I was reluctant to drag my attention away from Kayla. Her presence was both calming and intoxicating, and I just wanted to stand there holding her forever. Sure, I had committed to move on from Kayla Morrison, but it was an entirely different thing when she was standing right in front of me, reminding me of the years I had day dreamed about her and the fact that she had fallen in love with me before I knew I was a prince. But she was looking terrified and someone had come into the room, so I turned around, expecting to see my mother, but finding someone that was perhaps even more of a surprise than Kayla had been.
"Mrs. Youngblood?"
My former vice principal stood there in a tight black catsuit, holding a gun. Altogether, it looked slightly ridiculous.
"Hello Mr. Vonnegan, Miss Morrison," she said coldly. "Sorry to break up the reunion, but as I expected, Miss Morrison did not follow through with her job."
She raised her gun and pulled the trigger. I heard a clap of sound, and for a split second a dart was coming at me, but before it reached me, it changed direction and hit Kayla in the arm.
She looked at me with wide eyes. "Frog?" She whispered, and then she collapsed in my arms.
Mrs. Youngblood cursed. "If it weren't for your stupid deflection device, I would have had you," she grumbled.
I closed my eyes. The craziness just kept on building. "What is going on?" I exclaimed. "What did you do to her?"
"It should have been done to you," Mrs. Youngblood replied bitterly. "She's been heavily sedated. She'll be out cold for three hours. And it's going to be such a hassle trying to get out of here with two bodies."
"Excuse me?"
"I am going to tranquilize you, Mr. Vonnegan. Not right now, of course, because I can't seem to shoot you and I'm not stupid enough to take you on by myself. I'll just have to wait until Mr. Morrison gets up here, which should only take a minute now that I've alerted him.
"Mr. Morrison?"
"Yes, Kayla's father," she replied. "I told him it was a bad idea to bring his daughter along, I knew she couldn't be trusted, but he insisted. She did, however, succeed in finding you and keeping you in one place long enough for me to come, so at least that was useful."
I shook my head. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe Kayla wasn't really here and Mrs. Youngblood wasn't standing in front of me looking like a super villain. The more she talked, the more confusing it became.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked in bewilderment. "Does this have something to do with me leaving school in the middle of the year?"
She rolled her eyes. "Are you really this thick-headed?" She spat. "Being vice principal at that asinine school was just a cover. I was there to investigate you and try to capture you, but you were always so well protected. I suffered intense repercussions from the Jumerum for letting you slip through our fingers so many times."
The confession floored me so much that I almost dropped Kayla. "You're part of the Jumerum?" I said incredulously, thinking back through all of the interactions I'd had with her. "But, I thought…"
"You thought you'd gotten us all?" She interrupted. "No, you idiot. That stunt your father organized did lessen our numbers considerably, but we're never all in the same place at one time."
I took a shaky breath, feeling somewhat deflated. This made it seem like my father died in vain. Kayla was beginning to get heavy in my arms, but I still didn't want to let her go.
"Our organization is still very much alive, Mr. Vonnegan," she said menacingly, "and after we take you, we have great plans for the Gulbranak."
I lifted my chin in defiance. "I'll never let you have it," I said, surprised at my sudden bravery.
Mrs. Youngblood laughed. "I'm afraid you won't have much of a choice," she replied. "we'll be keeping you sedated for the rest of your life. All we need is your fingerprint and your blood."
The color drained from my face. The prospect of being unconscious for years and years was terrifying, but I wasn't ready to give in yet. "Well, maybe I'll just escape before your associate arrives," I countered.
She gave me a cruel smile. "That won't be very easy to do with her," she said, nodding at Kayla, "and if you leave her behind, I'll kill her."
I gulped. This lady knew me too well. I was caught. At that moment, a man appeared in the doorway. A man that had Kayla's eyes.
"What happened to her?" He exclaimed, taking in the sight of his daughter.
"Calm down, she's just sedated," Mrs. Youngblood responded. "But I'm glad you're finally here. I need your help getting a dart in the prince. He's got a mechanism in his suit that deflects anything I shoot at him, so we'll have to do it by hand."
Mr. Morrison furrowed his eyebrows. "That's fine, but I need to make sure no harm comes to my daughter."
"Don't worry. Mr. Vonnegan is crazy about Kayla. I've watched him for years. He would never hurt her."
"Is that so?" Mr. Morrison commented, a fire coming into his eyes that made him exponentially more frightening.
"Nothing happened between us, sir. I was always very respectful." This was ridiculous. I was trying to win points with a man who wanted to kidnap me and sedate me for the rest of my life. I carefully set Kayla down on my bed, and as I did, I noticed an apple on my nightstand that I had meant to eat earlier. I had a fleeting memory of one of Zane's Gulbranak demonstrations of how the metal would combust when brought into contact with any fruit. I felt a glimmer of hope. I knew I had Gulbranak woven into my suit, but was it enough? Was it the right consistency? I turned around and prepared myself to take on two people at once, hoping that my desperate plan would work.
They both began running at me at once, and I quickly tore of a piece of material from the bottom of my jacket, wrapped it around the apple, and hurled it at Mr. Morrison. Nothing happened. The package hit him in the chest and fell to the ground, and he cocked a questioning eyebrow at me. But a moment later there was a small explosion at his feet, causing his pants to catch fire. In the momentary chaos, I kicked the tranquilizer gun out of Mrs. Youngblood's hand, sending it spinning out the open door. I tried to run past her, but she swept her leg out and knocked me backwards. I saw that Mr. Morrison had put out the fire and it looked like he was retrieving something from Kayla's pocket. I got on my knees just in time to be knocked back again, this time by a powerful punch in the jaw from Mrs. Youngblood. Mr. Morrison quickly jumped on top of me with dart in hand, and I grabbed his arm before he could stab me in the face with it. We struggled against each other for a few moments, and then Mrs. Youngblood came to assist him in holding me down, and I knew I was about to be overtaken. They were both on top of me, and in the midst of me straining against them, I heard something crinkling in my suit. The zombie powder was still in its place from the presentation gala. I would have laughed if the situation wasn't so dire.
I closed my eyes, using every ounce of strength I possessed to keep that dart away from me. I should have paid better attention to Alm's training sessions, I thought. How did I beat him that one time? Oh yeah, he was distracted.
I opened my eyes. "Mom!" I exclaimed, looking toward the door. It worked. They both turned to look at the empty door, and I was able to reach in my suit and retrieve the powder.
"Nice try," Mrs. Youngblood grunted, looking back at me, but I was ready. I ripped the bag open and threw it into their eyes first. It probably stung them, because they yelled, which is what I was hoping for, and I quickly threw the rest of the powder into their open mouths. In half a second they both went limp and collapsed on me.
I stayed on the floor for a moment with my attackers on top of me. I was too tired to try to get them off. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and a few moments later my mother and Alm appeared at my door along with half a dozen guards.
"Oh, hey, great timing," I said, breathing heavily. "Way to show up after the fight's over."
"Frederick! Are you alright?" My mom exclaimed, kneeling down to inspect me.
"Yeah, I think so," I replied, wiggling my feet. Alm and another guard came over to heft the two intruders off of me.
"We were locked in the kitchen by that deceitful woman!" She yelled, pointing to the unconscious figure of Mrs. Youngblood. "Do you know how many PTA meetings I attended with her? And to think I actually invited her over for Christmas one year!"
The guards and Alm looked over Mrs. Youngblood, Mr. Morrison and Kayla, patting them down, apparently looking for more weapons or communication devices. One of the guards pulled a small key from Mrs. Youngblood's boot. "This is from one of our submarines," he announced. "They were probably planning on using it to escape with the prince." Two of the guards left to go investigate the submarine.
"What is this?" Alm asked, wiping some residue of the powder from Mr. Morrison's mouth.
"Oh, that's zombie powder from Zane," I responded. They all looked at me in alarm. "It's a long story."
"I can't wait to hear it," my mother said sternly. "But for now, we need to get the three of them to the holding cells before they wake up."
"Wait, what do you mean the three of them?" I asked. "Kayla came here to warn me!"
My mother shook her head. "We can't be sure of that, Frederick. For now, she's an enemy and a threat."
I tried to protest, but the guards were already removing her from the room. I stood there, trying to sort through my conflicting feelings. I was glad that I had avoided being kidnapped, but watching them carry Kayla away made me feel even more defeated.
*****
"The girl was clearly gathering information to pass along to her father. Why else would she have been snooping around the house?"
My mom and I were in a small conference room, and Tabitha Dahl was showing us some footage of Kayla peering into the windows of my old house in Indiana. The sight of it made me smile, but I didn't know why. Maybe it was just the thought that she cared enough about me to come looking for me. The next moment I frowned, remembering that Kayla was confined in a holding cell in the lower part of the castle until the committee could figure out she was innocent. If they decided she was guilty, she'd be shipped off to an awful facility where they had sent her father and Mrs. Youngblood. The idea of it made me shiver. The coronation had been postponed for the following week while they sorted through the aftermath of the recent attack.
"We've been wary of the Morrison girl ever since her father first attacked the king over ten years ago," my mother explained, looking sober.
I swallowed hard. Learning that Mr. Morrison had tried to kill my father in the first place had been pretty shocking, but I still couldn't believe that Kayla had really been on his side.
"For the most part, the girl's actions appeared innocent towards Frederick," my mom continued, "but there were a few instances of suspicious behavior."
I sighed. It'd been going on like this for the entire day. My mom and Ms. Dahl and the committee going back and forth about what Kayla's motives might have been.
"Like what?" I asked, feeling exasperated.
"Well, this event, for one," she replied, gesturing to the video footage. "And there was also the time I came home to find her at the house with you."
I threw up my hands. "We were working on a project!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, but it didn't seem necessary that she work on it with you outside of class."
I rubbed my temples, trying to fend off a headache. Revealing the extent of our relationship would be embarrassing, but it seemed like the only way to convince them of her innocence.
"Kayla came here to warn me," I repeated for about the tenth time. "I know it might be hard to believe, but she loves me," I confessed, feeling my face redden. "She… she kissed me."
My mother's eyes widened. "When?"
"It was several weeks ago, before I came to Gulbrania."
"You mean, she kissed you before you… changed?"
"Yes."
My mom and Tabitha shared a worried look. "That is very suspicious," my mother said gravely.
"What? Why?"
She gave me a condescending look. "Come on, Frederick, you have to admit that it was highly unlikely that any girl would want to kiss you in that state, especially a girl like Kayla Morrison."
I opened my mouth to protest, but something stopped me. A sliver of doubt entered my mind. Had it all been an act? A lie?
"The Gulbranak is an extremely valuable resource," my mom explained, perhaps in an attempt to comfort me. "People have gone to great lengths to get their hands on it."
I was confused and speechless. Would Kayla really have pretended to have feelings for me to help her father? To get access to the Gulbranak?
"We'll spend some more time on her case," Tabitha said softly. "But I would prepare yourself for disappointment."
My mom and Ms. Dahl left to go to another meeting, and I wandered off to my bedroom. I collapsed on my bed, thinking through all of my interactions with Kayla and trying to find evidence of deceit. She had seemed genuine, but it was weird that she had continued to call and text me after I had left the States. And she had always randomly showed up when I needed help.
I groaned, feeling like some great fist was pounding my heart into a pancake. I had been so euphoric about her feelings for me, and now it seemed that they weren't real. I absently picked up my phone and saw that I had a text message from Milo.
[Hey man! How's it going?]
[Not great], I wrote back, feeling the need to confide in someone.
[What's up?]
[I thought that Kayla liked me, but now I'm not so sure.]
[You're right. She doesn't like you. She LOVES you. She pretty much told me herself.]
[I don't know. I think maybe she had ulterior motives.]
[No way, man. I'm going to send you a video. I took it a few weeks ago.]
A few moments later the video file showed up on my phone. I played it and saw a crowd of students in the hallway of the high school, gathered around Kayla, who was shouting something.
"Who's Frog? How in the world do you not remember him? He was the tall, skinny guy everybody picked on! You turned his skin green!"
"Oh yeah," Brian Gibbs responded, chuckling, "that was epic."
"No it wasn't!" Kayla screamed. "Why can't you guys just look past someone's appearance and get to know them! Who are you to decide that someone is beneath you, that someone deserves that kind of treatment? What benefit do you get from tormenting people when you're not even going to remember them?"
My eyebrows shot up. I was surprised by how passionate Kayla appeared to be and my heart soared at the thought of her defending me. But then again, it could also have just been part of her act.
I glanced at the upper corner of my phone's screen and noticed that I still had a voice message from a few days ago. I opened it up and listened to it.
"Hey, Frog, this is Kayla. Sorry to bother you, but I just found out that the prince of your country is in danger, and I thought you might be able to warn him somehow. Anyway, just please call me when you get this."
I couldn't help smiling. This was helpful.