CHAPTER 4
Cleo dropped the baby she had been holding gently into a cot after finally getting it to sleep. Caine had put her as Co-Chief of the Day-care and she was enjoying working here. She was always kept busy and she had made a good friendship with the other Chief, Mary Terrafino, a girl she'd seen at school before but hadn't really ever spoken to. Things were looking up with Caine taking over. He had assigned jobs to everyone and order had been restored. Also, everyone respected him and so did as they were told. A tot started crying on the other side of the room and Cleo went over, scooping her up and shushing her softly. Her name was Emmy. Cleo was getting very good at names since working here. She decided to test herself while it was naptime and everyone was finally still.
"Alfie…Ethan…Lily…Noah…Zoey…Addison…Eli…Louis…Logan…Makayla…Ashley…" She stopped and smiled at the next little girl, sleeping peacefully with a ginger dog curled up next to her. "Pippa…" She said softly. Pippa came with her to the day-care while she was working, and then returned home with her when she did. She couldn't bring herself to leave her little sister alone yet. She knew Pippa probably wouldn't mind, but it was herself that she worried about. Pippa was like her rock, her only sense of life before the FAYZ. She smiled and put the now quiet Emmy back down again, yawning. Her shift was over, but she didn't want to wake Pippa up, so instead she lay down on an empty mat and fell asleep as soon as her head touched the ground.
She woke up about an hour later, to the sound of crying. This was a new record; Cleo never usually had more than 5 minutes to herself so a whole hour's sleep was a luxury. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, only to get the shock of her life. Drake Merwin, one of the Coates kids who Caine had appointed as sheriff was standing in the middle of the day-care, smirking as he held a baby as far away from him as possible, his hand gripped around the little boy's foot. The baby howled and howled as he dangled in front of the monster and Cleo jumped up immediately and ran over.
"DRAKE! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? PUT BABY NOAH DOWN NOW!" She screamed above the terrified wailing. Drake shrugged as his smile widened.
"Ok...if you say so..." He said and let go, one finger at a time.
"Noo...!" Cleo cried, trying and failing to get there in time as there was a sickening crack and the baby lay lifeless on the hard floor, head out at an impossible angle. Cleo collapsed in front of the little boy who she had grown to love in the last few days. "No..." She whispered. "No...No..." She picked him up and cradled him in her arms. Desperately, she placed her hand on his neck, trying to fix it. Trying to mend the unmendable. But it was too late. Through blurry eyes, she looked up at the grinning monster. "Why...WHY?" She screamed, and putting the baby down again, she ran over to him and began lashing out wildly. He blocked every single hit, and held her hands in a vice-like grip.
"Captain's orders." He shrugged. "He was using his power." Cleo looked at him blankly.
"Since when is that a crime?" She asked. Drake let go of her hands and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his trouser pocket. He unfolded it and, held it out for her to see, pointing to number 4. Cleo read it.
"It doesn't say you have to KILL them!" Drake grinned and turned the page over, the second to last rule stated that 'a breach of any of the above rules is punishable by death'. Fresh tears formed in Cleo's eyes. For the first time she was aware of the other children in the day-care. They were all looking on, some frozen with fear, others wailing, others just crying silently. All looking up in fear at the psychopathic boy who was invading their little sanctuary. "Get rid of the body." Cleo muttered. "It's upsetting the other kids." Drake snorted.
"I'll show them upset..." He threatened. "And no, I'm no body-collector. Go get that Mexican kid or one of his amigos to do it." He laughed at his little joke and then began to walk out of the building. He paused in the doorway. "Catch you later, Cleo." He grinned, winked, and then disappeared from sight. Cleo threw Noah's favourite blanket over his sad little corpse, and then tended to the other children, as she waited for Mary Terrafino to come and take over her shift. She needed to speak to Caine, this wasn't right, this couldn't go on. What had the world come to when harmless little children were murdered for doing absolutely nothing? Cleo wasn't sure if Noah had a power, she had never seen him use it if he did, but even if he did, he was a baby! Only just 1 year old! How would he know how to control a power, he couldn't even control when he went to the toilet! Yes, Cleo would speak to Caine. This had to be a misunderstanding. And if it wasn't, she wanted nothing to do with any of them anymore.