#oc; kai

[maccreadysbaby]

hey friends :) just wanted to apologize for the radio silence recently. sometimes life sucks but I hope to get back to you and to all of our characters soon! I'm sorry 💔

[stormyykat]

ref for a poke trainer oc of mine. replaying pla as him so he’s the special boy of the hour

[lunar-lattice]

28. Toxic Radiation ☣️🦎☢️

Another old-timer who's I'm not sure what to do with: Kai! He's always been a gentle peacemaker who is also a mutant kaiju however!

[sleepy-angel-artist]

Decided to pixel art a good boy

[maccreadysbaby]

OPERATION: ULTRAVIOLET

alex rider + oc insert

tw: violence, because it’s a maccreadysbaby fic

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

dont get between a boy and his housekeeper, that’s all I have to say

part three

❝ RANSOM ❞

WEDNESDAY — MAY 4, 2001 — 1:28AM

THE FIRST THING KAI FELT, WAS COLD. An overarching, deep cold that seemed to originate from deep inside of him, pooling like dread in various parts of his body.

He was sitting up, but not of his own accord. He could feel that his arms and legs were all strapped down, and his head was the only thing he could freely move, lulling to the side limply.

His limbs were still heavy and a little numb from whatever drug he’d been suffocated with. He let his sticky eyelids slide open, but he was greeted by darkness. Why couldn’t he see? What had happened to his eyes?

He lifted his head up, and the movement made him dizzy when nothing in his field of vision moved to accompany it. He tried to bring his arms up to his face; but he couldn’t thanks to the something that was binding his wrists — to the arms of a chair? He couldn’t move much more than his hands, up and down, and his head. Was he still at home?

No, he couldn’t be. Even if he couldn’t see, this didn’t feel like his home. The air was sticky and wet, with a humid moisture that was clinging to his skin and dampening his hair. There was a light hum in the background — the white noise of some machine that he definitely never heard in his penthouse.

But, if he was, indeed, somewhere else, how had they gotten him out of the building? He guessed that it would have been hard for the men to get him out of the highly populated and secure skyscraper… but they’d gotten in, so he had to assume they had a way to get out again. And where was Lionel? 

That sent a sudden surge of panic streaking through him. If they had left the penthouse, they most certainly wouldn’t have left Lionel behind. At least not alive. He hated to wish it, but he couldn’t help but hope the butler was strapped up next to him. Because then, he’d be alive.

“He’s awake,” 

Kai flinched at the man’s voice. It was one he hadn’t heard before; it sounded young, a smooth tenor with a faint Southern accent, like someone from Alabama or Louisiana.

Suddenly, Kai could see.

A bag had been ripped off of his head. 

It wasn’t bright, but there was light. He blinked against the dim illumination, his brown eyes flicking around the place he’d found himself in.

It looked like… a bedroom, or something. The walls had peeling yellow wallpaper with small, fading flowers, pale and worn by time. The ceiling was covered with tin tiles, and the floor was an old, nasty wood, rotted and splitting, maybe water damaged. There were no windows and no furniture in the room except the dining chair Kai’s wrists and ankles were zip-tied to, and only one door — a thick, metal looking one that didn’t fit the room at all. There was only a single naked light bulb dangling over his head. Lionel wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

There was a man standing in front of him. In all back, with a ski mask, but not the same one from the penthouse. Maybe it was the second one who had been there, who’d drugged him? He wasn’t looking at Kai, but setting something up right in front of the boy instead. Some kind of camcorder, it looked like, that he was attaching to a tripod.

Someone emerged from behind his chair.

It was the man from his penthouse. Kai could see blood from when he hit him with the gun running over his lips under the ski mask, staining the black material even darker.

“Is it rolling?”

It was the same rough voice from the penthouse, the same one who’d demanded Kai’s location out of Lionel. He hadn’t noticed before, but the teenager sort of recognized it — he couldn’t place from where.

“Yes,” The younger, smaller one responded, backing away from the camera and letting his hands drift away from the device.

Suddenly, the larger man turned on a dime, his fist coming in harsh contact with the side of Kai’s head with no warning at all. The teenager cried out when a too-harsh pain exploded there, and the force of the strike was so strong the chair nearly toppled over, wobbling from side to side a few times before it settled again.

Kai’s head was swimming. His ears were ringing, and dots danced in his vision, his left temple throbbing with a stabbing, searing pain. The man’s hand flashed in his line of sight — brass knuckles.

Kai had been kidnapped. Like, actually kidnapped. What was the procedure for this? What had Lionel always told him to do in times of crisis? 

Panicking wouldn’t help anything, he knew that much. These guys probably wanted him for ransom money, or information, or maybe vengeance. It was already obvious that they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him — crying or begging or all the things his childish instincts wanted him to do wouldn’t make any difference. What he needed to do was think.

He didn’t have the time to think, though, before the brass knuckles switched hands and were slammed into the opposite side of his head. He couldn’t help the reflex tears that sprung to his eyes from the pain, and the chair rocked again, the floor cracking and making the chair tilt to the side under the weight of it crashing back down. He could feel blood leaking down the right side of his head a mere few seconds after the impact. 

His breaths were coming out shaky, though he tried his best to keep them steady, even. The man settled in front of him with cold, gray eyes. Cold gray eyes that Kai recognized.

“Hey there, Malachi,”

When he heard his name was when Kai realized who it was. The eyes, the accent, the build.

It was Sergeant Wilhelm, the man who trained him on base at Fort Bragg. The only other person in the whole world who knew Kai existed. How had he gotten in the penthouse? How had he known where he lived? How did he get him out of the building unseen?

Suddenly, Kai felt a slew of emotions. Anger, because he knew this man, betrayal, because it was the trainer he trusted… and despair. Because he knew that he stood absolutely no chance against him, if he decided Kai should die.

Kai didn’t dare speak.

The man licked his bloody lips, and Kai only had a half second to flinch before his fist (luckily the one without the knuckles this time,) slammed straight into the center of his face, just like when Kai had hit him with the gun. The teenager couldn’t help but cry out again when pain rippled out from his nose and made his eyes spill over with reflex tears. Blood started pouring out both sides of his nose so quickly he had no hope of choking it back.

“Don’t be afraid,” The Sergeant said, as though he wasn’t trying to literally beat Kai to a pulp. “I just have a little message for your daddy. If he comes through, no further harm will be done.”

The sergeant stepped over to his right, so Kai’s face was right in the camera, bloody and already bruised. The second man, the younger one, stayed on the other side of the device, probably to stop its recording when the sergeant said.

“Well, Joe, you see now what I’ve got my hands on,” The sergeant said. Kai didn’t look into the camera, he just angled his brown eyes down at the floor, trying to look blank. “All I want is for you to keep paying my bills. It’s simple, really.”

Keep paying his bills? Kai wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. He assumed his father paid him for the secret training Kai received. And he did a good job training him — it wouldn’t make sense for his father to quit paying him unless he planned for Kai to stop training. Was he going to stop training?

Kai’s mind was slammed back into reality when something cold touched his right temple. He hadn’t seen the sergeant pull out the gun, but his whole body went rigid when the cool metal was pressed against his skin, pushing his head slightly to the side. “If you don’t, well… I think you get the gist.”

The barrel of the gun resting against his temple made Kai feel sick. The sergeant pulled back the hammer and clicked the safety off, pushing the gun into Kai’s skin so hard it kind of hurt. He tried to keep the fear off of his face, but he could feel himself shaking and he knew it would be visible on the camera. His eyes were still watering from the punch, too, so it looked like he was crying.

“You have six hours to respond. If you do, the boy will be returned peacefully to your home. If you don’t… the CIA is welcome to look for the body,” The sergeant said, his southern drawl suddenly sounding really, really dark. “We’ll see what you love more… your son, or your money.”

Suddenly, a gruff hand had him by the chin, and his head was lifted up so he stared directly into the camera. The barrel of the gun suddenly moved, cold against the bottom of his chin. “You got anything you wanna say to your daddy, Malachi?”

Kai did nothing but subtly shake his head. He wouldn’t have known what to say anyhow, but the gun made it even harder to think. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth anyways. His hands were shaking and he grabbed the arms of the chair in a bid to hide it, so tight his knuckles turned white.

After a long silence, the younger man moved forward and cut off the camcorder. A small wave of relief washed over the teenager when the gun was removed, and the safety was clicked back on. But even if the gun was gone, the threat of death was still hanging thick in the air like smoke.

“I hate to be this way, Malachi,” The sergeant sighed, shoving the gun into the rear waistband of his black pants. “But I’m afraid there’s no alternative.”

Kai didn’t say a word. The man reached out and patted his cheek, and he jerked his head away like his touch was toxic.

The sergeant huffed in response, turning to the younger of the two men. “See to it that he gets the video as soon as possible. I have to go deal with the housekeeper. He locked himself up behind the bookcase at the penthouse,” He said.

Lionel was still at home, alive? Locked up at the penthouse — had he pressed the panic button? Locked himself in Kai’s room?

That was smart. There was a phone in Kai’s room. He would be safe and live long enough to get help. Maybe Kai’s stepfather already knew what happened. Maybe they were already on their way.  At least, that’s what he had to tell himself.

The sergeant looked at Kai with a twisted smile. “Let’s hope your stepfather pays up. Otherwise, next time you see me… will be your last.”

The young man collected the camcorder, and both of them left through the metal bedroom door, closing it behind them. The sound of locks turning from the other side came and went.

As soon as they left the room, Kai folded over on himself and exhaled heavily, taking deep, shaky, long breaths, trying to calm himself down. 

Lionel. He was going to deal with Lionel. He didn’t think he’d be able to get into his room, but what if he could? He’d already broken into the highly secure building, and then broken out again. What if he could get inside?

Kai had to physically fight away the panic that was clawing at his throat, threatening to make the air around him too thin to breathe. He had no idea where he was. Even if he did, he didn’t have the faintest clue about direction — how to get home or how long it would take the sergeant to get there. He could have five hours, or five minutes, before Lionel was possibly dead.

A string of curse words bounced around in his skull as he tried to wiggle his arms and legs around. The zip-ties were too tight for him to slide out of, and too strong to simply break by pulling against them. He looked around the room again, but there was nothing. Not that he’d be able to grab anything anyways.

Think. Think. He’d been taught how to get out of zip-ties, but not when they were attached to chairs. He could try and break the chair itself, but with his arms and legs attached like they were, he didn’t have a large enough range of motion to even think about doing anything. Best and worst case, he’d just fall over.

What could he do? What could he do?

He sat up slightly, fighting back a burn that threatened to surface in his eyes, glancing at his wrists. He didn’t have anything on him that could cut stuff. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to reach it.

One thing he’d been taught was adaptability. How to use objects on or around him to his advantage. But what good was that when he couldn’t move?

With no other clear option, he started writhing in the chair, slamming his weight side to side, forward and back so the legs kept lifting up and slamming down again with loud bangs. The floor crunched beneath him and the chair fell through, tilting sideways. 

When he jerked again, it didn’t go anywhere. 

Great.

He had to find a way. If there was the slightest chance Lionel could die, he had to stop it. He had to. 

Suddenly, the lock turned, and the younger man stepped in with a pistol clutched tightly in front of him.

His grey eyes flicked around the room anxiously, lingering on Kai, then sliding down to the broken floor and chair’s left legs poking through. “Stop slamming around.”

His hand with the gun was shaking, almost like he hated holding the thing. He spoke softly. He wasn’t confident — no, he was scared. He was inexperienced, and Kai could smell the fear of what would happen after this all over him.

He might be able to use that.

“Let me out of here,” He ordered with much more confidence and determination than the young man had. “Let me go. If you do, I can tell my father. I can make sure you don’t get-“

The man closed the door and locked it again.

With a grunt of frustration, Kai jerked and thrashed in the chair like a madman, hoping he might break it or acquire new strength to rip the zip-ties, to no avail. It was completely stuck, sideways and fallen into  the floor.

There had to be a way. There was always a way, that’s something Lionel had taught him. There was always a way in, or out, or to live, or to die, or to escape, or to win. There was always, always a way. His job was just to find it.

There was a way to break the zip ties, he just had to find it.

He scoured the room for any sign of help, but there was none. Nothing he could grab. Nothing he could use. He couldn’t even knock the chair over anymore.

Was it really just up to his father now?

Sometimes the way out isn’t obvious. That’d been something Wilhelm had taught him while pretending to kidnap him and hold him hostage. Sometimes, you can’t even see the solution. You just have to try.

Sometimes, he couldn’t even see the solution. Maybe it wasn’t around him. Maybe it wasn’t on him.

Maybe it was in him.

With no other options left in his mind, he leaned over, and started chewing on the zip-ties.

He wasn’t sure how long it took. He couldn’t even seem to comprehend time. By the time he broke through both zip-ties on his wrists, he could taste blood in his mouth, and he was pretty sure he’d need braces to fix the damage he’d done to his front teeth — they didn’t feel right anymore.

A sense of victory seemed to take hold of him when his arms were free.  He was able to stand — wobbly, because he was still attached to the chair that was falling through the floor — and pick it up. It took him a second to pull it free from the holes he’d made, but when he did, it made a loud crunch of rotted wood.

If the guy outside had heard it, there was no time. He jerked up on the chair and started shaking it frantically, slowly weaseling the chair legs out of the zip-ties until, finally, it came loose and the ties were left around his ankles like bracelets.

He was free. Suddenly, his mind spun and he threatened to faint. He was free. 

He sat the chair off to the side and shook his hands out by his sides. He couldn’t go out the door. There was no way he could bust the metal thing down, and even if he could, the younger of the two men was probably just outside. He’d get shot before he even got a chance to leave.

He looked around the room. There were no windows, and he couldn’t go busting through a wall without making any noise — besides, that would take forever, if he could even do it. He looked up at the ceiling. He may have been able to pull down the tile, but it would be loud, then he’d have to bust through the ceiling and somehow get himself up inside of it without just falling right back through the drywall.

Kai exhaled heavily, raking his hands through his hair, trying to think, to breathe, to make a plan. 

He glanced down at the crumbling floor that had caved beneath his chair. 

Yes. He wasn’t sure where exactly he was, but he knew Miami was a coastal city — and he’d learned via television that houses in coastal cities were often built high off the ground, or at least on stilts in case of floods. If he could somehow get through the floor, and through whatever was under the floor, he could crawl out from under the house and be home free.

With an exhale, he grabbed the chair and walked it back over to the hole the legs had made in the rotted wood. He tipped the whole chair up and balanced just one leg of it against the hardwood right beside the hole, and on a mental count of three, put all his weight on it.

The rotted hardwood creaked, groaned, and then cracked, the leg of the chair falling through and thudding against something else that also cracked.

He lifted the piece of furniture out, and did it again. Crack! And again, and again, over and over all around the hole until it was big enough that maybe, he could fit through. There seemed to be beamwork and electrical wires running through the floor, but it was all old and rotted out. There was a thin layer of what looked like particle board beneath it, covered in the chipped and rotted floor he’d been breaking out, and it had a few holes peppered in it from the chair leg hitting it.

Slowly, Kai put down the chair and, dusting his hands off, dropped his foot into the hole. The particle board cracked under his weight, then broke, and he lowered himself down and down until his foot hit something solid. He had to put his other leg in, too, to fully reach the bottom. He wiggled his socked toes around — mushy dirt.

Suddenly, the sound of the lock turning came. 

“Hey!”

Kai ducked down just as the man jumped at him, arms wide and poised to grab him. The teenager had no choice but to throw himself down, crashing straight through the particle board and slamming stomach-down in the dirt under the house. Dust and debris rained down on him, and he felt the man’s hand groping at the back of his t-shirt. 

“Stop! Get back up here!”

Kai rolled further under the house to wrench the man’s hand out of his shirt, and there was a crash as the man fell headfirst in the hole that wasn’t quite big enough for him.

There was probably only two feet of room down there, so Kai had to lay on his stomach and army crawl if he wanted to move. He couldn’t see a thing, and the sound of crickets and katydids started assaulting his ears, along with the scrambles and cracking of the man trying to force himself back into the house. It was all pitch black. Kai blinked, straining his eyes against the darkness, and —

A subtle glow, right in front of him. It was just bright enough to turn the posts holding up the beach house into silhouettes, and the more his eyes grew used to it, the more he realized he was out. That light was coming from something outside. 

He shimmied on his stomach in an army crawl, one hand in front of the next, toward the light. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten. He heard the man’s feet slamming somewhere above him, inside the house.

His hands hit soft grass.

With an exhale of satisfaction, he rolled out from under the house and forced himself onto his feet, swaying slightly from slight disorientation. It was pitch black and humid, with the Miami stars twinkling overhead..

He was out.

The light he’d been seeing was the exterior lighting of another beach bungalow not so far away, yellow with a bright white door. It had a light post outside near the road — a quiet road, small, surrounded with trees — that’s what he’d been seeing. There were no more buildings that he could see, and he could’ve swore he could hear the ocean in the distance.

The house he’d been in was a fading blue bungalow with a terracotta roof. It was old, and trashed on the outside, looking abandoned far before Kai had ever been there.

He heard the door of the house slam open. It sounded close, but he couldn’t tell what direction it came from, or what direction the man was going to go. He looked over at the other beach house — the lights were on and there were cars outside. That was the only place around where he could find help. But if he ran there, the man with the gun would see him.

Kai turned on his heel and ran the opposite direction, around what he thought was the back of the house. Away from the light. Away from the civilization.

When he turned the corner, the man, and the gun, was right in his face.

“Hey!”

Kai whirled around to run, but not fast enough. The man grabbed him by the left arm and jerked him back. In a split second decision, Kai cried out loudly, grinding to a halt and clutching his left shoulder, twisting his face up in agony.

The young man took pause, obviously stunned that he had caused the boy so much pain. And when he was caught off-guard was when Kai struck.

He brought his hands suddenly forward. His left snapped around the barrel of the pistol while his right slammed against the man’s wrist, and he used all of his strength to force them away from each other. The gun came right out of the man’s hand and Kai spun it around, aiming the barrel at him instead.

The young man looked horrified.

“Let me go,” Kai ordered, holding the gun tightly in his hands, aiming it at the kidnapper’s heart. “Let me go. Now.”

The man, his grey eyes blown wide, brought his hands up next to his head. “Malachi-“

“Let me go!” He ordered, flicking the gun’s safety off. “Go back inside and stay there. Now!”

The man started to back away slowly. Kai followed him all the way around the house and back into the front door with the gun, before shutting the door and leaving, the weapon still clasped tight in his hand.

Kai half wondered what was going through the nextdoor homeowner’s mind when a fourteen year old boy, bruised, bloody, dirty, with zip-ties around his ankles and a gun in his hand, banged on their door, begging to use their phone. He’d dialed one of the two phone numbers he had committed perfectly to memory.

He was calling his father.

The CIA would be there soon, and they’d probably be at the penthouse before Kai could count to twenty.

Lionel was safe.

—

tag list!

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy @mcskullmun

[maccreadysbaby]

OPERATION: ULTRAVIOLET

alex rider + oc insert

tw: violence :)

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

two in the same day??? Yessir!!!

part two

❝ INFILTRATION ❞

TUESDAY — MAY 3, 2001 — 8:56PM

FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD MALACHI GREY BLACKWELL LIVED A VERY STRANGE, VERY ISOLATED LIFE.

His days started off at precisely seven in the morning, every morning, with a health drink, an hour in the gym, and a hearty breakfast. Then came a phone call with his stepfather, who had the only home's landline ringing at exactly eight-fifteen every single day. Never earlier. Never later.

Afterwards, he would do school, for perhaps five hours. Drowning in foreign language and math textbooks far above his year, he receded to his room until he found his schooling fit for the day. He always had lunch in the midst of his schoolwork — at exactly twelve fifteen.

After, he had one hour of down time, before three hours split equally into self defense training, first aid training, and firearm safety courses that never came with an actual firearm, but plastic ones with orange tips from the store.

After those came dinner at exactly six, four more hours of free time, and then lights out. 

Malachi Grey Blackwell lived — and had lived, for all fourteen years he'd been alive — in his stepfather's penthouse apartment at the top of a highly secure Miami skyscraper. He was homeschooled, and he had been since he was old enough to read. His mother and biological father were dead, and his stepfather was hardly home; he had no pets or friends. They did, however, have a butler — an older man called Lionel, who cared for him and the penthouse.

And that was all the human interaction Malachi was allowed.

His school curriculums were sent to the penthouse, textbooks and all, at the beginning of fall and spring terms. His physical training routines were sent to him via email by a trainer he never had the pleasure of meeting. All of his other training and classes — self defense, first aid, etc. — were taught by Lionel himself.

Almost every single day of his fourteen years, he'd spent with the butler, in the penthouse.

Once a week, Saturdays at noon, Lionel carted Malachi through Miami in a Mercedes with extra thick doors, bullet proof glass, and fiercely tinted windows, to an anonymous location that housed a gun range. Malachi was blindfolded on the drive. There, the butler taught the teenager how to use any style of firearm he could get his hands on.

Once a month, every fifteenth, they traveled to Fort Bragg for more exclusive training; The disarming and disposing of bombs. Dealing with poisons and nerve gasses. Breaking out if he ever found himself in a hostage situation -- all taught by Lionel and a Sergeant who had been sworn to secrecy regarding the boy's very existence. Sergeant Wilhelm, Malachi thought he was called.

And all of that, all of the training and precautions, were put in place because Malachi's stepfather was Joe Byrne, the CEO of the CIA, whose title alone was enough to put targets on the heads of anyone who existed around him. 

Of course, not being blood related gave them an advantage already — no one would connect surnames, because they weren't the same. But that wasn't enough for Joe Byrne.

Malachi had been carefully concealed from the public eye for his entire life. Everything of his was anonymous -- the schooling institution didn't have as much as the name of the child they were providing the curriculum for, the private trainer didn't have even a hint at who they were really training. He was born via a midwife who kept no paperwork and was long dead. His birth certificate had only been seen by his deceased mother and Joe Byrne. His name was only uttered inside the penthouse he lived in. He'd never been to a doctor's office. He'd never been to school. He'd never even been to a sit-in restaurant.

Only his stepfather and Lionel knew Malachi's name. His features couldn't be tied back as a familial match to anyone, because everyone biologically related to him who'd given him his big brown eyes, almost back hair and tan, Italian complexion, was dead. It was as if... he hardly existed at all. 

But, it was safer, he supposed, if he didn't.

And they all took his safety very, very seriously.

Malachi drummed his fingers hard against the textbooks that were sprawled across his mattress, matching the beat to the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. theme song. It was dark outside, and through his bedroom window, which was one-way glass just like the rest of the penthouse's windows, keeping him completely invisible to the outside world, the stars twinkled above Miami like a million tiny fireflies.

Not that Malachi had ever seen a firefly before.

The nineties sitcom was playing on the large plasma television that sat just opposite Malachi's bed. It was perhaps the only thing bringing life to his bedroom -- a fifteen-by-fifteen room, accompanied by an on-suite closet and bathroom, built into the farthest corner of the penthouse with thick walls and a steel door. It was only accessible from the living room bookshelf. In order to open said steel door from the outside, one had to find the hardcover copy of Wielding the Economy as a Sword by David Brayke, amidst the perhaps thousands of more intriguing books, and type a twelve-digit passcode into a fingerprint-sensitive keypad on the inside of the back cover. Only then would the bookshelf split and swing open. There were three panic buttons in the penthouse — one in a kitchen drawer, a second in his father's nightstand, and a third, on the back of Malachi's headboard. Those buttons put his entire room in lockdown, and the shelf wouldn't open without detailed coding and lots of minuscule detail that only Joe Byrne knew how to perform — not even Lionel or Malachi himself would be able to get him out. It also called the police and notified his stepfather no matter where he was. 

Of course, Joe Byrne had spared no expense on spoiling his son in return for the immense safety measures and seclusion. In the bedroom alone, he had a Playstation, DVD and VHS tape players, at least three different gameboys, and probably more than one or two dozen board games he could always pester Lionel into playing. And that was among the other, more expensive hobbying supplies he owned, like the sixteen-thousand dollars worth of paint and easels and canvases that stayed under his bed, or the bookshelves lined with thousands upon thousands of titles that, all together, probably costed more than Malachi himself.

(Well. If he'd been worth anything in the first place.)

Despite everything his stepfather had lavished him with, his favorite thing to do in his downtime was watch television. The shows that he could watch on there -- shows like F.R.I.E.N.D.S., like Boy Meets World, like Saved by the Bell -- they were the closest he ever got, and would ever get, to interacting with the world he lived in. Learning about it, about how to navigate social interaction, about how fast and in what ways the world moved while he stayed stationary. He had to discover and live it all vicariously, through fictional characters played by award winning actors on a plasma screen.

Did he wish he could be part of that world? To have friends, and go to coffee shops, and school, and have fun? Yes. A hundred times yes. But would he ever have the chance?

No.

"Kai," Came a smooth voice from beyond his ajar door — a tenor tone that sounded almost melodic, with a faint yankee drawl. "Would you like to play cards?"

Kai pushed himself off of his bed and turned his television off, heading for the large metal door lined with bookshelves on the outside. He pushed it the rest of the way open and stepped through the left side of the bookshelves that flanked the fireplace, into the living room of the penthouse. 

It was lavish and modern, decorated with minimalist furniture and very little decor. (His stepfather found trinkets useless.) The entire thing seemed to be an endless color palette of gray and beige, maybe some brown here and there, accented only by the twinkling city lights and nine-at-night stars shining in the windows. It was spotless in the penthouse, per usual, because very little living ever happened inside.

He could see Lionel just through the opening that separated the dining room and kitchen from the living room. Shuffling a deck of cards in his nimble fingers at a large, modern table, Lionel Ferara was a middle aged man, maybe fifty or sixty, with greying hair on his head and a small, wispy moustache on his upper lip. He was wearing a tailcoat, like he always did, even if Kai was the only one who ever really saw him.

Lionel had more or less raised Kai from a baby. He'd always been there — he was the one who was there when he took his first steps, who cared for him when he was sick, who helped him learn to read and write. The penthouse may have belonged to Joe Byrne, but it was more Lionel's, as far as Kai was concerned. Himself, too. That is, if anyone were to actually have legal custody of him. But, since he didn't exist, he guessed no one did.

Kai made his way over and sat in the dining seat across from him. Lionel flipped and spun the cards between his fingers impossibly, even sending them arcing across the air once and landing again in his opposite hand.

Kai smiled at him. He loved when Lionel did card tricks -- it was simple, but it looked out of this world, and there was nothing quite like it that ever happened in the penthouse that wasn’t on television. "What game?"

Lionel shrugged with a playful look on his face, swiping the cards across the table to make a perfect semi circle, then swiping them up again. "Gin rummy?"

"Sure," 

Lionel had only chosen it because Kai was good at gin rummy. Every other card game seemed out to get him, even the children's ones like go fish. He could never seem to get dealt a winning — no, even a decent hand in any other card game. He suspected foul play sometimes; but what good would it do Lionel to cheat against someone who didn't exist? He couldn't even brag to anyone about it!

When Lionel finally stopped performing fancy tricks and dealt the hands, Kai realized he'd gotten a pretty terrible one.

He had a pair: one and one, and the rest were three, four, six, eight, ten, ace, jack, and king. He might've had a chance if Lionel got an equally terrible hand, but he didn't suspect that would be the case. 

"What did you do in school today?" Lionel questioned, his bright brown eyes trained solely on his cards. It was almost similar to scenes Kai saw in tv shows, where the parents would ask about their child's day when they got home from school. Only... Kai hadn't left the house, and Lionel had only been one wall away when said school was happening.

"I did lots of French, and Portuguese," Kai shrugged. "And then some Biology."

Lionel looked at him over the fan of cards in his hands, humming. "No math?"

Kai shrugged sheepishly, glancing back at his cards. "I didn't feel like doing it today."

"As long as you do the week's worth by Friday, I don't mind," Lionel said casually. The pair began to draw and discard cards, organizing them in their hands as they went. “When I was in school, I failed math.”

Kai looked up at him, eyes wide, a smile splitting across his face. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. I hated it,” Lionel scoffed. “Once I fell out of my desk and started yelling that the numbers were trying to kill me. I got detention -- teachers can’t take a joke.”

Kai chuckled -- a rare sound in the penthouse. “I can’t imagine you being that dramatic.”

“Oh, I was way worse than that,” Lionel laughed.

A long while of silence passed.

"Do you know when I'm going to see dad again?" Kai asked, swapping a ten of hearts out of his hand for a five. 

Lionel's lips stayed in a thin line for a moment, before he licked his lips. "Unfortunately not, son," He said, a solemn edge to his voice. "But, chin up. Your stepfather may be a very busy man, but you know he'll make time to see you soon enough."

Kai nodded, as if that wasn't the answer Lionel gave him every time he asked. "I know..." 

For a half an hour, the penthouse was quiet, with only the occasional triumphant exclamation, or quiet chatter, or flapping of cards against the table. They played four games. Kai won three.

Then, at fifteen minutes to ten, the landline rang.

The shrill sound startled Kai so badly he nearly fell out of his seat. He twisted around in his wooden chair to glance at the phone that hung just outside the dining room and kitchen, as if trying to convince himself it really was the source of the screechy noise.

Grocery deliveries, school curriculum mixups, salesmen, handymen, the cable providers — they all called Lionel, on his personal cell phone. 

No one ever called the penthouse but his father.

Kai whirled back around, his brown eyes blown wide and catching on Lionel's gray ones immediately. One misstep in the day's schedule and already, he could hear his heart slamming in his chest, his breaths threatening to grow thick.

Kai Blackwell had been groomed into a creature of habit. And a nasty one at that; one that couldn't even handle the sound of the phone ringing at a time it usually didn't. What if someone knew about him? What if a criminal was on the other end of the line? What if his father had died? What if they were going to die?

Lionel put his cards down on the table and held a slightly wrinkled hand toward him. "Easy. Probably just a repairman or the landlord checking the line."

Lionel stood hurriedly, walking around the table and out the opening back into the living area. He stopped out there at the wall-phone and picked it up, making brief eye contact with Kai, who didn't dare take his eyes off of him.

"Hello?"

Kai couldn't hear the voice on the other end. He couldn't hear much at all over the sound of his foot tapping anxiously, of his heart beating three times the normal speed in his ears. He stared hard at Lionel, trying to read his face, but it gave nothing away.

"Sorry, I think you have the wrong number," He said calmly, casually, giving the boy no anxious or unsettled queues. "No, that's okay. Bye-bye."

He hung up the phone with a ding, and for a moment, he stared at the receiver. There was something swirling grimly in the back of his gray eyes that made Kai uneasy, jittery. 

"What is it?" The teenager asked quickly. "Who was it?"

Lionel turned toward him with a forced smile. "I... I think it's about your bedtime now. No worries. Hurry along, I'll clean up our game."

Kai didn't budge so quickly. He rose from the table, his sense of alarm tripling as Lionel walked back over to him. "Who was that?"

"Just a wrong number," Lionel replied, grabbing the box their cards had come out of. "Off to bed, now."

Kai moved, slowly, back to the open bookshelf in the living room, keeping his eyes trained on Lionel. He didn't give up his reassuring smile as he began to gather the cards.

Then, came the whirring.

Kai whirled around to face the hallway that doubled as a small entry, just off of the living room — the elevator doors were there that took them straight to the lobby of the building. It was a private elevator. It stopped at no other floors but the penthouse, it didn't even have doors on the other floors. It had a fingerprint sensitive keypad at the bottom and the top so no one unauthorized could even dream of using it... but there it was. Whirring. Humming. Moving.

Was his father home?

The growing sense of dread in Kai's stomach seemed to drown out even the hope of a surprise visit. He turned to look at Lionel, who was staring at the elevator, too. He'd suddenly abandoned the cards and was moving toward Kai, batting a hand in his direction. "Go. Quickly!"

Kai turned on his heel and hurried back into the living room, his heart pounding, shooting through the bookcase door and pulling it behind him until it clicked. The latch on his side would still work to open it right up, like a normal doorknob, but on the other side, the book keypad that only Lionel, Kai, and Joe Byrne could use was activated. If Lionel triggered the panic button in the kitchen, Kai would be stuck.

Kai pressed himself hard against his door, all but flattening his ear against the almost invisible crack in an attempt to hear what was going on. He could've swore he heard the ding of the elevator.

Who was there? And what did they want? Who could get in? It was his father — it had to be his father. It couldn't be anyone else, they couldn't use the elevator. Kai's nerves were threatening to vibrate his very bones apart, his hands already trembling where they were pressed against the door.

Suddenly, Lionel's voice came: "What are you-"

And then, a bone-chilling thud, and a click that made Kai's heart sink all the way down in his toes.

He knew that sound all too well. 

That was the sound... of a gun. 

His mind seemed to split from his body and float somewhere above him. He couldn't really feel anything as the weight of the sound settled inside of him — he'd heard the racking of a pistol slide many, many times in his life, he'd been a mere arms length away from the loud crack that sent a bullet hurtling down the range and into a target.

But never had it brought the cold, dark, inescapable feeling of death with it.

"Where's the boy?!" Came a new voice — loud and authoritative, deep, and gravely. Angry. "You have thirty seconds to speak before I blow a hole in your head!"

The teenager’s ears seemed to ring. He glanced over at the headboard of his bed, and he could see the small red button shining on the back of it, covered by a plastic cap so it never accidentally got bumped. Did he need to press it? To lock himself in indefinitely until his father got everything under control? To leave Lionel out there with the man who had a gun…?

Something about the simple thought made Kai’s stomach turn.

“There’s no boy here! It’s just me! I’m the housekeeper!” He heard Lionel reply, voice quivering.

“Go find him,” The gruff voice ordered. Malachi heard the repetitive, retreating booms of footsteps heading toward the second floor stairs. Was there more than one armed man in the penthouse?

“Please. I don’t know who you are, but I’m the only one here,” Lionel pleaded. “There is no boy.”

“We know Joe Byrne has a son,” The voice replied harshly, and the sound of safety clicking off made Kai freeze. “You’re going to give him to us, or you’re going to die. Tell me where he is, now!”

Kai turned the door handle and pushed against the living room shelves silently, just enough to see a sliver of the living room. He couldn’t see Lionel and the man with the gun, because the elevator was behind the shelf — and he couldn’t see the other man who’d supposedly walked by. He wanted to look farther, but if he opened the door more, they’d see the out of place shelf next to the fireplace.

What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t let this man shoot Lionel — but he knew for a fact that the housekeeper wasn’t going to give up his location. He would protect Kai with his life, even if that meant it had to end, abruptly, and unexpectedly.

Kai wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

He looked out over the living room. On the other side, next to a bay of windows, was the door to his father’s private office. Kai was allowed inside — but he simply never had a need to enter. Behind the large wooden door he knew were bookshelves, a large mahogany desk, a designer rug, a large single panel window, and a baseball bat hanging on hooks on the wall, on display for the world.

It was old, and metal, with things written on it in marker that were fading. It was Joe Byrne’s little brother’s bat from college that he’d hit four home runs with in more than one game his senior year. 

“Please! There’s no one else-“ Lionel’s voice was cut off by the abrupt clack of metal against flesh and bone, and there was a second thud.

“Quiet!” The gruff voice ordered.

Kai’s heart seemed to be trying to rip itself out of his chest. The straight shot through the living room and into his father’s office tunneled and stretched in his vision, from a mere twenty-five foot run, to a mile. He could see the wooden door and it seemed to get farther, farther, farther…

There was a second crack, harder than the first. Kai heard Lionel whimper.

And in an instant, without much thought, he shoved the bookshelf open and darted out of his room toward his fathers office.

His heart slammed in his ears, and his socked feet pounded hard against the hardwood floor, arms pumping fiercely as he made the short run like he were having a foot race with a jet airplane. He heard the noise of shock from the gunman before there was a string of loud bangs, and a hail of bullets passed just over Kai’s head as he crashed into the office.

He had no time to close the door. With his vision darkening, tunneling, he fumbled against the leftmost wall, his grip coming to rest on the bat. He pried it out of the hooks and held it tight in his fingertips, inching himself behind the open door.

He was going to die. He was going to die. He was going to get shot, and he was going to die.

Kai’s hands trembling, the man slammed into the room, banging the door back against the wall so the metal knob nailed the teenager directly in the torso. It hurt, but the gunman didn’t seem to notice that the door kicked back too early, so Kai didn’t dare let himself make a sound.

The man had his back to the door. It was the first time Kai actually looked at him — he was tall and burly, wearing solid black with a ski mask so he couldn’t really make out anything about him. He had a semi-automatic pistol clasped tightly in his hands. Kai knew how to use it, how to clean it. Never, ever, had one been shot at him.

Kai had been prepared for this. This was what his father had been training him for his entire life. But now that it was here, he couldn’t seem to remember any of it. He knew that he’d been taught a way to disarm a person with a handgun, but he couldn’t remember and he wasn’t close enough. He knew techniques to knock someone unconscious in one strike, but he couldn’t remember where to hit. Why couldn’t he remember anything? 

The man turned around.

Kai‘s reaction was instantaneous. In a fit of adrenaline and panic, he brought the bat up over his head and swung directly down like a lumberjack splitting a length of wood. Hhe was aiming for the man’s head, but the gunman jumped back just in time for him to miss.

Panic surged through him when he realized he had missed. But… it was quickly replaced by shock. He had missed the man’s head, yes, but the bat had slammed into his forearms instead. The man yelled out and jumped back, and the gun clattered to the floor with a loud clack just between their feet.

Kai dropped the bat and dove for it. So did the man, but Kai was much smaller than him and was able to drop to the floor much faster. He grabbed the pistol and, in one swift movement, swung his arm around with every bit of strength inside of him and slammed it into the man’s face with a crack.

The man was crouched from reaching for the gun, so he fell back onto the floor with a thud, blood pouring from his nose. Kai threw the gun far behind the door and picked up the bat again, bringing it down on the man’s head with a ding, one, two, three times until he had stopped moving.

Kai was trembling. He felt like he might vomit. He stood over the man for a solid ten seconds before, with shaky hands, he grabbed the pistol, flicked the safety on, and left the office with both weapons in hand.

“Lionel!” He called. The older man was still crumpled in the entryway hall, and Kai ran for him immediately, hitting the floor and sliding the final five feet on his knees across the hardwood. 

Lionel was conscious and sitting up, but his nose was bleeding at an alarming rate. His forehead was split and leaning crimson, and his left eye was bloodshot and already swelling.

Kai dropped both weapons with clatters and grabbed the man by the head, examining the wounds. He felt like he was forgetting something — but there was no time to remember. His adrenaline was making mind fuzzy. He almost felt like crying. “Lionel.”

Lionel grabbed his arms with a forced smile. “I’m okay, son.”

Kai couldn’t breathe, and he was shaking a lot. He inhaled, a sharp, gaspy sound.

Lionel’s brown eyes flicked to something behind him. “Kai!”

Suddenly, someone had him by the neck, and a cloth was forced over his nose and mouth. Panic flooded his veins, and he jolted, bringing his hands up to pry and claw at the arms around him, to no avail. They were too strong.

His limbs started to go numb, and heavy; it was hard to move. His vision was turning black at the edges. Lionel reached out for him, and a boot kicked him roughly in the head. 

That was the last thing he saw, before his world went dark.

The thing he’d forgotten… was the other man in the penthouse.

—

tag list! I’m just assuming currently so forgive me if you despise me and don’t want to be on it lol

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

[maccreadysbaby]

OPERATION: ULTRAVIOLET

alex rider + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

AAAANNNNDDDDD enter two more supporting main characters... ooo, aaaah

part eight

❝ RIVER ROCKS ❞

SUNDAY — MAY 7, 2001 — 5:33AM

IF KAI ADDED UP ALL THE TRAVELING HE’D EVER DONE IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE, IT STILL PROBABLY WOULDN’T ADD UP TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT TOOK TO GET TO THE SUMMER CAMP.

They spent eighteen and a half hours on a plane from Heathrow Airport, London, to Darwin Airport, Australia. Kai had chewed through eight of the tablets Crawley had given him in the single flight. The package said not to take more than six within a twenty-four hour span, but he decided that, if it was going to be motion sickness medicine that killed him, it was probably just his time to die anyways.

When they landed, they fought their way out of the airport and took an eight hour ride in a shuttle bus (provided by the River Rocks Camp itself) full of parents and campers, all the way from Darwin to the actual summer camp, out in the middle of nowhere in the outback. Twenty-six entire hours on the move, not counting the time spent in customs or at terminals.

Kai and Alex had met up with their fake parents at Heathrow Airport at four Friday morning, right after leaving the MI6 headquarters. Adalind and Jeremiah Cross, Kai’s fake parents, were both very... serious individuals. The couple had been in formal work attire when Kai met up with them, as though they were going to some big conference instead of taking their fake son to summer camp.

They didn’t speak or even flash him a smile when he arrived. He was glad that lawyers worked a lot and seemed the type to neglect their children -- because these people certainly weren't trying to make him look like part of their family. The only thing that seemed to keep him tethered to the pair was the dark eyes, dark hair, and tan italian skin that Jeremian Cross shared with him, giving them a striking resemblance to one another. Kai had more petite features, but that could've come from Adalind, whose entire face was sort of small and mousy. Anyone with a pair of eyes would suspect that they were his parents in passing -- and he wondered if the pair hadn't been chosen by MI6 for their appearances alone in relation to his.

The couple only seemed to speak and show the faintest personality to Alex's fake parents, Richard and Denise Harper. The blonde-haired-blue-eyed British couple were the polar opposites of Adalind and Jeremiah, and Kai wondered how the four of them had become friends. Richard and Denise put on a good show pretending Alex was theirs, going as far as to call him pet names and kiss him on the head. They even hugged and spoke to Kai, too, like they'd known him his whole life. If the two families' quiet conversation was ever overheard, they would simply look, sound, and act like two couples who were taking their sons to a posh summer camp in Australia. No passersby would even think to question it.

Hopefully, neither would Leon Waters.

Alex had slept for the majority of the flight; which was fine, because Kai didn't feel like coming up with a bunch of random things to talk about. What would Malachi Cross talk about, anyways? On the eight hour bus ride that came after, Kai had been the one to doze off instead. He was pretty sure he dreamed about Alan Blunt getting onto him for not staying alert on Australian soil.

Suddenly, Alan Blunt's face was replaced by the sensation of someone nudging his shoulder.

Kai peeled his heavy eyes open, blinking against the bright sunrise beaming through the bus windows that definitely hadn't been there when he fell asleep. Kids and parents were shuffling around inside, an overlap of soft murmurs filling the rectangular cabin. On his right side sat his fake mother, Adalind Cross, her nose buried down in a book. She had headphones on, but the cord vanished into her purse. Her husband had dozed off on the other side of her.

Alex, who was on Kai's left side, sandwiched between him and his own fake mother, pulled his hand away.

"We're almost there," He said. "Driver says five minutes."

Kai straightened in the seat, watching all the hustle and bustle as the kids around the bus got more and more eager to get off. Most of the ones, at least there, all seemed to be around his and Alex’s age. Some younger, some older, but the majority looking not too far off from them.

He let his gaze drift from the inside of the bus to the outside. Past the glass was the proper Australian outback, looking just like it did on television. Red dirt peppered with sparse green trees and scraggly shrubs, rocks jutting out of the ground, and strange hills with flattened tops like someone had taken a knife to them. Every few feet there was a tuft of golden grass that was swaying gently in the breeze. The entire view was laid on a backdrop of an orange and gold sunrise that made the entire desert glow.

Kai pushed himself up in his seat a little more to see over some other passengers' heads. He'd only ever had a view out the window of his penthouse. There he could see buildings, roads, the sky. Here, in Australia, everything seemed oversaturated, bathed in oranges and yellows and reds, sprinkled with bright greens and gold. Way more alive than the dull, gray city of Miami.

But suddenly, Kai remembered -- he wasn't from Miami. Malachi Cross was from L.A., and he was rich, and he probably wouldn't be acting like he'd never seen a desert in his life.

Reluctantly, Kai shrunk back down in his seat and watched the colors fly by without paying much attention. Instead, he twisted one of the wooden beads that circled his right wrist.

Adalind, on Kai’s right side, took her headphones off and elbowed her husband — rather violently for them to be in love with each other. “We’re almost there.”

Jeremiah woke with an unintelligible grumble.

“I overheard some other kids saying Leon Waters greets everyone as they get off the buses,” Alex muttered quietly. Kai looked over at him for a split second before shifting his gaze down to his red tennis shoes. He kept fiddling with his bracelet, giving Alex a faint shrug.

“I just hope my parents don’t embarrass me,” Is what Kai said. In reality, he was hoping the couple didn’t act suspicious and give him away. They hadn’t been very good at this so far, and with the celebrity-and-possibly-criminal-in-question standing right in front of them?

He saw Alex nod from the corner of his eye. “Me, too.”

Kai snorted. “Yours would probably burn the whole camp down if you asked them to.”

Alex said nothing. Kai glanced over at him, catching sight of something sort of grim swirling in the back of his brown eyes. Only for a moment, though, before Alex looked back at him, and whatever it was was carefully shielded from his view.

Kai briefly remembered that Alex had no parents.

"We passed the zoo," Alex continued, pointing toward the back of the bus. "Not too far that direction."

Kai merely nodded.

Finally, a squeak came from the vehicle's breaks as the bus slowed to a long stop, halting his thoughts in their tracks. The windows in front of him were still displaying the untouched, brightly colored Australian outback — but when he turned, he saw the camp they would be staying in rolled out over the red landscape like a photo in a home magazine.

Peppered evenly across the stunning landscape was a myriad of buildings, all expensive and modern looking. There had to be over two dozen spread out across the desert -- smaller ones that looked like bungalows, with pastel colored brick, wood accents, and black, tin roofs, all built not too far from one another. Nestled somewhere in the middle of the bungalows was a group of larger buildings, modern and sleek, coated in the same pastel colors and wood paneling. The entire place was decorated with sports courts and pools and picnic tables. There was a fence around it, too -- made of upturned, thin logs with pointy tops, but it was so short anyone could step over it with little difficulty.

Kai couldn't help but think the whole thing looked like it didn't belong there at all, at the same time that it looked so... Australian. The colors were vibrant but didn't stand out against the outback, and the sleek, simplistic style lended itself to the camp's surroundings. It had a way of feeling brand new and, simultaneously, like it had been there forever.

The bus had parked in front of a large gate built into the fence, made of the same logs, but exceedingly tall for no apparent reason. There were tables set up there, and Kai spotted bright orange shirts of camp staff scuttling around, helping with bags and directions and showing people around. Several buses had arrived just before them, and all of the passengers were gathering their luggage while camp staff worked to herd them to the tables at the gate, which must've been some sort of check-in.

Kai spun a few of the beads on his wrist.

The bus driver stood up and said something Kai couldn't decipher through his thick Australian accent. At once, everyone in the cabin stood and started to shuffle around eagerly.

Kai's fake parents rose at the same time as everyone else, situating their things. He could've swore he saw Adalind brush her blonde hair with a miniature comb that she shoved back into her purse in record time.

"Come on," She urged, not even sparing a second to glance back at him. Her perfectly manicured fingers pinched the sleeve of Kai's black t-shirt and pulled him along behind her, as she and Jeremiah cut through the crowd toward the bus door, leaving Alex and his fake family in their dust.

The three of them stepped off of the vehicle into... well, the desert. It was five-thirty in the morning local time, but the air was already warm from the sunrise, and the sky was clear. There were kids and parents and staff scurrying in every direction, buses arriving and pulling off, and the whole place seemed electrified by the overlapping hum of excited voices and soft music that seemed to be playing from nowhere in particular.

Malachi Cross, however, would not be as excitable as the rest.

He stayed quiet and stood off to the side as his parents urged the bus driver to get their bags out first, nagging at him when he couldn't get the key to work the first time. Kai decided he pitied anyone who ever had to work with these people. And any future children they might have, for that matter. Adalind held onto his sleeve with two fingers the whole time like he was going to make a break for it into the desert, and Jeremiah ended up swiping the man's key out of his hand and unlocking the underbelly compartment himself when the elderly driver wasn't fast enough.

At least he kind of understood why Malachi Cross was the way he was. If these people were like this in public...

Soon, he was being handed an old-timey blue suitcase and a black duffel bag, and once he'd got them situated in his arms, Adalind tugged him toward the tables at the gate.

He turned and scanned the crowd. He didn't see Alex.

Kai was quiet at check-in, letting his parents do all the work while he sat and watched everyone around him. Adalind and Jeremiah fussed over finding a printable ticket in their bag, and the young girl who was sitting on the other side of the table, waiting to stamp it and give Kai an orange bracelet, looked less than amused.

Tapping his foot quietly, Kai leaned to one side and glanced through the camp gates. There were dozens of people inside hurrying around -- but a group of them huddling to the right of the main gate caught his attention.

It was a few pairs of parents and some children, one or two staff; all circled around one man.

Leon Waters.

He looked just like he did in the photos Kai had seen of him. Tall, with sandy, reddish hair and crystal blue eyes. He was wearing outdoor pants and a simple crimson shirt, pointing off into the camp with a blindingly white smile that could probably bewitch women from miles away. He had endearing wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and smile lines, and Kai wondered why a rich man like him, hosting a wildlife summer camp, would possibly want to blow anything up. Wouldn't that just kill a bunch of animals?

"Here," Adalind shoved a small, rubbery orange bracelet in Kai's hands with a disapproving glare. On it was printed his name and the words: Eagle Cabin. Camp staff put orange tags on both of Kai's bags and whisked them away somewhere, and when they were gone, Adalind grabbed ahold of his sleeve and started to pull him again. "Come on."

Kai could do nothing more than follow her. He fumbled the bracelet on with one hand -- on the same wrist as the one Smithers had made him -- being tugged forward aimlessly as the couple pushed their way through the crowds and into the logged gates. Past the fence. Past Leon Waters.

Just when Kai thought they might make it past the millionaire playboy unseen, the group that had been talking to him walked away, leaving nothing more than open space between Leon Waters and the Cross family.

And of course, Kai's dysfunctional mother jerked him to the side, bee-lining for the owner with a bright: "Hey!" The simple exclamation was the most exuberance Kai had seen out of her or her husband for the entire two days he'd spent with them.

Kai wanted to shrivel up and die the closer they got to Leon Waters -- millionaire, activist, potential criminal -- but the man took the sudden interaction in his stride. He smiled brightly and immediately extended a hand in Adalind's direction. "Leon Waters, pleasure to meet you." The man had an American accent tainted with a little Australian lilt that Kai hadn't really been expecting.

"Adalind Cross," She replied, and the damned woman even smiled, something she never did to her actual husband or fake son. "This is my husband Jeremiah. I... think we spoke over email."

"Ah, yes," Leon smiled, his crystalline eyes trailing the three of them, lingering on Kai. He shook Jeremiah's hand with a warm greeting, and then extended it toward Kai. "And that means you must be Malachi Cross."

Kai said nothing, but reached out and shook his hand tentatively. Leon's bright blue eyes and sincerely joyful smile seemed to be boring into his soul without his consent. He looked like someone off of a cologne commercial, or a wax doll in one of those creepy museums -- unreal, too genuine, too happy.

Adalind suddenly elbowed Kai roughly in the shoulder, and he stumbled slightly on his feet, clearing his throat.

"Uh... hi," He muttered.

"Pleasure to meet you, young man. I hope you get the most out of your time here with us," Leon smiled. "Do you have any questions, or need help finding your cabin?"

"Yes," Adalind stated. All three of them, Kai, Jeremiah, and Leon, just looked at her for a long moment. She stared at the millionaire for a beat too long, her blue eyes sparkling oddly, before she decided she should speak again and cleared her throat. "We, uh... we spoke about a counselor in our messages. I was hoping my husband and I might get to meet him, since our son--" She slapped a firm hand on Kai's shoulder and shook it a little, as though trying to remind herself what exactly she was pretending. "--is going to be in his care."

"Oh, of course. Give me just a second," Leon smiled, turning and scanning the crowded camp.

Kai hadn't been around many genuine people. Nor had he been around millionaire activists, or men who were planning to set off a bomb somewhere -- but Leon Waters, for now, just looked like a guy trying to run a summer camp.

Kai scratched the back of his neck and turned around, briefly scanning the families that were entering through the gates. If something was off about this guy, Alex would be the one to tell, not him. Kai had only interacted with about four people for the first fourteen years of his life; so social cues weren't exactly his forte. How could they be?

But Alex wasn't there. His fake parents hadn't fought people tooth and nail to get off the bus like Kai's, so they had to have gotten stuck in a line somewhere.

Kai's attention was dragged back to Leon when he shouted across the expanse: "Kane!"

The camp's owner had turned and was looking across the way at a peach colored bungalow, where a small gaggle of younger looking, male staff members were carrying luggage inside. At the name, one of them turned, scanning the grounds before his eyes landed on Leon Waters.

Kai shoved his hands in his pants pockets as Leon exaggeratedly waved him over, glancing over at Adalind and Jeremiah. The man was scrutinizing Leon with a tangible intensity, his eyes boring into the side of his head, while Adalind just stared unabashedly at him. He was almost embarrassed to be seen with them, and they weren't even actually related.

Immediately, the boy who'd been carrying the luggage set it down on the porch of the small bungalow and broke off from the group, quickly jogging over to them.

"This--" Leon smiled at Adalind and Jeremiah, holding his arm out toward the counselor as he approached. When the boy finally made it to him, Leon clapped him on the back. "--is Kane Bailey. He's going to be the one in Eagle cabin with your son."

Kane looked young -- maybe even younger than twenty, with dark chestnut hair and these hazel eyes that turned from green to brown in the center. He was wearing a bright orange t-shirt with the River Rocks logo on it, and smiled just as bright as Leon when he was introduced.

"Hi, nice to meet you," He muttered as he shook both of Kai's fake parents hands.

"Kane, this is Malachi Cross,"

Kane shifted his gaze to Kai and smiled; but it didn't seem as showy or commercialized as Leon's smile did. His was more genuine, like a kid doing something he enjoyed.

"Hey," He said, holding out a hand toward Kai. His accent was thick and undeniably Australian. "Nice to meet you. Looks like you're going to be stuck with me for a few weeks."

Kai shook his hand and smiled faintly, letting the fake grin drift away as soon as Kane's gaze flicked back to someone else.

"Kane is a registered EMT in America; that's where I met him and offered him a summer job," Leon explained, squeezing Kane's shoulders supportively. "He's the only counselor here I'd trust with my own children, seeing as my son has unique medical needs of his own. It may ease your mind to know that my son, Hugh, is staying in Kane's cabin this year as well. You might like to meet him, Malachi."

Kai said nothing, just looked down at his red tennis shoes.

"Sorry... he's a little shy," Adalind said with an unamused chuckle, pinching at Kai's arm. She was practically leaking disapproval, and Kai was pretty sure it was because she had a schoolgirl crush on the man in front of her even though she was married to the man next to her.

"No need to apologize," Leon waved her off. "What about this -- Kane, you take Malachi and show him to the cabin; help him get settled while I talk logistics with his parents? Does that sound okay?"

Everyone was looking at him, and he realized it was because Leon Waters was talking directly to his face.

Kai shrugged, only looking up at the dazzling man momentarily before his eyes trailed back down to the red dirt beneath them. He dragged his toe in it. "That's fine..."

“I love you, honey. Have the best time,” Adalind said immediately, reaching out and reeling Kai into her, as though looking like a good mother would make her seem more attractive to the millionaire. Kai didn’t make an effort to hug her back.

Jeremiah also gave him an awkward side hug, and muttered something quiet that no one quite heard. Kai smiled an obviously fake smile at whatever remark it was, pulling himself away and bringing his hands together in front of him, completely ready to be rid of whatever interaction was happening. He spun the beads on his wrist with a few small, wooden clacks, glancing back at the gate for Alex, who was still invisible to him.

Leon Waters smiled with what looked like a small bow. “I hope you have a great time, Malachi.”

Kai merely nodded. With a bright smile, Kane Bailey reached out toward him, looping one arm around his shoulders and tugging him out of the group with a heavy, pleased sigh.

Once they were out of earshot, Kane spoke: “I know Mr. Waters can be a bit much sometimes. He’s a big personality to have all up in your face.”

“I don’t think my mom minded,” Kai replied shortly. Kane, obviously not expecting the quip, suddenly snorted, turning away as though he wasn’t actually supposed to laugh at a statement like that.

“It’s… just how he is,” He spoke softly, a small smile playing on his lips. “No one can really escape his charm. I mean, I moved to America to be an EMT and then the dreaded guy convinced me to follow him back here for the summer.”

Kai said nothing, but walked alongside Kane as they made their way down the walkways and paths cleared in the outbacks red dirt. He seemed to know the place like the back of his hand, and the entry disappeared farther and farther behind them, the overlapping hum of conversation dying away as they made their way into the maze of less populated buildings and bungalows. There were staff in the same orange shirt as Kane hurrying around, organizing luggage and guiding campers to their buildings.

“Have you ever been to Australia before?” Kane questioned. They rounded one of the big buildings in the middle; modern and sleek with a bunch of windows that Kai could see cafeteria tables through.

“No,” Kai muttered, watching his red shoes as they patted on the dirt. “I’ve… never been much of anywhere.”

“Lucky you picked the best country to visit first!” Kane exclaimed with a smile. “There’s nowhere quite like it.”

Kai said nothing. They rounded a few more bungalows before it became clear where they were heading; one with light blue brick that contrasted the outback starkly, but still not too bright to look bad. The roof was black metal, asymmetrical and off-center in a bid to look cool, but Kai just thought it sort of looked funny. There was a small concrete porch on the front and decorative woodwork beams to hold up the roof, unstained and a natural orange-ish color. The door was the same exact material. Burned into the wood were the words: Eagle Cabin. Kai thought it was ironic, seeing as the quaint little building wasn’t a cabin at all. There was a laminated paper taped next to the door with a list of eight names: six campers and two counselors. Kai caught sight of the names Malachi Cross and Alex Harper on it.

“Here it is: home sweet home for the next two weeks,” Kane announced, heading for the front door and swinging it open. “There is a camper sleeping inside. Not that I think you’ll have any problems with being too loud, but just in case you decide to start playing the tuba.”

Kai said nothing, Kane’s attempt at humor falling flat. With no more words, he stepped into the small bungalow.

Kai stayed close behind him. He turned one last time, glancing out at the rest of the camp, scanning the grounds for any sign of Alex or his fake parents.

There was nothing.

With an exhale, he went inside, and Kane closed the door behind him.

Kai glanced up at him. As his eyes adjusted to the inside of the cabin, he was greeted by a simplistic, modern living space decorated in shades of orange and yellow. There were two couches, two chairs, and a coffee table, all sprawled on a big rug, and a wooden door off to each side. The whole back wall was glass — sliding accordion doors that would open the whole thing up to the expansive, empty outback on the other side. There were more laminated papers taped up on the side doors — they must’ve had names, but Kai wasn’t close enough to read them. He was close enough, though, to spot his bags with tags sitting outside the door of the left bedroom.

Kane cleared his throat. “Were you looking for someone? I thought you kept turning around.”

“Oh, uh,” Kai shrugged, keeping his eyes firmly on his shoes. “I just came with a friend.”

“Oh, yeah. Alex Harper, right? Your parents requested that you two room together,” Kane explained, heading to the leftmost of the doors and scanning the names on the page. “I can go get him for you, if you like.”

Kai looked at Kane, then down at his hands. It would be nice to have a semi-familiar face in a place so different and unlike anything he had ever seen before. But Alex? Kai had already been humiliated enough; he was not going to have a camp counselor go find Alex for him because he didn’t want to be alone in a new place. That would be a new level of humiliation. And in front of Alex Rider? A seasoned spy who probably knew Kai was way out of his depth and didn’t belong here in the first place? He would not give him the satisfaction.

“No, that’s okay,” Kai replied shortly. 

“Alright,” Kane nodded, then pointed at the leftmost door, toward Kai’s bags. “Well, in there is where you, me, your friend Alex, and Hugh Waters will stay; he’s the son the owner was talking to your parents about,” He jabbed a finger at the other door. “And in there is the other Eagle counselor, Will, and three campers that he’ll spend most of his time with — but none of them are here yet. Today is mostly a settle in day — campers will be moving in all day long. The mess hall is free-reign until about four. Then we’ll have dinner at six, and after that everyone will sign up for the activities they want to do. Then it’s lights out. Pretty simple — a low expectation and low stress day. You can more or less just… hang out.” 

Kane punctuated the end of his sentence with a not-so-graceful flop onto one of the couches. 

Kai looked at him, then nodded blankly. “Okay.”

Suddenly, the door to the left, the one with Kai’s bags in front of it, swung open, and out came a boy. 

He was a little bit taller than Kai, but probably shorter than Alex, with this light brown hair and crystalline eyes reminiscent of the millionaire Kai had interacted with at the front gate. Hadn't Mrs. Jones said he was younger than them? He was wearing a white t-shirt, dark green zip-vest, and these brown cargo pants that had…

Kai blinked twice, focusing his gaze on the sliver of metal that was peeking out at the left ankle of the boy’s pants. When he took a step out of the bedroom, more of the metal was exposed, and it seemed to be on top of — or in place of? — his leg.

“Hugh,” Kane was quick to sit up straighter, an irked look crossing his face. “It’s five thirty. You’re not supposed to be up for another hour and a half.”

"I couldn't sleep," The boy -- Hugh -- replied with a rather dramatic groan and a distinctly American accent. Kai watched in silence as he made his way over to the couch across from Kane.

"Did you take your meds?" The counselor continued.

Hugh made an eh sound, plopping down on the couch. The ankle of his pants shifted at the movement, revealing that, indeed, there was a thick rod of metal going into his shoe instead of an ankle.

And Kai just... stared. Blankly. Bewildered.

Did Hugh Waters have a metal leg? When did humans start getting metal parts?

"Hugh, this is Malachi Cross. He's one of your bunkmates," Kane said suddenly, gesturing to Kai with one hand.

Kai blinked, shaking his attention away from the boy's metal leg as Hugh's gaze came to rest on him. "Uh, yeah. Hi. Um... Kai is fine."

Hugh scanned him quickly, a small smirk tugging up on one corner of his mouth. "And what got you put in the cabin for broken toys?"

"Hugh," Kane warned.

Kai blinked twice, glancing between the pair. "I... have asthma."

Hugh nodded to himself. "Cool. I have insomnia."

Suddenly, he reached down and pressed at something through his pants, pulling on his shoe a second later. There was a pop, and suddenly, his leg from the knee down came free. He pulled it up and out of his pant leg, just pointing it up in the air. "And I'm missing a leg."

Kai suddenly thought he might need more motion sickness medicine even though he wasn't moving. He merely stared at the long metal appendage that was in Hugh's hand. It was perfectly molded to the shape of a human leg, but made from plates of reflective metal, pins, screws and silicone. Kai's eyes flicked down to the empty, dangling pant leg, and it lingered there.

"Put it back," Kane ordered through his teeth, looking quite done with Hugh's antics despite it only being five-thirty on the first morning. "You've terrified him."

Kai finally managed to blink himself back into reality with a jolt, and he forced himself to shift his weight. Dammit -- he'd screwed up again. First looking out the bus window, now, staring at Hugh's... metal leg. Kai certainly hadn't known people put robot parts on their own bodies now, but that didn't mean Malachi Cross hadn't. His parents were rich -- how could he not know about something like that?

"I'm fine," Was what he muttered in response.

As if on queue, just in time to halt a strange and seemingly embarrassing conversation in its tracks, the door swung open behind Kai.

He must've visibly relaxed when Alex came through the cabin door, because with no further context, Kane stood and held a hand out to him. "You must be Alex Harper."

"Yeah, hi," Alex replied. His brown eyes flicked to Kai, and then to Hugh, who waved with his metal leg, the fake foot pointing directly up into the air.

"I'm your counselor for this summer; and That's Hugh Waters," Kane explained. "The four of us will be staying-"

As Kane's spiel drew on for the second time, all the attention finally drawn away from him, Kai took a second to breathe, to run a hand through his hair. In order to complete this mission, and complete it well, he was going to have to get his act together. That meant no more oogling at things that surprised him, or staring at stunning landscapes he'd never seen before. He'd have to act like he'd seen it all; for the sake of the plan.

It was obviously easier said than done.

—

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