Chapter 36: The Truth

Éowyn needed to get away. Kai was in a permanent bad mood since she told him he'd only always be just a friend and Blaze was still pissed that she'd told Lani about Keahi. And then there was Patsy, too mature, and right about everything.

It was all too much for her. So she headed to her favorite hideaway. The waterfall had been her sacred place every since she could remember. There was no place like it on earth.

She liked to bask in the serenity of the waterfall and its surrounding nature. The birds always welcomed her with song and she'd never encountered a snake.

As she dove into the pool she caught a glimpse of orange and red hair surfacing.

"Great minds think alike," he said grinning as she resurfaced.

She rolled her eyes, "What are you doing here?"

"I was hot," Dragon shrugged.

She sighed heavily. She came here to get away not run head on into her problems. She began swimming to the water's edge, but he was quick in grabbing her arm.

"Don't go."

She glared, swinging her arm at him, but only succeeded in splashing water in his face. She realized her mistake as a mischievous grin grew on his face . "Dragon don't you dare," she warned, but it was too late, his splash hit her hard and fast!

He laughed at her pouty face, "You needed a cool down anyway."

"You're a dead man!" she said diving under water again, pulling him with her.

When they'd both gotten their frustrations out by unmerciful dunking and splash wars they collapsed on the earth at the pool's edge.

"All better?" he questioned her.

Éowyn began laughing, "No, I'm just exhausted."

Dragon began laughing too, "Patsy would've loved to see us acting like little kids to prove her theory."

Éowyn sighed staring up at the tree tops. A few birds were cawing and flying overhead, but they weren't making enough noise to break the silence that befell her and Dragon.

When she could no longer stand the awkward silence, Éowyn began talking, "I'm sorry."

"For nearly drowning me?" he joked.

"No, that you deserved. I'm sorry for leaving. I didn't think it'd cause you so much pain, I just got...scared."

"Of me?"

"Of the way I felt when I was with you. I knew I wouldn't be able to withstand your advances forever, but I also hadn't expected to completely lose myself in you that night. I didn't plan on running away, I just…I panicked. I was scared to give you all of me. "

"So I was right love is your kryptonite."

" Maybe, but there's also the fact that you're a complete showboat. I mean really how many women came after me?"

"Danni wasn't one of them if that's what you're thinking. And I'm not as self absorbed as you think. There were two and neither lasted long. What about you?"

"There was just one and I wouldn't say we were a couple. He was just my type, no obligations. He left me in the middle of the night, in fact. I bumped into him again in a town called Liberty, but I was headed for the Boatlands and he was on some kind of mission. So we said goodbye."

"Did you love him?"

"Did you love them?"

"I've only ever loved you."

"I love you too."

"Then you agree that we belong together?"

"It's not that simple Dragon. We can't just pick up where we left off. It's been two years. And what happens when you leave? I can't just abandon Keahi, he's all the family I have left, and I won't take him from Blaze."

"Shh," he shushed her, "We'll work it out. Right now all I want to do is kiss you."

"I want to kiss you too," she admitted.

But before their lips could touch Kai came bursting through the trees into the clearing of the waterfall, "I hate to break this up," he said without much sympathy, "but the results of the test came back, and well…there's trouble!"

~0~

Salene paced as May pounded impatiently on her door, but she was reluctant to open it.

"Sal I'll knock all day."

Salene stopped pacing and opened the door. She pulled May in quickly, shutting and locking the door behind her, "No need to make a scene May."

"Really? What took you so long to let me in?"

"I just…sometimes I just want to be left alone."

"Or it could be you thought I was with someone else, Bray perhaps?"

"Wh…why would you think that?"

"Oh come on Salene, I know you're pregnant. I told you, it's a gift. How could you keep this from me?!"

Salene relented, "Because I want it to be a bad dream I am going to wake up from."

"How long has this been going on?"

Salene snorted, "It was just one time. We were two lonely, irresponsible drunks!"

"So now he's concerned about you because of the baby?"

Salene bit her bottom lip, "Not exactly."

"You haven't…" May had to fight to contain herself as realization and anger rose in her, "Sal you have to tell him!"

"I don't have to tell him anything."

"Why not? It's his baby too."

"May you gave me this speech when I was pregnant the last time. I don't care about him and he doesn't love me. So he doesn't have to know. In fact, no one can know."

"Liar, You love him, and besides everyone will find out eventually."

"So, I still love him. It doesn't matter, I don't plan on..."

"You aren't going to try and kill this child are you?" May panicked, "You've finally gotten what you want, and you're going to just up and dump it down the drain?"

"After the miscarriage you really think I'd do something so rash?" Salene shook her head, "'I only meant that I don't plan on being around for anyone to find out."

As if her eyes had opened for the first time, May realized her friend's bag half packed on the bed.

"You are leaving the island?"

"Bray loves Kyra, if I leave now then he won't have to explain me and a child. Their relationship is complicated enough with Bray Jr."

"Bray is going to want to know and he has a right to know his child! How can you be so selfish?"

"May I just can't, I can't stick around to have my heart further torn into pieces. I just started healing after Pride's death, and I…I just can't take anymore heartbreak."

"Maybe Kyra will never come around, maybe Bray really loves you. Everything happens for a reason Salene."

"Funny, that's what he said."

"Then you know what you've gotta do. "

~0~

Josh had finally raked his brain enough that he remember Lani. She was a Techno known as Viper who came to them shortly after they took over The City. She was smart and cunning, and a complete sociopath. She made even Josh jumpy when they worked in his lab together.

"Don't come another step closer," she warned him.

He, Danni, Kyra, and Blaze had all come to confront her after the test results came back. She'd attacked Kyra stabbing her in the leg with a needle, injecting something, and knocked Blaze unconscious with a vase. Josh tried to talk her down like he used to when she and Tai-San got into arguments, but his patience was wearing thin, especially after Lani grabbed Danni and began holding her at needlepoint.

He'd never been so glad to see Dragon as the other man burst through the doors with Éowyn.

"What's going on?" Dragon demanded to know.

It was Lani who answered, "Everything was fine until the Technos came along."

Éowyn spoke through clenched teeth, "I was on to you before then!"

"I am referring to three years ago when they invaded our homes, taking prisoners and forcing us to trade with them. I was taken, re-programmed and rid of my memory. I was forced to become one of them or be sold into slavery or worse, sent to breed children! But Ram hadn't counted on my memory returning. All I could think about was a man named Blaze and the love we had for one another, and then suddenly all my memories came back to me."

"So you found your way home, discovered your man was taken by none other than Charis, so you killed her?" Kyra asked.

Lani tightened her grip on Danni as Éowyn took a step closer. Josh tensed, grabbing Éowyn, "We don't know what's in that needle. She's already injected Kyra with another one."

Éowyn paused as Lani cackled and began talking again, "I was fighting my way home, thanks to Tai-San," she smirked at Josh, "and then my ship was wrecked. A tribe named the Pirates saved me and my crew and took us to Fleur Isle. It was just my luck Charis happened to be trading there. She told me Blaze had assumed I was dead and that they just happened. Like I was going to believe that after our childhood? I felt defeated. Here I was trying to get home to Blaze and he had moved on with my sworn enemy. So I opted not to go home."

"But you couldn't just sit around on Fleur Isle knowing Blaze thought you were dead. So you found your way home after all and plotted to kill my sister? " Éowyn asked, fighting to stay where she stood next to Josh.

"I didn't know she was pregnant at first. But then she started showing all the symptoms. I couldn't take any chances so I tried to cause her to miscarry. I knew if there wasn't a child in the way there was a chance Blaze would come back to me."

"But you knew you were injecting her with the virus!" Josh said, "You were a part of my lab!"

"When the herbs I put in her tea didn't cause her to miscarry I knew I had to get rid of her altogether. The one thing intact from the shipwreck was the case full of things I stole from the lab when Tai-San helped me escape. I didn't know it was the virus, but I knew from the label reading hazardous it was deadly. I didn't know Keahi would survive."

"Do you know why Ram set up fertility camps?" Kyra asked, "We found that the babies born after the virus weren't carriers of it. So we studied their blood for a cure."

"And we found one, except the virus had mutated. Or so we thought it did," Dragon glared at Josh.

"I don't know all the details of my mad scientist past Dragon, but I can tell you there is a cure for this new virus and only one person has it. Only she doesn't know it."

"Tai-San?" Kyra, Dragon, Danni, and Lani all asked at once.

Josh nodded his head gravely as Lani released Danni.

Dragon looked at Kyra who looked around the room at angry, confused faces.

"What was that silent exchange?" Éowyn asked.

"We didn't happen upon Krait Island by accident, we were on a quest for Tai-San."

"And that's why you needed Josh along, and you knew if he came I had to come right?" Danni questioned.

"She can give him back his memory and we retrieve the antidote."

Éowyn was confused, "I thought you were chasing a guy?"

"Never mind that, I need to know what was in that needle she injected me with and someone needs to calm down the village."

"I don't know what it is, I swiped these needles from the medicine man," Lani admitted.

"Okay fine. Éowyn talk to Kai, get him to calm down the villagers," Kyra began barking orders, " Danni, Josh, go check in with Patsy, Skipper, and Geo."

"What about her?" Dragon pointed to Lani.

Kyra turned punching the woman in the face causing her to fall, "Tie her up, and see to it that Blaze is okay," she ordered as the big man lying on the floor began to stir.

"How are you?" Dragon asked his sister, concerned.

She was beginning to feel weird, but she couldn't let her brother know she was weak, "I feel fine. But just in case I'm going to find the medicine man and find out what I've been infected with."

~0~

It had taken all evening, but finally Krait Island was calm. Dragon walked the floor of the guest hut until Kyra returned. Kai, Éowyn and Blaze with Keahi were also present. Curious as to what Kyra had to say when she returned.

"I'm fine," Kyra reassured the staring faces as she walked in the door, "The medicine man went through his inventory; only the two needles were missing. It seems I've been injected with some experimental drug he'd concocted for pain. Unfortunately all it has managed to do is make me lightheaded."

"And the one she had held on me?" Danni asked.

"Snake venom."

Danni wrapped her arms around herself, "So what now?"

"We sleep and deliberate some more in the morning."

As the three Kraits rose to leave Josh ushered them a warning, "I wouldn't underestimate Lani. She should be heavily guarded. We called her Viper for a reason."