Tablino

There was a sickening sound -- the cracking of plasma-proof armor -- but I couldn’t see anything. Kaeotica’s arms were still wrapped protectively around my head, but I felt her hold back the scream, and I pieced two and two together. Another plasma bolt humming through the air -- and silence.

            Kaeotica let go of me and rushed over to a barely breathing someone on the ground. I felt like throwing up.

            “Detonation…” She reverently twisted the helmet off with a hiss, setting it down on the ground, and cradled him in her arms. Detonation’s hair fell across his face as usual, his vivid green eyes dimming. Kaeotica pressed her forehead to his, tears rolling down her tanned face and onto his.

            “Shhh…Shhh…” He murmured, bringing one shaky hand up to touch her cheek, then dropping it. It was all he could manage. I stood rooted to the spot, not wanting to watch and yet unable to turn my head.

            “It’s my time, Kae. It’s my time to go. Take, Brianna, get her out of here. You have to let me go.” He whispered, his clear voice suddenly sounding strained.

            Kaeotica took another deep teary breath, mouthing the words ‘I don’t want to…’

            “But you have to, Kae.”

            “…no…no, I…come on, let’s get you out of here…”

            “Kaeotica! Listen to me. The Krentai will be here any second, you can’t bring me with you.” He took another deep breath. “I love you, Kae. More than anything.”

            I shut my eyes, then opened them again. I couldn’t watch this, but I wanted to.

            “I love you, too, Det…” She pressed her forehead to his, rocking back and forth, shaking.

            “Kae…my real name…it’s…it’s Ryan…”

            He pressed his lips against hers. And then he dropped back, eyes open, staring.

            The sounds of marching started through the snowy pass again, but Kaeotica didn’t move.

            “Kae, come on, they’re coming!”

            She tried to force back tears, chest heaving, tracing his cheek bone with a gloved finger. I rushed up and grabbed her arm, tugging and pulling and finally getting her up.

            “Kaeotica, we have to leave him! Let’s go!”

            I dragged her out of there, out of that death trap formerly known as a ski resort. As I tugged her, looking every which way for an exit, I could’ve sworn, over the sounds of marching and yelling and screaming, she whimpered one word:

            “Ryan…”

 

(NOTE: Though this is designated as the second excerpt, in the overall scope of the novel it occurs before the previous entry. So, that being said, enjoy!)

 

(ANOTHER NOTE: For those who've read this before, I had to move Part 2 here because I cannot, at this point, put more than than twenty pages on and I have another story to put up. For those who haven't,  this section has a different spot to review it in the Comments Forum than the entry above. Part Two!)

 

           The robots opened the door, shoved me forward into the blackness, dropped Kaeotica just inside the door jam, and literally threw Detonation across the cell. He landed hard, rolling into the wall, armor making the room echo like a gong. They-those things-laughed at him and clanged the door shut. The room rattled, and Kaeotica extricated herself from the cold, wet floor and flung herself back at it, pounding with her mechanical arm.

            “It’s useless, Kae.” Detonation breathed heavily, rolling over, closing his eyes and letting the water drip onto his face from the ceiling. Obviously, Jaeida didn’t put much effort into the up keeping of her prisons. Kaeotica stopped pounding and rested her head against the cold, magic-enhanced steel. Her breathing bounced around the room, rattled against my eardrums.

            “Why?” She asked finally. I looked up from the corner I had slumped down into, to see the shaking figure, blood seeping through the cloth-like armor. It was hard to imagine that ten years ago, this woman had been the shining beacon to all the weak, defenseless, beings of this galaxy -- now, she seemed nothing more than a beat-up woman with mechanical body parts. “Why did you have to try and free me? You fool…”

            Detonation grunted in pain, then shoved against the floor, struggling to get up. I rushed over and helped him up, leaning him in the corner and brushing back his black hair. Let’s face it. I was head over heels crushing on him, even if he had just used up all his strength and needed help to just sit up. His eyes focused on her shoulder blades, where the blood was staining her shirt reddish brown.

            “You’re hurt.”

            She wheeled around, eyes flaming. “You could have gotten killed! You could have been turned into the creature they made me! What’s wrong with you?! Why couldn’t you just have let me be?!” Kaeotica’s face was gaunt, shallow, as if she’d been locked in this tiny, lightless room for weeks and weeks on end. “You managed ten years thinking I was dead - why’d you have to chase me down once you found I wasn’t?!”

            Detonation looked directly into her dark eyes, and I saw him struggle to hold back tears.

            “But that’s just it, Kae.”

            “What?”

            “Ten years. Ten years ago, we made a promise, Kae.” His eyes watered, and he passed a hand across his face. “Do you remember that promise?”

            She was silent.

            “We promised that we’d never, never ever leave each other. We promised that we’d never give up on one another, and that if anything happened to one of us, the other would go to any extremes to find the other. Even if that meant putting yourself in harm’s way.”

            “…Detonation…”

            “I’m not backing out of my promise now, Kae. I’ve never broken a promise. Ever.” He squeezed his eyes shut, rested his head on his knees. I put a hand on his back, patting it softly. Kaeotica’s eyes softened.

            “…why did you have to remember that and make me feel guilty?” She nearly smiled. Nearly. Not quite. Instead she carefully walked over to the corner and knelt by him, putting her head on his shoulder. I felt some ravenous beast inside me growling ‘Stay away, he’s mine!’, but I held it back for now. I’d lay out her boundaries later, politely, if I could -- after all, she was fifteen years older than me, and Detonation’s best friend.

            “I’m sorry.” She whispered, then gave him a little kiss on the cheek. I felt my face grow hot and clenched my thin hands into little fists, digging my perfect nails into my skin so hard I felt the warm blood ooze out of the thin, crescent moon cuts. Detonation looked up, nose inches away from hers. I wanted to slap Kaeotica until her face turned blue.

            Detonation smiled sadly, a glint of white, perfect teeth. “I missed you loads.”

            Kaeotica smiled, not showing her teeth. I prayed that half of them had rotted out during these years and he would be so disgusted he’d forget about her. “I missed you too.”

            “Well, I hate to break this to you,” I started hastily, hoping to keep them from gazing starry-eyed like that into each others faces again, “but we’re still trapped in a dungeon by an evil witch-”

            “Lanelacan.” They corrected me simultaneously.

            “-whatever. And sooner or later, she’s going to bust in here, kill me and her, torture you to death until she gets this spirit thingy, and then destroy the galaxy.” I folded my arms across my chest, standing up and making a point of not making eye contact with Kaeotica.

            “Oh!” She stood up, and began to fiddle with the control panel on her arm. Pretty soon, it folded itself up into…a pair of the cutest shoes I had ever seen. She grinned, noticing my delighted stare at the hot pink, strappy heels. Detonation snorted.

            “Now’s not exactly the time to swap shoes.”

            “Oh, but it is the time.” Kaeotica smiled, showing her teeth this time. What a shame. They were still all there, and clean to boot (Ha-ha, I love shoe puns. To boot - get it? Do you? I stink at being funny…). She turned back to me, holding out the shoes. “Put them on.”

            “Are they my size?” I asked, remembering not to make eye contact and trying to sound as aloof as possible. Her eyebrows rose at the tone of my voice, but she shoved them towards me all the same.

            “I’ll bet my rocket launcher they are.”

            I took that to mean she was positive, and put them on instead of my broken-heeled, cherry red pumps. “What is this supposed to do?”

            “It’s supposed to get us our way out.” She turned to Detonation, dark ponytail flying and nearly hitting me in the face. “You see, in this citadel, the electronic stuff is rigged so it doesn’t work for us. But it’ll still work for…” She turned to me, the obvious question in her dark brown eyes.

            “Brianna.” I scowled. She turned back around.

            “It’ll still work for Brianna.”

            “So? We can’t use it in the cell; every single robot in the place would hear the racket.”

            “Exactly!” She tapped on her pointed nose, and I noticed her fingernails, smirking at the unevenness, rejoicing that I had taken the trouble to get a manicure. “All she has to do is ask to go to the bathroom. No one will care what an eleven -”

            “Fourteen.”

            “Sorry, fourteen year old girl is wearing on her feet; the last thing they’ll suspect is that her hot pink heels can turn into a pistol with a silencer.” She looked smug -- silence fell across the room as her words soaked in. Detonation looked at me out of the corner of his deep green eyes, as if to size up my capabilities. I decided now was the best time to ask a question.

            “Uh, how the heck am I supposed to work this thing?”

            “Oh, right.” She knelt, pointing at my shoes. “See this heart charm?” She pointed at it; I had a sudden desire to stomp on her fingers, but I held myself in check and nodded. “Right, you just press on that, and say very clearly ‘neon alert’. It should react to that, if it doesn’t work -- I’m sure you can figure it out, it’s not that hard.” I gulped, she seemed to notice and said in a rush. “Oh, but I’m sure it’ll work. Don’t worry.”

            Yeah. Thanks a bunch, Kaeotica, there goes all the courage I had left.

            Apparently, in the dim-to-no-lighting, Detonation had seen the color drain out of my face. “Don’t worry, Brianna. You’ll do fine.”

            Something inside me leaped. He though I’d do fine! Was that a sign he liked me?

            “Okay, ready?”

            “No, Kae, bad time. They’ll be suspecting something right now. Let’s wait a few hours, maybe days…”

            She sighed, but shrugged. “Okay, you’re right. We should get some sleep right now -- and by we, I mean you, Detonation. That was a nasty bit of magic back there.” He grunted by way of thanks, then rested his forehead back on his knees and fell asleep.

            And thus began the long wait. Oh goody.

I backed around the corner swiftly, running down the hall and into my room, then slammed the door behind me. Sinking, slowly, slowly against the door, until I huddled on the floor, I wrapped my arms around my knees, feeling my face grow hot and cold all at once.

He loved her.

Just like that, my whole fourteen year old life had gone crashing around my ears. I felt sick. I wanted to erase Kaeotica from the face of this earth, turn back time and show Detonation right from the get-go how wonderful I could be. I wanted to not have to fake the smile at the two of them, knowing he was hers. I wanted to be with him, only with him, and have him know how much I loved him. He had claimed my heart, and he didn’t even know, or care.

I shook against the door, which rattled annoyingly a tiny bit. How could I have done this to myself? I just let her walk in and claim him. I hated her. I hated Kaeotica. I had even helped Detonation pull her back! I could have just keep my huge mouth shut, and let things go whatever way they could. But the problem was I liked her, too. She was so nice and funny and resourceful. You couldn’t help liking her; it was just a natural tug. I hated liking her. I hated not hating her more.

I looked up, staring with blurry eyes at the window, my mind blank now. I had missed my chance. What I wouldn’t give to turn back time! It killed me slowly inside, knowing he was out there with her… her…

I had enough. I curled up into a little ball and fell asleep.

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