Kylara POV

Time skip detected: 7 days

POV Detected: Kylara

My eyes creak open, almost audibly. I try to gather my thoughts, but they feel like they’ve been scattered to the ends of the multiverse. There’s a persistent beeping sound. A word sounds to the rhythm. Ar-quer-o. Ar-quer-o. Arquero. That’s my name. I grab onto the scrap on memory and hold it closer. Kylara Arquero. Eiss. How do I know that name? Draike Eiss. Pitch. I sigh dreamily. My fiancee. He promised... He promised that he’d be there when I woke up. Woke up from what? I look around for him, not really remembering his face, but knowing that I’d know it the moment that I see it. There’s no one in the room. Where is he? There’s a window in the door. Across the hallway, the room is labeled Metamorphosis Recovery Room 35. Metamorphosis. What’s that? Suddenly, my memories are a category five hurricane striking my brain at full force.

I am a vigilante. My brothers and I are archers, Sagittarius, and Arrow. I have healing powers that I’ve never told anyone but Draike about. We were hiding our relationship from his crazy controlling father by going to REBEL, where our friends were... Our friends. Darkling and Jay, the couple. Darknight, Darkling’s just slightly insane evil brother, is captured by Incantatus. Incantatus also killed Dove, Darknight’s son, and Peri’s brother. Peri has three friends, 12, her boyfriend, Spar, another kid, and Wilson, a griffin. There’s another griffin, Gena. I went through metamorphosis to help them rescue Darknight. Friends... Where are they?? As if right on cue, one of them with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, brownish-reddish wings, and a red and brown outfit, looks in the window on the door. Her eyes widen as she realizes that I’m conscious. She opens the door as she calls over her shoulder to someone that I’m awake.

“Kylara!! You’re up! How do you feel?” she- Talon, that was her name- asks, way too upbeat. Underneath that, though, she is feeling guilty, and saddened by something. She’s armed to the teeth.

“Thirsty,” I answer, my voice rough against my throat and strangely low. I clear my throat. “I’m thirsty.” A doctor sticks her head in the door.

“That’s normal. Why don’t you get her some water while we run some tests, make sure that everything is up and running fine?” Talon nods and leaves, while a team of medical staff files into the room and starts checking up on a ton of machinery that is hooked up to me. After a while, they decide that I’m fine and unhook me from all of the stuff. This entire time, a bunch of curious people have been peeking in the window. When the doctors and nurses leave, they all come in. Their questions crowd my brain, overloading it.

“Shut up!” I snap, and they comply.

“You look taller,” Darkling comments. I stare at him. A headache is forming at my temples, and I massage them.

“Thanks?” I say, not quite sure if that’s a compliment or not.

“Here’s your water,” Talon says, getting back. I drink the whole thing in two seconds and look around for more. Talon hands the cup to Gena. “Your turn.”

“How do I hold this?? I don’t have fingers!!” Gena exclaims. Talon laughs.

“Figure it out.” Gena balances the cup on her nose and bounds out of the room. They all let out a burst of laughter as the griffin tries to keep it balanced.

“How are you feeling?” Cresce asks.

“I feel...” How do I feel? “I feel... different.” That's right, both Cresce and Talon have gone through metamorphosis.

“Yeah. It’s kind of hard to describe.”

“Where’s Draike?” I ask, and immediately everyone’s faces and moods darken. I can hear them, muttering in their heads about they don’t know, it wasn’t their fault, they didn’t see anything, he’s probably fine, he’s probably dead.

“We... We don’t exactly know...” Jay says, not saying something that’s in her head.

“What do you mean, you don’t exactly know?” I ask forcefully.

“There was a battle,” Dom says. I don’t know much about him. His mind is secretive, and I can’t see anything inside of it.

“And?”

“And...” Talon picks it up. “After the battle was over, he was gone.”

“Like, gone, like, just walked away?” I ask sarcastically.

“No, like, he was taken,” Gena says solemnly. All I can see in her mind in innocence. It wasn’t her fault.

“He’ll be fine,” Darkling offers, but I look inside of his mind, which is an open  window.

“You’re a liar. You’re too worried about Darknight to really care about Pitch,” I accuse. He steps back, as if I'd slapped him. Then his expression changes, frustration and anger etched into his face.

“So maybe I am! He is my brother, after all. Pitch isn’t!” he whirls around and stalks out of the room. Jay curses and follows him out to talk to him. No one looks me in the eye. A couple of minutes pass. The door opens yet again. I look up, expecting Jay and Darkling to be back, but instead, it’s the Three. Swanhawk and Nightdragon greet me with warm smiles. Starwraith is serious, as always.

“Can we have the room, please?” Starwraith asks. No one refuses. No one ever refuses Starwraith. Once the room is empty they all sit in stray chairs.

“Kylara. I trust that you’re well,” Swanhawk smiles. I attempt a smile, but it’s as if my mouth isn’t working. It twists, and it’s all I can do to hold back the tears.

“Is it Pitch?” she asks, and I nod. “I know that it’s not enough, but we have every available agent out there searching for him. As soon as we have word, every agent will be sent to his location. Including us.” The others nod at this.

“I should be out there with them,” I say, trying to stand up. Immediately, though, I am pushed back down onto my hospital bed.

“You should rest,” Nightdragon tells me.

“Why? I should be out there! Trying to rescue him!” I exclaim.

“As much as we know that you want to do that, you have to rest. Your body is not yet ready to handle combat, especially at the level that you are used to. After a week, we’ll see how strong you are. Then we’ll see whether you’re fit to be in the field or not.”

“Do you even care about your son?” I ask bluntly. He grits his jaw.

“Of course I do.”

“Then why aren’t you out there?” I can tell that I’ve hit a nerve. Nightdragon abruptly gets up and walks out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“I know that this is hard for you, Kylara, but you need to trust us on this,” Swanhawk says in a reasonable tone.

“You have to rest. Everyone of the Three knows this from experience, we aren’t amateurs,” Starwraith tells me.

“Three days.”

“Deal.”

They leave the room and my friends, albeit Jay and Darkling, come back in. They’re silent.

“What did you guys find?” I ask, all venom gone from my voice.

“What do you mean?” Peri asks, totally confused.

“What did you guys find while you guys were out searching for Pitch?” suspicion creeps into my voice as I find nothing in their thoughts about searching, not that I’m any good at reading people.

“I thought that we couldn’t,” Darkling says, looking surprised. “They said that we couldn’t leave.”

“What if there had been another attack? You invited us to be part of your honor guard to protect you. That is our first priority. Besides, yes, we’re not supposed to leave,” Crescent says, and Talon nods.

“**** the rules, I’m worried about my fiancee,” I snap. “So you all just sat on your butts while he was out there, possibly being tortured and even killed?” No one responds.

“Get out,” I tell them. “All of you, get out!!”

POV End

Author's Note

Poor Ky...