1.22

After they looked around the house, Kaylee put Gabe down in front of his play table. He immediately walked over and started to gnaw on a block. Smiling faintly she went into the bedroom. Going through the boxes she found a track suit that would work. Peeking her head out check on Gabe, he was now coloring, she ducked back into the bedroom and changed quickly. Wiping her sweaty palms on her pants she grabbed the phone off the nightstand and dialed a number. She listened to it rang for what seemed like forever before it was picked up.
"I thought I told you that I would call you! What are you-"
"I need you to watch Gabe," she cut in.
There was a beat of silence then: "Excuse me?"
"Look, if you want me to do some digging on Hannah I can't take Gabe along with me. Ty had to go out of town and I just want to check around the labs one more time."
"You've already checked those," Hunter snarled.
"Look," she snapped. "Either you watch him or you'll never find out what Hannah's doing to stay alive."
There was a sigh and she could hear him drumming his fingers on something. She had just opened her mouth to demand an answer when he sighed once again.
"Fine, I'll send someone around."
Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. Looking through the glass on the door Kaylee saw an elderly woman standing on the porch. Opening the door she smiled at her. "How may I help you?"
"Hunter sent me."
She was startled. She didn't think that Hunter would associate himself with someone who couldn't do something for him. She blinked when the woman laughed and the light glinted off a gold cap in her mouth.
"I was one of his tutors and he kept me on. Is that the darling boy?" She moved toward Gabe who had stopped scribbling with his crayon to stare at them. He looked from Kaylee to the woman and back again before he went back to drawing.
"My name is Georgina. You'd better get going."
"Right."

Kaylee walked over to Gabe and crouched down. He walked over to her and sat down in front of her. Reaching out she slipped her hands through his hair. His eyes closed and his little body relaxed.
"Be a good boy Gabe and don't give Ms. Georgina any trouble okay? I'll be back before you know it. I just have...some stuff to do."
"Kaylee!"
She had started to raise but froze when he called her name. Looking down she saw that he had stood and was holding his arms up. Bending down she pressed a kiss to his nose. "I'll be back. I promise." She blinked when he put his little hands on her face and stared up at her before mimicking her kiss. With one last look he walked back over to his table and started to build with his blocks.
Kaylee left the house and started to walk in the direction of her job. It was just getting dark by the time she reached the facility. Looking around she ducked behind some bushes and tried to lay flat.

'Alright, I'm going home! Want to come with me James?" Kaylee peered through the branches to see her co-workers pouring out from the front of the building. She didn't hear what James said but she heard Z laugh. "You don't know what you're missing! See you tomorrow. You too Pat!"
Pat called out a farewell and Kaylee could see everyone getting into their cars. She kept her eyes peeled for Hannah but she didn't see her among the crowd. Or Winston for that matter. She waited another hour, just to be on the safe side, before she pushed herself up.
"Ow! Crap, crap!" she exclaimed in a whisper as she pushed her way through the shrubs. "What is that? What is that?" she hissed to herself as she felt something crawl across her neck. Frantically she brushed at the back of her head before she took a calming breath.
"Alright, you have to be quiet. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself girl. This is just like when you used to sneak out of the house when you lived with Janet...except this time you're going to sneak into the lions den." She scowled. Her little pep talking wasn't working.
Grabbing the railing for the stairs leading up the balcony she started up.

"Oh, my god!" she panted as she finally made it to the top. "Whose idea was it to make a side entrance with so many freaking stairs," she wondered as she tried to catch her breath. She tried to relax but she kept having the feeling that someone was following her. Gulping in air she placed her hand on the handle to the door and slowly twisted it open. She had noticed several days ago that some of her co-workers came out here to smoke and none of them ever locked the door back. She tried to slip into the slight opening she had given herself but her stomach didn't allow for it. Pulling the door open a little further she slipped in before the beam of the moon gave her away.

Placing her hands on her hips she tried to calm her hammering heart as she looked around. She had only been up here a handful of times, to deliver messages to the scientists, but she knew the lay out of the place. Right now her back was plaster against a small lab and right across from her was the room the scientists could sleep in if need be. Usually everything was so brightly lit but at this moment everything was pitch dark...except for one room were a bright light cast a glow on the floor.
"Well, that makes it easy. Alright, Kaylee. You can do this. You've watched movies. You can do this."
She crept closer to the lab, keeping her back to the wall. The closer she got the easier it was for her to hear the people in the room were arguing.
"Okay, okay," she whispered as she tried to duck and roll. Instead she did kind of a crab walk until she was under the window. Looking around she steadily rose until she could peer into the lab.

"You promised me Winston that this would all be done by the time Kaylee got here. This was just supposed to be an easy experiment but your incompetence has made it last longer than it should have."
Kaylee could see Hannah glaring at Winston and he was cringing away from her...and it looked as if he had been crying. Frowning Kaylee pressed a little closer.
"Mother, I'm trying! But the project keeps failing because the specimens keep dying. How can I run experiments on something that's the exact opposite of what you need?"
"What I need? Are you forgetting, dear boy, that if I don't get what I need then neither do you? You're the one who begged me to mate you, to give you some of me."
"I just wanted to live a little longer. To see what it would be like. And the only way to do that was for us to mate."
"Silly boy! You've been around for seventy years, every since you found my crashed ship, and you still don't know anything about my people. If I die you won't last very long either."
"You didn't tell me that part when I asked you to mate me Hannah," Winston snapped.
"Asked me? You had a gun to my head, threatening to kill me. My ship had just crashed and I was in a state of confusion and you were hollering at me that you would take me to government so they could dissect me. After weeks of living in your basement, of telling you what you wanted to know, did you seriously think that I would tell you everything?" she snarled.
"Hannah, back then I-I..."
"You were a drunk and a druggie," she sneered. "And I lengthened your miserable life."
"I promise you Hannah, I'll try to do what I can but what we're doing just isn't working. They keep dying."
They moved away and over to a table but Kaylee's eyes were glued onto the object in the corner.

She stifled a gasp as the fetus in the container bobbed up and down in the fluid. What were they doing? Tearing her eyes away from the infant she looked to see Winston snap on a pair of gloves before he bent down to inspect a...straining to see Kaylee realized that it was another infant and he was doing an examination on it. Clapping a hand over her mouth she swallowed the bile back down. She watched as Winston dug around in the little body before he pulled out a small object.
"Here's the heart."
"Only one?" Hannah demanded.
"Yes."
"We have two. I don't understand why my children keep dying. I need them. Without their blood I won' t be able to slow down the aging process."
"I don't understand why you just can't use this blood."
"Because," Hannah said slowly as if she were speaking to an idiot. "The heart wasn't beating when you found it dead. And that one's heartbeat is so weak I'm afraid to even move it for fear it'll die. Damn it!" Hannah rubbed her forehead. "I wish Anastasha was still alive. She would have been a great help to me. She's the first one who clued me into the fact that our children's blood contains life giving properties when she saw that child's injuries heal themselves as if nothing had occurred. But my race has so few children so she went to the head scientist and suggested that we look for other means of having children. Hence, why we snatch up and probe the men here."
She sighed and rubbed a hand over her forehead and for the first time Kaylee realized that Hannah had gained a little weight and her hair seemed dull and lifeless.
"The men we impregnate here, on Earth, can carry the children but they're half-breeds and it just doesn't provide the same affect. And Anastasha was the one who suggested to blame those early deaths on vampires when I couldn't contain myself."
Hannah seemed to be lost in thought. Kaylee watched as Winston took off his gloves. "We can make another baby."
"We were supposed to make another baby and inject Kaylee once we were sure everything would work out. She was supposed to be a willing participant but because you couldn't make this experiment work I couldn't allow her into the labs and instead she ended up getting pregnant."
Kaylee slapped her hand over her mouth once again to capture her sound of horror but something must have escaped because Hannah whipped around. Quickly Kaylee slid down to the floor. Frantic she glanced around and seeing the door the sleeping area was open she crawled in and squeezed under the bed just as she heard the door to the lab open.


"I thought I saw someone Winston! If I did they can't leave here. Do you understand me?"
"Yes."
"Good, now check in the there and I'll check down the hall."
Kaylee had the insane urge to laugh. She had broke into the Bio-Aquarium to gather information and she had but she might never be allowed to get out of here and share it. She bit her lip when she glanced over and saw Winston's sneakers at the door. He stepped into the room.
"Anyone in here?" he whispered. "If there is know that I don't want to kill you. I won't enjoy it, but Mother wants me to and I must do what Mother says. Come out and make my job so much easier."
He was almost crooning by the time he finished talking. Kaylee watched his shoes walk across the room as he headed toward the night stand that held the lamp. She squeezed her eyes shut. She was going to get caught. The bed wasn't that big and she was pretty sure that once Winston bent down to look under them that she was a goner. She heard him fumble in the darkness then the first click of the lamp that cast a pale glow and then-
"Winston! No one is here! Let's go. Now!"
"But I haven't-"
"Let's go!"
She heard him curse before he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room. She collapsed underneath of the bed and laid there in a trembling mass for a few hours before she slid out. She pulled the door open and seeing and hearing no one she booked it out of there. She didn't stop jogging until she slammed the door of the house shut behind her.

"Kaylee! What is going on?! What are you doing? Where have you been? What-?"
"Let...me...catch...my...breath!" she rasped as she groped for the back of the sofa. With her other hand she gripped her stomach. She let out a breathless gasp when Ty swung her up into his arms and put her on the couch. She groaned as her body relaxed into the cushions.
"What are you doing home?" she asked after several minutes of silence.
"Karrick. He said he felt that something was off. I've learned to trust his intuition. I may not get to play in the next few games but I had to turn back around. And what do I see when I come home? Some elderly woman with a gold tooth taking care of my brother and my wife MIA. And just when I was about to call the cops you burst into the house as if the hounds of hell are at your heels. Where have you been?" he demanded.
And so she told him.

There was a moment of silence and Kaylee swallowed dryly as she saw Ty's throat working. "Ty," she started out in placating tones. That was as far as she got.
"You did WHAT?!!!! Are you...why would you...I don't understand why you would take that risk! What were you thinking? Wait, you weren't thinking were you? Obviously not," he went on as if she had answered. "Otherwise you would have realized how asinine this entire plan was! For one your pregnant. You can't move as fast as you used to. And for another it was just foolish to risk your fucking neck like that. Didn't I tell you that Dad and Karrick were working on things? Didn't I tell you to be careful RIGHT before I left? Didn't I-" He groaned and buried his face in his hands. It was then she realized that his hands were trembling and his entire body was shaking.
Hesitantly she ran her hand up his back. She gasped when she was yanked into his lap and he buried his face into her neck. Just as quickly he placed her aside and stood. "I need to go...I just to need to go and get some fresh air. I'll be back."
Kaylee winced when the door shut silently behind him.

Later Ty crept back into the house. He checked in on Gabe and smiled to see him in his bed with his arms flung over his head, his little butt in the air and a trail of drool going down his chin. Shaking his head he closed the door then went into the bedroom. Sitting down on the couch he leaned forward and stared at Kaylee's huddled form.
He had walked for hours trying to clear his mind of the horrifying thoughts of what could have been. When that hadn't worked he went to the gym and worked out with the punching bag. His body felt numb after the work out but his mind was still working a mile a minute. When he just thought about her going into that building by herself, what could have happened to her if she got caught, it literally made him feel like throwing up. Sucking in a shuddering breath he pushed up from the couch and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. It was only as the water was beating down on him, soothing his sore muscles, that the idea came to him.

"Shit, why didn't I think of that earlier?" he mumbled as he hastily rinsed off and then wrapping a towel around his waist grabbed his cell from the pocket of his discarded jeans. Punching a number, speed dial was a god send, he waited impatiently as the phone rang and rang. Just as he was getting ready to give up the phone was picked up.
"Yes?"
"I need you."
"I understand you Earthlings are very accepting of that, and I completely understand and agree, but men aren't my personal preference Ty."
Ty pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at in confusion until it hit him what Karrick was talking about. "Your an idiot," he said with a laugh.
Karrick chuckled. "Maybe, but my sense of humor is getting better yes?"
Ty rolled his eyes. "Yes. Now look Karrick. I do need you. What happened is..."

Kaylee rolled over in bed and started to cuddle against Ty's back but she only met air. Frowning she opened her eyes to see that his side of the bed was untouched. Squeezing her eyes closed again she calmed her racing heart. Ty wouldn't just walk out. Especially not without a confrontation. Throwing back the covers she decided that they were going to talk about this. Right after she checked on Gabe who she could hear calling her from his room.
Padding across the hallway she walked into his room to see him peering at her between the raised bars of his toddler bed. Reaching in she picked him and he tossed his arms around her neck to give her a tight squeeze.
"Are you hungry?"
"'ungry!"
"Okay, let's find uncle Ty and then we'll eat."
"'kay."

With Gabe on her hip Kaylee walked out into the living room. She didn't notice anything odd until she Gabe leaned away from her and strained forward. Curious she looked at him to see him trying to peer over the back of one of the couches. Turning back around she gave a startled jump and a small shriek left her mouth as she saw movement behind the couch. Trying to be quiet she put Gabe down behind her and looked around for a weapon. To her horror Gabe started to crawl around her.
"No Gabe, come back here!" she hissed trying to head him off. He ignored her.

The figure behind the couch straightened and started to walk around the edge of the cough, with Buster in her hands, when she looked up and saw Kaylee standing there.
"Ah, so your awake. You've slept half the morning way. It's almost eight."
Her voice was soft and lyrical. And she had the same kind of accent as Hannah. Oh God, Hannah knew it was her in the labs and now she's sent someone to kill me, Kaylee thought wildly. Then stiffening she lifted her chin. She wouldn't make it easy for them.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?"
"Oh, sorry about that." Bending she put Buster down then gave Kaylee a short bow. "My name is Kavanh. Call me Kava for short. I am sister to Karrick and, for the time being, your bodyguard."
"My what?"

"Ah, I see you've met my sister. Ty went to get some groceries Kaylee and asked me to stay here and watch over you. He told me about yesterday you see. He asked me if I thought my sister would be able to watch over you. I've told him about her."
Kaylee turned to see Karrick walking toward her. It was almost as if he had appeared out of thin air. He was shaking his head as he came to a stop in front of her.
"Not one of your most brilliant schemes. It was actually quiet foolhardy. I told you there are circles that you can not enter that I can. You must have patience otherwise things will implode before you realize it. Now tell me what you found out. Ty was too...upset to discuss it with me."
After telling Karrick everything he nodded his head. "I see. Everything is started to become clear. All the little ones who were lost, killed in their sleep. So young and healthy. So much to live for. This started, if I remember correctly, around the same Anastasha discovered that she was ill and her body was rapidly detoriating. No one thought much of her making a recovery. After all she was a scientist and she explained it away by saying that she had been mistaken about the depth of her disease. What I don't understand is why she would even think of such a horrible thing? What lead her to that?"
Kaylee laid her hands on her own stomach then looked over at Gabe and Kava. She couldn't even contemplate murdering him just to stay young. She looked back at Karrick when he cleared his throat.
"My sister is very good with children. And she is skilled in both weaponless and weapon fighting. Very few females enter the warrior class." He stared at his sister as she hummed a tune to Gabe which he quickly mimicked. "I'm proud of her. She's acclimated more readily to the ways here than I have." He sighed then turned back to her. There was a moment of silence and then he made an awkward movement with his hands then blew out a breath. "May I...may I touch your belly? It's most odd to me that women carry children here."
Smiling she grabbed his hand then guided it to her stomach. She watched as he closed his eyes and smiled. All of the sudden her frowned and stiffened before jerking his hand away from her.

"Karrick?"
He was staring at her stomach with an unreadable expression. He opened his mouth to say something but instead he shook his head. "I must go. I..." He shot of something in a foreign tongue to Kava before he gave Kaylee a hasty bow then turned and walked quickly out the house. Kaylee followed him.

She watched him reach the end of the driveway before he broke into a run.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Did I breach some sort of etiquette that I didn't know about?" she asked worriedly. She knew things were different on Karrick's home world. Most of their customs were completely different from Earth's but he had been the one to ask if he could touch her stomach.

"He goes to see The Wise."
Kaylee turned and looked at Kava. She was staring at Kaylee as if she hadn't seen her before. "What did he say to you?"
She shook her head. "It's not for me to share. But...he's troubled so he seeks Counsel."
"Who are The Wise?"
"They are." She smiled at Kaylee's confusion. "You have your God and we have The Wise. They encompass our entire race. They are born with the Knowing and Understand. They are not one race, but all. They are within and without. They are."
Kaylee rubbed her forehead. This made no sense to her but she nodded anyways. "Where are they? How will he get to them?"
"It is Karrick's journey. We all reach them differently and meet them in different places. Places that they decide. Sometimes they refuse us the journey if they know we can reach the answers on our own. But sometimes, if we are lucky or utterly confused, they will grant us counsel. And so Karrick goes to try and seek counsel."
Kava turned to look out the window as Karrick disappeared from view. "As far as I know this is the first time he's every thought to seek counsel. Something troubles him greatly."