Eric stormed into the cave. “She’s gone.”
Delta looked up. “Who’s gone?”
“Your sister! She’s gone!”
“Phoenix?”
Eric threw his hands in the air. “You’re all hopeless. Yes, Phoenix!”
“How do you know that?” Red said from the other side of the cave, beginning to stride closer. Ariel looked up from her spot on the couch, and Tanner came out of the hall, obviously just finishing a shower.
Eric sighed and sat on the couch, rubbing his forehead. “I went to meet up with her at her place. We talked a little, and both fell asleep, and when I woke up, she just wasn’t there.”
“Calm down, Eric,” Rowan said, sitting on the counter. Aisling smiled at him, and turned to Eric. “Phoenix is probably just on patrol or something.”
“No, that’s just it. I spent about three hours looking everywhere around the city; there was no sign of her. No ashes, no feathers, fire, nothing.”
Rene snapped her fingers. “Didn’t she used to hate someone?”
Everyone stared at her, and she blushed. “I mean, like, an enemy or something.”
Ciel gasped. “Oh, yeah! Chelsea!”
A growl resounded around the room. Fang cracked his knuckles. “She may bug me to all hell, but she’s still my sister. If Chelsea’s got her--”
“It’ll get bloody, quickly,” Harley hissed out. “We need to figure out if it is Chelsea, or just some aleatório kidnapping. Was she in civvies?”
Eric nodded. “Chelsea does know her secret identity.”
“We need to get moving, then,” Red stated. “We have 24 hours.”
“No,” Delta muttered. “With Chelsea, we have about 5.”
~/:::::\~
Kyra’s eyes snapped open beneath a dark fabric. In the segundo she did so she knew she was trapped; the pain throbbing in her forehead and the dim redness she saw seeping into her left eye gave that away. Her feet were still bare, and even though the bottoms were rough and calloused, she felt a wood floor beneath them, along with a few pieces of gravel and straw. Shifting, she discovered her hands were cuffed together, and that the cuffs were gold. The sizzling noise and the pain that shot through her skin was alerting her to the immense danger of the specific metal.
She paused as she heard footsteps approaching on some type of gravel or dirt. The door swung open with a deafening screech, and she hissed in pain as something lifted her up, making the cuffs press further into her skin.
“Too pained to speak to an old friend?”
Chelsea’s voice seemed to drill into her skull, coming from all sides of the tiny garden shack. Kyra growled at her. “Friend my ass.”
Chelsea chuckled and pain shot through her wrists again as the cuffs were tightened. “I never thought you were one for cliches, Chelsea.”
“I’m not, kid,” came the echo. “But I do have a proposition.”
“And what might that be?”
“We’ve never actually found out what happens when you try to kill yourself... have we?”
Kyra stifled a gasp. This wasn’t possible. Chelsea didn’t have that amount of power.
“I’m giving your friends two hours to find you. If they don’t, I get to test out my new... skills.” A cruel snicker reached her ears before the blindfold was ripped off her eyes. A stinging sensation went through her neck and she slid back against the wall, the lights beginning to blur in her vision. “By the way,” came the dreaded voice. Kyra moaned as the world started to slip even further.
“I like your new name. Phoenix... I’ve always thought that suited you.”