouraged traffic violations, Theo remained barnacled. All the way up until Kyle opened the cage and waved for him with a wag of his fingers, which got the Volakid to scoot towards the cage door, his legs still folded under him and his long arms doing all the, well, scooting.
Around them, the van slowed and swung left. Then right. The already muted noise of traffic quieted some more.
"Shit, that thing must weigh a ton," Kyle said after he'd gotten down on his haunches and begun probing for yet another keyhole, his fingers tracing the massive collar hung around Theo's neck. The thing had chafed even Theo's skin raw, leaving behind swathes of gnarly tissue where it'd grown back harder with every scratch. "How you doing under there, buddy?"
Theo's eyes came up. Met his. And that, that right there? Those weepy, green eyes? They were what made the kid a, well, kid.
They were why Kyle didn't need Carina doubting whether or not the UV lights should come off. Yeah, sure, there was also that part where Theo had (clumsily) told Kyle all about how he'd learned to play Dungeons and Dragons cooped up on the Tower's 15th floor while munching meatballs out of cans. With Collin. And Rahim, but, details. We were focusing on Theo's eyes right now; the ones Kyle remembered from before, back when there'd been nothing in them but unchecked cunning. When human would have been the last label you'd have slapped on Theo.
They were different now, his eyes. Now, months later, those eyes may have still been framed by a face made from nightmares, but they were very much human. And very, very—
"Scared," Theo said. "I'm scared."
Yeah.
Exactly that.
After he'd freed Theo of the shock collar, Kyle found himself once again adrift and faced with entirely too little to do. Which meant it was twenty(thousand) questions time, all fired off at Damien in rapid succession.
Damien kept up. What a champ.
Yes, they'd managed to set up an underground railroad kinda deal, smuggling a good portion of the Tower's people out of Harran before the GRE and Ministry could plug it back up.
Yes, Russel had survived getting shot in the gut.
Yes, Rahim, Collin, Brecken, Lena, Meghan, Karim… they were all alive. And they'd all chipped in, which meant Kyle'd be paying off approximately ten lifetimes worth of dept.
No. No one knew where Fraser had been about to ship them, save for the mention of an X13. The vans hadn't ever been meant to take them all the way, but were expected to turn up outside the city ("Where are we?" "Geneva."), where they'd have loaded their cargo onto helicopters.
Yes, once those crews figured out the vans weren't going to show, shit'd hit the fan.
Kyle ran out of time before he ran out of questions.
The van stopped.
The engine gave one last clunk.
Across from Kyle, Damien competed in the manspreading Olympics, with his knees wide apart, his arms lazily splayed out, and a shaggy grin bunched up into his beard.
What? Kyle nearly asked, when the van doors suddenly unlocked and realized what. Instantly, all that drive from earlier, that must move, must act, made way for a ball of nervous energy scampering down Kyle's throat so it could nest right under his heart.
His teeth clicked shut. His right leg started bouncing. Neither of which he particularly gave his body permission to do, but where else was all that terrified nervous energy supposed to go?
Up front, the doors opened. Carina and the driver (who went by Adi as Kyle had learned during the too-long drive) climbed out, where they were immediately greeted by hushed voices. And Kyle. Stayed. Where. He. Was.
Every fibre of him wanted to get up and yet here he was, with his heart drumming up a frantic solo and his clams all palmy.
. . .
Palms.
His palms. The insides of hands. They were damp.
"Watcha waiting for?" Damien asked. "Go fetch your girl. I'll stay with the shortcake."
Kyle rose. It was a mechanical motion, rather than a conscious one, and, for a moment, his stomach stayed glued to the bench, only snapping back where it was supposed to be once he'd pushed the door open and hopped down onto a patch of gravel. They were outside, under a wide open sky heavy with thick, grey clouds. A stocky farmhouse stood on his left, its facade half white plaster, half old wood. Another stood on the right. The air smelled of dung. A cow mooed. Then, bang, a bright blue door between bushels of decorative flowers flew open. Two people shoved out. They got into each other's way.
Collin.
Rahim.
They jogged across the gravel.
Kyle forgot about them the moment he'd seen them. He turned left instead. To the second van. Its back was still closed, but some tall asshole with long, neatly braided blond hair was about to open it up.
Kyle walked up to him.
The asshole turned around.
They hugged.
No 'Sup, Seb.
No Hey, Kyle.
Nothing but the thump of two chests colliding and a quick, desperate squeeze.
By the time Seb let go (or Kyle did, he couldn't really tell), Kyle's head buzzed and he could barely breathe. Not because Seb had crushed his lungs, but because Kyle had found himself to be the proud owner of exactly one (1) brain cell. And that one (1) brain cell really only wanted to do one (1) thing, and telling his lungs to suck in air had apparently not made the list.
It wanted to throw the back of the van open instead.
To climb inside.
To trip (apparently).
To, yeah, breathe at some point because he was getting light-headed and to find a lonely, ramrod straight stick sitting on the left, with nothing for company but the sack over her head.
Kyle thumped to his knees in front of her. The noise startled her. Had her shy back, and Kyle wanted to say Hey, guess who, but couldn't open his mouth. He worried if he did, the pressure building against the back of his throat was going to come up a miserable croak and that was not what he wanted her to hear.
So he snatched up her hands, fumbled with the keys until the cuffs were off, then fumbled some more to loosen the ones on her ankles and, finally, finally (and carefully) inched the sack from her head.
Even before he'd started folding the fabric up over his knuckles, one careful tug after the other, he noticed the tips of long, mouse-brown locks poke out underneath.
She'd grown her hair out.
Kyle's singular brain cell gave a miserable whimper.
The Fi he found underneath the ugly black sack had a mop of long, mussy hair; and, Ow, two very clingy and very strong arms that wrapped around his neck and wouldn't let go.
Not that he wanted them to.
Not ever again.
Kyle clung to her much as she did to him, with a hand squeezing the back of her neck, his nose buried in her hair, and his chest heaving between ugly, but unashamed, sobs.