Loving Change - Chapter Nine

Still with icy steel biting at his burning skin, Nikolai followed his sister deeper into her home. Tyron, still firmly at his back, forced him lower into the building. Sam lead the silent party from the front, a few feet ahead and out of arms reach of Nikolai - at Tyron's frequent requests.

"Locking up your own flesh and blood?", Nikolai spat. "That's a new low, even for you." Glaring down at the shorter woman in front of him, he put on a show and behaved like the animal he truly was underneath that mask of a man.

Tyron wrangled the horrific desire in himself to slice the filth's throat in half, instead settling for applying just enough added pressure to the blade in his hands to see a a small scarlet ribbon dribble down Nikolai's neck.

"You would know all about locking up your own flesh and blood, wouldn't you?" 'What in all the galaxies was that just then?' But questions could wait until later. Tense minutes dripped away slowly at an excruciating rate to Sam. Finally her sights locked onto the heavy sealed door of her "vault".

"If you're planning on putting me in that oversized closest, good luck." Tyron hated to admit it, but he didn't seem wrong - they were trying to fit a tiger in a shoebox.

Using too many types of locks to remember, Sam pulled back the metal door to reveal a small room entirely on concrete. However, running floor to ceiling on all walls - like some exotic wallpaper - were stacks upon stacks of files, books and documentation of all kinds. 'To be hidden away like this... I hate to wonder what's in those pages...'

"I'm almost insulted. No bed? No buffet table? Where's the five star service?" Fighting himself not to cut off Nikolai's mouth, he shoved the human mountain forward into the confined space.

Chaining his wrists painfully tight to the bottom of one of the many bookcases, Tyron forced him down onto the floor if he didn't want his wrists painfully dislocated. "I guess I can't complain. You have given me some reading material to pass the time."

Without breaking eye contact, Sam starred him down unblinkingly, "Touch anything and you won't have hands at all."

Closing the vault door on him, effectively ending their conversation. Turning to each other, they gave knowing looks; 'he is going to be a handful'.

"When you're done dealing with..." pausing mid-sentence Sam let her eyes close momentarily to swallow the growing anxiety. "When you're done with the cleaning up, meet me back here."

"I'm not leaving you alone with him."

"And we can't leave two bodies lying on the front porch for all the world to see!", she was quickly losing any remnants of calmness she had left in her.

Taking a deep breath and looking up to meet his eyes, she used only a whisper, "We don't have many options, Tyron. Get it done quickly and be back here... With me." Tyron couldn't hold back the involuntary shudder that racked his spine and rippled across his skin. The emotion that laced her words, the look in her eyes - and it was all for him, no one else. Unable to reject her in such a way, the extraterrestrial only nodded at her whims, disappearing from her view and out of her reach.

...*...*...*...

Growling filled the tight air, as if it were a pack of animals in the room instead of a man.

"There's been death and torture and yet you still defend him!?" Livid was no where near how she felt now. Pacing back and forth in front of the vault door, urging herself not to punch a wall.

Her only response was roared at her, "He is our father!"

"He is a monster!... None of this matters. You're stalling. What did the twins mean when they said you were dying? From what?"

"Oh, you care all of a sudden? Bullshit."

"Answer before I use a knife to cut the answers out of you."

Silence spread into every inch of the room. It drowned them.

"Enough, Nikolai! It's been ten years, why now?"

"Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy... I've got seven months, if that." A weight seemed to fall on top of Sam as the reality of the situation hit her.

"...Does... Does he know?"

"He's our father! You should show some damn respect!" Again the beast was clawing back, at anything within reach.

"And here I was thinking maybe... just maybe, you had changed."

"Oh, shut up! If you had just died in childbirth like she did then things would have turned out differently." he said.

"She was my mother too! The way her sons and husband turned out, I'm glad she didn't have to live through all this shit."

"Now I remember why I enjoyed making you bleed, you pathetic little bitch!" Sam could feel the door shaking with the rumbling of his thrashing and shouting.

Thundering steps ran about in the house above her, "Sam!"

Hearing the desperate call of Tyron in such a panic, the weight on her only grew heavier. 'This can't be good.'

Throwing herself up her wooden stairs, clambering onto the next level, "The twins..." breathing deeply to steady himself again, his panic stricken face made Sam stagger back. "They're both... gone. The bodies, gone." The shock in his eyes told her everything. Her mind swam about in it's own emotions before clicking into realisation.

"All the blood was still there but no bodies, yes?"

Tyron knew it was more a statement than a question, but reassured her anyway, "Yes. But how did you - ?"

Sam's eyes widened to show the striking white surrounding her iris', "Oh shit!" In seconds Sam was running back down into the basement, desperately hoping she wouldn't be too late.

Sprinting at the vault door she grabbed onto it - her knuckles turning white. Pulling it back with all the strength her unexperienced arm muscles would allow.

"Gone."

"What!? Sam, what's going on!?"

"He's gone!" Laying in a heap on the ground was a pile of broken bloodied chains.