Cydra continued looking at the number of blank, yet smiling faces, now that Kyle had over turned the bed she was bound to, standing it on its foot, as he continuously circled around it.
"My friends," Kyle addressed his minions, all the while drawing their attention to Cydra, "I give you... a reject..."
Cydra rolled her eyes, and let out a loud sigh through her nose.
"She came to us, a long time ago, a reject..." Kyle continued, "but now, she has rejected us..."
Once more, Kyle brought his hand to Cydra's mouth, and forced her to part her lips. The demented smiles from the faces of Kyle's minions disappeared when they saw Cydra had no fangs, and realized she was no longer a vampire like them.
"She was given a special gift," Kyle continued, "and callously had it tossed aside, as if it had no significant value whatsoever..."
Just to creep her out further, Kyle stuck his finger into Cydra's mouth, swirling it around, collecting samples of her saliva, before pulling it back out, and wiping the saliva off by slowly, yet firmly pulling his finger down her cheek.
"The curse... has been broken..." Kyle continued, "and there is someone out there responsible for breaking this curse... yet, our former friend refuses to release that information..."
"Former is right..." Cydra mumbled, "on my part."
A hush fell over the room. Kyle grabbed Cydra by the jaw, and forced her to look into his eyes.
"We are going to get that information out of you..." Kyle warned, "and you should know... resistance is useless."
The following day at school should have been a happy day, it was Halloween, a favorite holiday among the students, but the day wasn't entirely happy, especially with the still suspicious chipmunks and chipettes, who continued to discuss the matter of Cydra's disappearance over lunch that day.
"Good god Alvin," Brittany groaned, "I'm still seeing spots from that stupid party favor you just had to get at the party..."
"Hey, I had to get as many exhibits for this investigation as I could!" Alvin said.
"Well, you heard the police officer last night," Theodore said, "he wants us to leave that to them to do."
"But they don't have our inside information!" Alvin said.
"Do you seriously think the police are going to believe our claims that Cydra was once, and possible may once again be, a vampire?" Eleanor asked.
"Probably not..." Alvin said, "they could very well be in on the whole plot!"
The others groaned. As for the police themselves, they finally got in contact with school officials, and obtained the survellance footage that was recorded the night of the party. During the afternoon, the detectives down at the LAPD studied the footage very carefully, to make sure that they didn't overlook a single detail. They kept their eyes on their subject through-out their entire viewing, making sure not the lose the chipmunk girl dressed as a vampire princess in the busy crowd of party goers. They kept watching, all through-out the party, witnessing her hanging out with her friends, to going solo at the apple cidar setup, to being dragged into the costume contest. After the costume contest was when the case too an interesting turn, as they witness Cydra grab her prize, and leave the gymnasium.
"That's obviously where she leaves..." one detective said.
"Do we have any additional survellance footage outside the premises we can view?" the other detective asked.
"Yeah, on another tape..." the first detective said, "what's the timecode at this particular moment?"
"8:47 PM EDT." The second detective said.
"Okay, we'll just fast forward to that time frame on this tape, and see if we can get any clues there..." the first detective said, as he switched the frequency on the monitor they were watching.
Back at school, lunch period was just about to come to an end, and the rest of the kids were still talking shop about Cydra's situation.
"I guess I'm the only one who doesn't believe Cydra is a vampire again then?" Jeanette asked.
"Are you kidding us?" Brittany asked.
"I don't know..." Jeanette said, "I mean... I just don't think she would go back to being a vampire... she was really grateful to Simon for breaking the curse..."
Simon nodded, "I remember... she could hug hard..."
"We know re-adjusting to a normal life has been a struggle, but she's been doing pretty good so far," Jeanette added, "why would she suddenly just want to be a vampire again?"
The others paused.
"Jeanette may have a point..." Eleanor said.
"Oh come on," Alvin argued, "you know it's been a proven fact if someone's done something once, they'll do it again, they never change!"
"There maybe some exceptions to that rule." Eleanor said.
"Well, whatever the case," Simon said, "I don't believe it's fair to make any assumptions about Cydra at this point in time, as to whether or not she has or hasn't become a vampire again."
"I agree." Jeanette said.
"Me too." Eleanor said.
"All we can do at this point is wait..." Simon said, "I'm sure the police are doing all they can to find her."
Back at the LAPD...
"You think this could be anything?" One of the detectives asked, as they observed what looked like a couple of punks climbing atop the dumpster outside the school gymnasium.
"Could be..." the other detective said, as he continued fast forwarding until he made it to the timeframe where Cydra exited.
The two detectives watched carefully. They watch as Cydra steps out of the gymnasium, and looks around, until she walks over towards the dumpster, and looks at the stash of empty cardboard boxes, before she appears to simply faint.
"Did you see that?" One detective asked.
"Did she just faint?" The other detective asked.
The detectives continue watching, intrigued by seeing the two guys hopping off of the dumpster, and walking over to Cydra's body on the ground.
"I think we may have already figured this out..." one of the detectives said.
"You think they're going to take her?" The other asked.
They watched as the shorter of the two walks back toward the dumpster, grabbing a large, black trashbag, and the two of them stuffing Cydra's body into it, before walking off like they're taking out trash, in the wrong direction.
"This doesn't make a whole lot of sense..." one detective said, "why does she just faint like that?"
"Maybe we missed something, let's rewind that..." the other said.
They rewound the tape, and replayed Cydra hiding her treasure, only this time, they payed more attention to the two sitting atop the dumpster. Did they overlook something? Did they perhaps miss a blow dart, or anything of that nature? Nothing. They watched as the two just sat there, seemingly doing nothing, and Cydra simply fainting.
"Let's look at the other tape again," one of the detectives said, "before she fixes herself some drinks... maybe one of them may have spiked her drink or something."
"Why would it have taken that long for something like that to take effect?" The other asked. "That little contest afterwards lasted nearly twenty minutes, and she seems rather coherant."
"Well something has to explain why she would suddenly faint like that..." the first detective said, "I find it hard to believe a seemingly healthy sixteen year old girl would go into cardiac arrest or something..."
"I really don't see why we should worry too much about that," the other detective said, "we see what happened to her, perhaps we should concentrate on getting these descriptions out, to see if anyone recognizes them, and if so, where they may be located, and what they may have done with this girl, if they still have her."
They did still have her. At that moment, Cydra remained bound to the overturned bed, having the energy drained from her body, as Kyle's minions worked to hypnotize her.
"How are you feeling?" Kyle asked, with a smirk.
Cydra struggled to even mumble. "Dr-dr-drained..."
Kyle smiled. "You know why you feel that way, don't you?"
"I... do..." Cydra mumbled.
"You don't have to put up with this..." Kyle said, as he signalled for his minions to cease with their hypnosis.
Cydra gasped as she suddenly felt her energy shoot back into her body. Kyle walked over to her, looking her in the eye again.
"Why won't you just talk already?" Kyle asked.
Cydra pursed her lips, before finally speaking up. "You already ruined my life... I don't want you to ruin anymore lives, especially the lives of my friends."
Once again, Kyle pressed his nose up against Cydra's. "You have no friends."
"I do so." Cydra said, through her teeth.
"Tell me who they are." Kyle pressed.
"Never." Cydra said.
"Well then," Kyle said, "let me show you some true friendship to convince you otherwise..."
Kyle's minions softly chuckled in a sinister manner, before they disappeared from the room, their chuckles still echoing for a short while. Hours later, after school, as the chipmunks and chipettes walked away from the schoolyard, and towards their neighborhood, a police cruiser pulled up beside them, it was the same officers who had been asigned to Cydra's case.
"Excuse us, kids," one officer called out from his window, "we're asking the witnesses in your friend's case to come down to police headquarters to review some survellance footage we obtained from the school officials."
"Why?" Alvin asked. "What have you found?"
"Abduction." The officer said.
The kids exchanged looks with each other.
"Mr. and Mrs. Donaldson are meeting us at headquarters now to review the footage as well," the officer continued, "we'd like to see if any of you can identify the suspects, or if may know anything about the abduction..."
"We'll need to let our parents know where we'll be." Simon said.
"Hop in," the officer said, "we'll drive you home, speak with your parents, and take it from there."
Shortly later, the Seville boys, the Miller girls, and the Donaldsons sat in what was usually an interogation room, which in confusion at the footage that they were being shown. Like the detectives earlier in the afternoon, the group was left scratching their heads at the sight of Cydra seemingly fainting for no reason, before being placed in a trashbag, and taken away by what appeared to be a couple of thugs.
"I just don't understand it..." Nancy said, "why did she faint? What did she consume at the party?"
"About two pounds of candy," Eleanor said, "a pound of pumpkin cookies, a bushel of caramel apples, and a gallon of apple cidar."
"And that's how you get 'diabeetis'." Alvin added.
"Alvin!" the other kids snapped.
"We studied the footage from both angles," one of the detectives said, "we watched, and found no indication that she could have consumed anything harmful, unless she just happened to have consumed some kind of gag treat... but even then, it seems unlike it would have taken that long to take effect."
"But what about these two hoodlums who kidnapped her?" Richard asked.
"Well, that's what we wanted to show you," the officer said, before he instructed the detectives to pause the video footage, "do any of these boys look familar to you kids?"
The chipmunks and chipettes sat there, each studying the faces of the suspects carefully, though none of them could place them. None of them could remember Cydra even remotely associating with either of them. When the Donaldsons were asked, they too were at a loss at who they could be, they never saw Cydra with either of them either, nor did they remember their adopted daughter mentioning anybody who fit their descriptions.
"The only thing we can do at this point then," the officer said, "is get an all-points-bulletin out on these two, see if anybody out there may recognize them, and leave us tips on their whereabouts."
"I don't see what they could've want with her," Richard said, "it almost looks as if they targetted her specifically, but for god knows what..."
"Hopefully, if we can find them, we can get answers." The officer said.
"I certainly hope so," Nancy said, on the verge of tears, "I don't know what they want with her, or why they wanted her, but all I know is I want her home... I want to find my Cydra, and bring her home..."
The other kids were touched at Nancy's emotions. It wasn't a very long period of time ago that she and Richard had adopted Cydra, but it was clear that Nancy quickly developed a deep and meaningful relationship with her adopted daughter, and so wanted to find her. Cydra, meanwhile, kept screaming through Kyle's hand over her mouth, as he continued to take advantage of her once more. In between breaths, he would laugh at Cydra's attempts to bite his hand, as to him, her fangless bites were nothing short of a small child gumming on a toy. After several minutes, Kyle was finally satisfied, and pulled away from Cydra, as she feverishly pulled at her ropes, hoping she could pull them loose, but found they were bound too tightly. Kyle tossed the used rubber into the wastebasket, before turning his attention to Cydra once more.
"Remember?" He asked her.
Cydra sighed. "Yes... I remember... just remember, this time, I didn't give you my consent!"
"I know..." Kyle said, "I told you there would be consequences... are you ready to tell me what you know?"
"I'll never give in..." Cydra said, "you can keep trying, and you can tell me that I have no friends... but I do... I have real friends who really care for me, who really were there for me, and I'm not about to sell them out, just so you can punish them for breaking the curse you put me under, no matter what you do to me, you can keep hypnotizing me, you can keep draining my energy, you can keep raping me, you can even bite me for all I care... I won't talk..."
Kyle was astounded. Somehow, it seemed the more he kept trying to break his former minion down, the stronger she became in her will to protect her friends. He was somewhat surprised that this was the same chipmunk girl he charmed his way with years earlier, who seemed so lost, naive, and unsuspecting. Finally, Kyle had enough.
"Playing hard ball, huh?" Kyle asked. "Well, you know what? I'm through with playing games... now you are really going to be sorry."
Kyle summoned for his partner again, who appeared in the room next to his master.
"Is it my turn now?" He asked.
"Forget about that, doofus," Kyle growled, "we're taking it up a notch."
"What do you mean?" Kyle's partner asked of him.
"I mean thinking back on our ancestors..." Kyle said, "and their effective measures of punishment..."
A hush fell over the room.
"You mean...?" The partner asked.
Kyle turned himself and his partner around, in a two-person huddle, their backs to Cydra, as they lowered their voices.
"You seriously want to go through with this?" The partner asked. "You sure you actually want to... sacrifice her?"
Kyle nodded. "You and the others... get the large stake prepared... we'll see how long it'll take for her to talk before she becomes a little chipmunk kabob..."
The partner shook his head in astonishment. "Your great ancestor Vlad would be proud..."
Kyle smiled, "Yes he would... get the stake ready..."