Chapter 8
Caiden took a taxi home; it didn't take long, only twenty minutes or so. When he reached the house, he noticed the door was open, no sign of forced entry, strange he thought. Instinctively, he set his hand alight and held it out in front of him. He noticed a long black coat hung neatly up on a hook, ok, the burglar obviously didn't think he would be returning soon.
They were still inside, but Caiden could not see, nor hear any sign of them other than the coat. All but one of the doors were shut, the door to the living room. Caiden crept forward slowly and silently towards the half opened door, his closed fist held out in front of him, ready for an attack.
He reached the open door, in front of him was the living room, a simple room with two sofas in an L shape taking up the majority of the room, both facing a large flat screen TV. Without making a sound, Caiden stepped through the door, into the room.
Before he could look around, a hand grabbed his shoulder, by instinct, he twisted his body, swinging his flaming fist round going for the intruder's head. The intruders other hand grabbed his wrist and the flame sputtered out. He was about to bring his knee up to the intruders chest when he recognised him.
"Ryker." Caiden said. "How nice to see, I'm glad you made yourself at home."
"Yeah, well you weren't here and I'd come all the way down to meet you, so it wasn't as if I was going to go back home."
"Fair enough."
They stood awkwardly for a minute until Ryker decided to ask:
"Where's your brother?"
"Oh, he's… around, at a hospital."
"You finally snapped huh?"
"What? No, we were fetching something for someone, there was an explosion and…" Caiden started explaining. "Oh, crap!"
"What?" Ryker asked.
"We didn't retrieve it; it must have been destroyed in the fire. Crap! How are we meant to get the information from Rysk without it?" Caiden ranted to himself.
"Wait, slow down." Ryker said. "Is that Navaryous Rysk, how are you involved with him? Don't tell me he's also in this 'team'!"
"What, Rysk no, of course not. You know what; I might as well tell you everything that happened after we left yours." Caiden said and he explained everything right up to the hospital.
"So the problem now is that we have nothing to trade to Rysk for the information we need." Ryker concluded.
"Basically, yes…" Suddenly Caiden's brain clicked, he remembered what his brother had said earlier. "He's a genius." Caiden said quietly.
"Who's a genius? What?"
"My brother, he has the solution."
"What do you mean, what's the solution?"
"Jeremy."
Frankly, Emerson was fed up. He'd been knocked into a spiky bush, beaten up more times than he could remember, stabbed by a piece of shrapnel bigger than his hand and then punched in the face by his own brother for not being dead. All in all, nothing to give him a great confidence boost.
The nurse said he needed to stay in bed for at least another hour and so, to pass the time, he watched the TV in his room with Amya. There wasn't much on, so they watched the greatest show on earth, SpongeBob Squarepants. After one of the most intense and thrilling hours of his life, Emerson was free to leave. As the closing credits rolled in, his brother stormed into the room with Emerson's least favourite bush pusher.
"Is that SpongeBob Squarepants?" Caiden asked mocking excitement.
"It was yes, you just missed it." Emerson said sadly.
"Damn!" Caiden said faking annoyance. "Anyway, Emerson, we need to call Jeremy."
"Couldn't you have done that without having to come back down here?" Emerson suggested and Caiden frowned.
"Uh…" he said awkwardly.
"Uh indeed." Ryker said. "You dragged me out here saying it was imperative that you speak to your brother and when I asked to stay at your house, you said, 'NO!' I must come with you."
"Uh?" Caiden repeated hopefully.
"Well that's responsive." Ryker said sarcastically.
"Yeah, he does that." Emerson explained and Ryker just shook his head.
Caiden glared and his brother but quickly recovered himself.
"Emerson, we need to go to Rysk Industries with Jeremy and get him that job, in return he'll hopefully give us the information."
"Oh, so you figured out my idea then?" Emerson guessed.
"Uhuh, and for once, it could actually work." Caiden said genuinely surprised and Emerson looked indignant.
"I come up with brilliant ideas." He insisted and Caiden looked at him. "I do."
"No you really don't."
Emerson's face fell. "No, I don't." he said miserably.
"Anyway, you've gotta call Jeremy, he's got my phone so I can't exactly call him."
"Yeah, sure, but I don't actually have it… with me…" Emerson said awkwardly.
"I'm sorry?" Caiden asked disbelievingly.
"I left it at home, didn't think I'd need it, also it's a new phone and I figured we'd probably get into some sticky situations."
"So you're saying you left your phone at home, where I literally just came from?"
Emerson thought for a moment. "Yeah, pretty much." He agreed and Caiden's face fell.
He turned to Ryker. "It seems we're going back to our place…" he said awkwardly and Ryker grumbled to himself.
"If I'd known we were going to be wandering back and forth all the time, I wouldn't have signed up for this." Emerson just grinned at him and ripped off his hospital own to reveal his suit beneath and led the way out.
"Was he wearing that the entire time?" Caiden asked Amya.
"Not when the doctors were checking for internal bleeding and stuff, but as soon as that was done, he rushed to put it on."
"Wow, he really is different isn't he?" Caiden asked rhetorically, shaking his head as he followed his brother with Amya and Ryker right behind.
All four of them were piled into Amya's car with Amya driving and Caiden in the passenger's seat, which left Emerson to sit in the back with Ryker. The worst thing was, for once, Caiden wasn't failing at his small talk skills and was happily chatting away with Amya in the front.
This left Emerson and Ryker sitting awkwardly in the back. Amya's car was a Ford Fiesta, not very fast, not very impressive, but the worst thing was it wasn't very big. Ryker's large frame took up his own seat and almost the entire middle seat, so Emerson didn't exactly have much space to move around.
"So, Shadow Mastery…" Emerson tried and Ryker grumbled. "What's it… like?"
Ryker just rolled his eyes and turned his head to stare out the window. Emerson waited for an answer for a while, figuring he must be thinking, and then realised none was to come, so he too turned to look out his window, muttering to himself.
The small car pulled up to the Tate's house, into their drive and the four got out. Caiden led the way to the door, put the key in the lock and swung the door open; he started in, but stopped suddenly and held up his hand for the others to do the same. Caiden strained himself to listen; there it was again, a kind of slurping sound, coming from the kitchen.
Caiden started forward slowly and silently, instinctively setting his fist alight. He crept towards the kitchen, the others following suit, "It's like déjà vu." He muttered to himself. As they got closer to the kitchen, the sound got louder and clearer, it sounded like someone drinking.
Caiden put his hand on the door knob, twisting slowly. He flung the kitchen door open to reveal a young man of about Emerson's age with short, black hair that was swept to one side and a black leather jacket that seemed to fit on him perfectly, who was sitting at their kitchen table drinking tea, he didn't seem at all surprised to see them.
"Hello Caiden Tate." He said. "I believe you've been looking for me."
A/N: Well that came out of nowhere, I hope… This new guy's quite fun, as you can imagine, him and Emerson hit it off, literally. I'm sorry for such a short chapter, I kind of felt I had to end it there. Thanks so much for reading, continue if you want. Please review, I'll send you an invisible dead tortoise if you do. Thanks so much.
Mangobean.
