A/N: My thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this along the way, especially thesecret21 and KaKaVegeGurl. Your comments are much appreciated and encourage me to write more. The third instalment of the series, Blame It On My Youth, is about a third of the way through at present. I will be posting it on here, glitches permitting, from tomorrow onwards, chapter by chapter.
Thanks again to everyone reading. I hope you stick with the series. Here's the final chapter of How Sweet It Is.
Chapter 21
The interior of the mall looked as though a bomb had hit it. If it hadn't been for the fact that the ceiling, walls, stairway and fountain were still intact, Jack would have thought that was exactly what had happened. Chairs and tables had been flung down from the cafe at the top of the stairs and clothes, bed linen, books and other personal items had been cast uncaringly out of the bedrooms.
The group stood in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity, Lex kneeling by the fallen body of KC and scanning the room for any sign of the others. Jay was the first to break the silence.
"Amber," he muttered before raising his voice to shout: "Amber! Amber, where are you?"
The others also began calling for their comrades: Jack for Ebony; Alice for Ellie and Luke; Pride for the younger children; and Lex for Ryan, Salene, Trudy and Brady. Morgaine looked about her, checking the area, before moving KC's body into the mall and closing the grill.
The first clue came with the sound of a young child arguing in hushed tones. Pride followed the sound to its source and found Mouse and Sammy huddled in a corner, Sammy trying to get Mouse to stay quiet.
"I told him it was you!" Mouse exclaimed, proudly, when she saw Pride's face.
"It might not have been!" Sammy retorted, releasing his hold on the young girl and squaring up for another debate.
"Mouse, Sammy," Pride held up his hands to try and calm them. "What happened here?"
The distraction achieved its aim and, at once, both children quietened. Mouse hid her face in her knees and Sammy looked at his feet.
"Sammy?" Pride insisted. "I won't be angry. I just need to know what happened. Where is everyone?"
"I'm not sure," the boy replied, stifling sobs. "Everything happened so quickly. Gel told us to hide in here. Amber and Trudy took Ebony and the babies away somewhere upstairs. There was lots of fighting - I could hear it - and then there were these weird noises and then everything went quiet."
Pride looked round to Jack, Jay and Alice who had congregated behind him.
"Check upstairs," he told them. "There's a secret panel in Amber's room. They'll have gone there. It's behind where the wardrobe usually stands."
Jack hurried off up the stairs, Hope in his arms, but Jay lingered, frowning at Pride suspiciously.
"How do you..." the ex-Techno began.
"Not now, Jay," Alice cut in, turning him around and pushing him in the direction of the stairs. "Let's go and find Amber and the others first."
As the two followed Jack up the stairs, Pride stood up and turned to face Morgaine, who was walking towards him looking even sterner than usual.
"Lex is down by the sewer entrance," she said, quietly. "You should go to him. There is something you need to see. I will stay with the children."
Pride nodded and headed off to the sewers. When he reached the entrance, he saw Lex huddled over a crumpled form. Hearing the Gaian approach, the sheriff passed a hand over his eyes and stood up. Pride retched when he saw the headless corpse lying beside the sewer entrance. Lex stood, silently, waiting for him to regain control of his senses.
"Who?" Pride asked, turning to face Lex.
"Paul," Lex replied, his voice shaking slightly; even in the dull light around them, Pride could see the pallor of Lex's face increase as he spoke, whether with rage, grief or horror he could not tell.
"We'll move him to the basement," Pride decided after a moment's silence. "It's colder there and the kids are less likely to find him. Then we'll bring KC down too."
"Yeah," Lex replied, tersely.
Working with grim concentration, the two men moved the body of their fallen friend the short distance into the basement. Lex remained silent and stone-faced as they covered the body with an old sheet then proceeded up the stairs to collect KC's body and ferry it down to their makeshift morgue.
"Did you find anyone else?" Pride asked as they returned to the phoenix fountain.
"No," Lex answered, his words clipped and controlled, shaking his head. "No, no more of ours and none of theirs. I didn't even see any blood anywhere but..."
"Me neither," Pride cut in as Lex's voice trailed off.
As the two men reached the cafe, where Jay, Amber and Alice sat with Mouse, Sammy, Brady, Hope and baby Bray waited in morose silence, they heard a cry of anguish arise from the direction of Amber's room.
"Ebony!" Lex cried, starting to run toward the cries.
"No!" Pride's hand caught Lex and jerked him back. "If there is nothing these others can do, then there is nothing you can do. Jack, Morgaine and Trudy are with her. I will go and see if they need anything more."
"But..."
"Think, Lex: we've established that the enemy, whoever they may be, have gone and that they didn't find the girls or children. If they didn't cause Ebony any physical harm, what do you suppose is causing her the pain she is in now?"
Lex's face fell.
"The baby..." he whispered.
"Exactly," Pride said, gently. "Now, please, wait with everyone else. Try and find out what happened. I'll come back as soon as I have any news."
Lex nodded and went to sit down in the cafe opposite where Jay cradled a tearful Amber on his lap. Alice, encumbered with both Hope and Bray, passed Bray over to Lex to look after. Lex looked at Amber, crying into Jay's shoulder as he stroked her long blonde ringlets, and decided that the questions could wait for now. After half an hour of relative silence, Pride and Trudy returned to the room. Trudy, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, sat down heavily in the chair Lex had vacated for her and held out her arms to her daughter, picking her up and hugging her tightly. Everyone looked at Pride.
"We've managed to stop the bleeding," he explained. "Ebony should be okay, physically anyway, once she's had time enough to recover and as long as there is no infection."
"And the baby?" Lex asked, watching Pride's face intently.
Words were unnecessary. The Gaian merely shook his head sadly and let his eyes fall to the floor. Amber's head buried itself even further into Jay's shoulder and her body shook with tears. Jay kissed her forehead and lifted her up in his arms.
"Come on," he said. "You need to get some rest. We'll go to my room."
As Jay carried his pregnant girlfriend out of the room, Pride took the seat opposite Trudy, where Lex had sat before. Although deeply upset, Trudy looked up and met his expectant gaze.
"What happened?" Pride asked, simply. "We need to know."
"I-I know," Trudy replied, shakily, glancing down at her daughter, who had now fallen asleep in her lap. "It's just... I don't know, it all happened so fast! One minute everything was fine, the next they were everywhere. They came from everywhere! They must have got the grill open somehow. Ryan told me to get Amber and Ebony and the children away, but we couldn't get out so we hid. We couldn't see Sammy or Mouse anywhere so we had to assume they were already hiding and we shut ourselves in the hidden closet in Amber's room, but Ebony... she was panicking. I've never seen her so scared. She was forcing herself to stay calm in the closet, but she was so scared she was shaking. Then there were noises from downstairs, where the fighting was. Strange noises, like laser fire. Then it was quiet. That's when she really started to panic. Then the pain set in and she cried out and you couldn't see it, but you could smell the blood and you knew, you just knew what was happening and there was nothing we could do... There was nothing we could do."
By now the tears were streaming down Trudy's face. Mouse and Sammy were whispering in a distant corner of the cafe, aware that the adults of this world were talking of things they didn't want to hear. Hope, Bray and Brady slept on, mercifully oblivious to the thick, heavy fog of grief surrounding them. As Trudy's tears began to die away again, Morgaine joined them.
"I have made Ebony as comfortable as I can," she said, leaning back against the wall. "Jack is with her. I thought they needed some time alone."
Pride nodded his head.
"There isn't much more we can do tonight," he sighed. "We are all tired. The immediate danger to the mall has passed and we need some time to decide what to do next. I suggest we all try and get some sleep. Lex and I have already secured the sewer and main entrances. They must have been open before. No-one had tampered with them."
"No," Trudy shook her head. "That can't be. We left Luke locking them up after you all left to get Hope. They must have found a way of opening them from the outside."
"Trudy, there is no way of opening the sewers entrance from the outside," Lex said, sternly. "There is a way to open the grill, but only a few of us know about that, but there is absolutely no way you can open the sewers entrance from the outside, if it is locked."
"But Luke said he'd locked up," Trudy frowned, then shrugged. "Maybe he forgot about it."
Lex looked over at Pride, Alice and Morgaine. They met his gaze with looks that confirmed his own worst fears: maybe he didn't forget; maybe he had deliberately left the two gates open. If they were right, then they had had a traitor in their midst. But Lex himself had looked back and seen Luke lock the grill. So then he could have told them about the secret latch. But how did he know? It seemed that everyone's mind was now on the same track, especially Alice's.
"Ellie," she said. "She must have found out from Jack when he installed the latch, then told Luke."
"She might not have known how he would use the information, Alice," Pride said, soothingly.
"Maybe not," Alice replied. "But her being my sister doesn't mean we can rule out the possibility that she did."
****
Ryan's vision swam into focus. Dazedly, he gazed around the small, dimly lit room, tallying up who was there and who was not. Moonlight glinted off of Ellie's blonde hair, her head resting on Luke's shoulder. In another corner, Gel lay unconscious while Salene rocked back and forth.
"Sal," Ryan called, gently. "Sal, are you okay?"
Salene kept rocking and staring straight ahead. Ryan, thinking that she hadn't heard him, was about to speak again when they door suddenly opened. Bright light flooded the room, blinding Ryan so that he couldn't see who had entered the room. He heard the heavy footsteps and felt himself be dragged to his feet, but couldn't see if he was the only one. As he was marched away up a corridor, he could hear the many sounds of feet marching along behind him suggesting that at least some, if not all, of his companions were accompanying him.
The bright light of the blinding corridors died away suddenly as they emerged into a much darker, firelit room. The smell of the fire hung heavily in the room and, off to one side, Ryan saw a raised platform, like a dais. They were marched before the dais and Ryan felt himself be pushed roughly to his knees. Looking up, he saw the shadowy form of a large, throne-like chair. It was occupied.
Torchbearers walked round the small group, stepping up onto the dais and positioning themselves on either side of the throne. Ryan flinched back as their torches suddenly flared into life, illuminating the face of the throne's occupant. It was a face Ryan did not recognise, but beside him he heard a gasp.
"You!" Ellie cried out from Ryan's left side. "I thought we'd got rid of you!"
"Why, Ellie," Mega drawled. "Didn't you know I was back? And there was me thinking you and Luke shared everything."
"Luke?" Ellie replied, confused. "What?"
Ryan glanced to his side to see Ellie look wildly about her. Her gaze settled on a familiar figure standing just behind her and to her left.
"Luke," she said, addressing the figure. "What's going on?"
"I would have thought that was obvious, Ellie," Mega sighed, impatiently, as he signalled for Luke to join him on the dais. "Luke is on my side now. Well, I say my side. His loyalty lies with my Queen, mainly."
"Your queen?" Ellie spat. "I might have know Java would have a hand in this!"
"So hasty," Mega tutted. "Do you really think I would let Java deal with something as important as this: the destruction of the Mallrats? Java is a bumbler. She was always good at manipulation and... certain other things, but when it came to planning something on such a grand scale as this, it took someone who knew exactly how each and every one of you would react. Someone much closer to home."
Mega held out his left hand and a figure stepped forward from Ryan's far right. Even before she reached the glow of the torches, Ryan knew her and felt his heart break all over again, the same way it had all those years ago when she had betrayed their tribe and tried to make him betray them too; when she had joined the Chosen. It was Salene.
****
Pride stared at the ceiling in his jungle-themed room. Changes were happening: he could sense them like changes in the seasons. This was a change that would affect them all. The question running though his mind though, was: is it the beginning of the end, or just the end of the beginning?
~Fini~