Chapter 4_Man! Fate is a bitch sometimes…
Kayla's POV
Six months ago...
*I was running, running, running through the forest, slaloming between trees... Jumping the fence aboard the road, I run even faster if that's possible: I'm just a blur, I feel like Superman when high in the sky, flying... Faster, further, stronger, my mind swirling with the only thought of Bri waiting for me under the porch, surveying the street for my return...
And, I'm also thinking about the others, probably doing just like me: we had this plan for too long for it to not work but there's always this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that one of them (couldn't be more than one to fail) would be caught and... God! Please, don't let someone be caught again in their trap!
While running I assure myself that little Lily is still secure on my back. She is. Good. I catch her hand and kiss it to let her know that everything will be alright. She nuzzles my neck and kisses it to let me know she understood. God, I so totally love her... It's like she's one of my own: my little sister-NO- my daughter!
Poor girl is only four and she's probably the youngest to ever have been there; I'm glad for the first time to have been kidnapped and to have stayed so long because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to protect and take her with me now...
But I'm also so sad because to get her, they had to kill her parents! In front of her! You know, she's probably one I could easily take a bullet for... Same for Brian... Now, I will look after her until she doesn't need me anymore.
Approaching a city (yeah, I run that fast even with someone on my back, you should have seen my trainings...) I slow down a bit, so I can scan the surroundings to be sure we weren't followed and I didn't noticed, but that's unlikely because I can feel eyes on me from miles away so...
Like I said, unlikely. And I'm right because after last quick scan, I don't see anything that could be unsafe for us. I put Lily down and take her hand, while beginning to walk slowly to the city, already forming a plan.
To-do list:
-Take on the surroundings once in the city
-Locate important places (hospital, police headquarters…)
-Make money (and fast)
-Feed Lily
-Find a place to stay the night (maybe several days)
-Make contacts with the good (or bad, it depends on the point of view) persons
-Find Brian and return home...
Not necessarily in this order.*
Today...
My mind is blank as I look around the place I just rented. Interesting. The apartment is quite luxurious and Lily has her own bedroom and all, even if I know that she won't sleep in it because she would be tucked under my arm like always... Again, nothing sexual, I'm not a pedophile, thank you very much!
She just has nightmares that wake her up at every times of the night when she is alone but she told me that, with me, she feels so secure she didn't have one in a long time. So I let her because, sincerely, she could ask me to jump off the roof I would gladly do it within seconds... Everything to keep her happy!
As I run the to-do list I made six months ago in my mind (again), I'm proud to say that all the goals I had fix then are achieved. Well, almost... I still have to go see Brian but I don't remember my own address! It doesn't matter because as I recall the events of my kidnapping in my head, I remember that, this day, Brian was moving out of the house. WE were moving out. So, I'll just have to pull on one of my strings or two in this world and I'll have whatever information I want within hours.
But, I have the feeling that it won't be necessary as I take Lily's hand, lock the door, and lead her toward a friendly dinner in Liberty Avenue I saw earlier during our moving in...
Brian's POV
My back is to the door and I look around me for potential tricks. The guys are (again!) chatting about their latest conquest and my mind goes back to the funeral I'm organizing for Kayla... It won't be anytime soon but I want specific things that would be difficult to find at the last minute so I'm making arrangements to have them as soon as I want. After a few seconds of roaming and depressive thoughts, I ask Debbie for my check.
That's when I felt it. A tingling sensation, running up and down my spine. I hear Debbie yelling that she will be coming in a minute after the bell ring above the door. I decide to stay a few minutes more, because, after all, it's Saturday morning and I don't have to be anywhere anytime soon...
I hear a soft almost non-existent voice saying 'Can I take pancakes with syrup?' and then nothing, but the small voice, belonging to an even smaller girl, I see as I turn around, is saying 'Thank you' and I don't know if I didn't hear it or if the teenage girl she is with really didn't say anything.
The little one is apparently very shy because she doesn't look to anyone except the brunette beauty beside her. And did I just thought 'brunette beauty' about a fucking girl? Shit! I'm turning into a fucking lesbian now! I knew I shouldn't spend so much time in the Munchers' house, no matter how much I want to see Gus!
These thoughts are interrupted by Michael saying that visibly I had turn straight since I am looking at this girl for almost 10minutes now. And does the time have to pass so quickly too? Fuck! As soon as the words leave Michael's mouth I turn around to tell him to fuck off, missing the look of the brunette at the counter...
Kayla's POV
A beautiful tenor caught my attention as I was munching on an apple slice. As I turn around the man I suppose the voice belong to turn himself toward his friends. Lily is happily digging in her breakfast (pancakes with tons of syrup) and I find myself wondering how she could eat something so damn big and consistent for a girl her height and weight…
I feel like a freak in comparison, with the goddamn diet I always had and will probably always have (established at our arrival in The Camp, I never once transgressed or refused to eat it because it was the only thing we had to eat –twice a day- and we needed the vitamins it brought –we all had our specific diet, and none were the same as the other- with the trainings we had). Habits die hard… And mine was truly something difficult to change!
A voice beside me brings me back to the present where a man is currently trying to scare me with his hateful speech…
"…it's obvious you're not a fag! What the fuck are you doing here? No, seriously and with a fucking kid at that! What the fuck do you want? Show us what a proper catholic family is? Show us how we should be in order not to burn in hell? Hahahahahahahahaha! Come on; get the fuck out of here!"
Visibly he is drunk and new here because everyone is looking at us confused and with a certain disgust -for him or me I don't know…- but still, the man is rambling about how we, hetero, should remain in our own world and not infected them with our lifestyle of fucking 'mnghmnehem' (I didn't understand this one…) and then he puts his hand on Lily's arm as if to dislodge her of her tool and I grab his wrist and tighten my grip really painfully and he drops her arm. I slide from my tool and twist his arm so to put it behind his back and I push him toward the entry, open the door and push him through it with me in tow. As soon as we're out, I turn him around and he drops to his knees with another twist of my wrist on his. I whisper distinctively in his ear:
"You're ridiculously pathetic! I don't care what you think of me and I suggest you got home and sleep your drunken state off… And if you ever (growl) ever put a hand on my baby girl again, drunk or not I will fucking make you suffer! Do you understand?" Another growl, a nod from his head and I release him, going back in, sitting like nothing happened beside Lily who is rubbing her arm and that's when I see the beginning of a hand-shape bruise.
I growl really low but loudly and, as I get up to go after the bastard, Lily climbs on my lap and kisses my cheek; I settle down very quickly and put my arms around her, tightening my grip slightly as to not let her slide nor hurt her… The woman at the counter who witnessed everything gets out of her shocked state and says:
"Girl, some balls you have here, that's for sure! I'm sorry for what happened… The breakfast's on the house."
She smiles at me and pinch gently Lily's cheek, cooing, smacks her gum, winked and goes to the table of the tenor with a check…