Line of Fire (A Stitchers Fan Fiction- Book 1)

Chapter 9: Renunion

Kirsten's breathing momentarily stopped. She attempted to look at her alleged father with the utmost hatred that she could possibly muster, but instead she felt a tear gradually slide down her cheek. She tried to stifle a sob but the burning feeling in her throat told her that it could not be done. She violently shook her head as Daniel Stinger paced around her chair observing her emotional state, like she was some kind of science experiment.

"You're not my father. You were never my father from the very beginning." Kirsten whimpered angrily. Daniel only clicked his teeth.

"And Ed was? Kirsten, you hated both of us with a burning passion. You only person you ever showed even the slightest affection for was your mother. And the irony is you didn't even know her that well, did you? You have no one left, unless you count for Mr. Goodkin. He's the first one that I've ever seen you cry over. What a shame, he's most likely dead now, or he will soon." He sneered mockingly at her.

Kirsten began to tremble with a mixture of fear, desperation and anxiety. She could not comprehend what he was saying. All she could think about was Cameron. Her brain kept saying to her that he was dead, that it was her fault. But her heart said otherwise. She kept repeating a phrase in her mind, almost as if she said it enough, she would believe it.

He's not dead, he's alive. He can't be dead, he wouldn't give up that easily. Her inner dialogue was interrupted by Daniel's shrewd laughter.

"I know what you're trying to do Kirsten. It's almost sickening to watch you desperately convince yourself false truths. And I swear I raised you better than this."

"You didn't raise me. Maybe you should stop telling yourself false truths Mr. Stinger." Kirsten snarled through clenched teeth.

Daniel's low eerie chuckle reverberated around the dimly lit room, sending a shiver down Kirsten's spine.

"You're clever aren't you pumpkin? You get that from me. I was always the outcast, always the one that hid away experimenting while my rest of my family was having fun in the sun. They never realized my true potential.

"But they never realized how it would come to haunt them later in life. Once my parents died, I was on my own, finally free to make my own choices instead of them constantly breathing down my neck. I was finally free to begin constructing my dream project: Stitching."
He put both his hands on the back of the chair she was bound to and leaned in suddenly and whispered in her ear.

"This is where you come in missy," he said with a sarcastic grin on his face and resumed staring her down with one hand still on the chair.

"I was about in my mid 20s by now. I was deadly close to putting the finishing touches on my makeshift laboratory when I met your mother. Boy was she great! She was everything on my checklist: a sweet girl with a lovely personality, wanted a family, but she also loved science. After about a year of dating,  I proposed to her under a sunset and we got married soon after that. Once we were settled down in a nice apartment building, I decided to finally show her the lab I had been working on. She volunteered to help me along with Ed Clark to build and get the Stitchers lab up and running.

"We were just about finished to release the first stitching prototype when we found out your mother was pregnant with you. Once you were born, my secret ambition was to have you be the first and only stitcher, so of course I made up some lame excuse to hold off on the stitching project until then. I raised you along with your mother until you were of age to stitch. You didn't know it at the time, but you have been involved with the Stitchers program longer than you think."

"And I'm sure you wondered why stitching comes so naturally to you, everyone knows it," Kirsten's eyes pursued Daniel Stinger as he still paced around her, her eyes wide and heart thumping loudly in her chest.

"I trained you to become a stitcher at a young age Kirsten! I programmed the stitching technology around your personality! Don't you see? You are truly the perfect stitcher!" Kirsten's breaths turned shaky. This could not be happening. Her father was not telling her these things, she refused to accept this.

Daniel sauntered over to the dark dank walls of her holding cell.

"Maybe this will jog your memory." Daniel pulled down on a automatic lever and florescent lights clicked on. Kirsten inhaled a sharp breath at the sight in front of her. There was a medium-sized tank of water on the concrete floor with an electrode harness resting on a nearby desk chair. To her right she saw a stretcher with a white sheet covering a large lump underneath. She knew this place very well from the video Ed had left for her.

"Welcome back Kirsten, to the original Stitchers laboratory."