Journal of the Survivors

Chapter Eleven--Kyra

Chapter Eleven—Kyra

I wake up and can immediately tell that it is late in the morning. The edges of the golden curtains glow. I sit up in the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. Everything smells like Trace. It’s like a mixture of clean forest, sweet sweat, and something else I can’t figure out. I blame his pants. I throw the covers back and start to leave the room before drilled in habits take over. I was always a tidy adolescent, and so I deem it necessary to go back and make the bed. I remember my knapsack I put on the chair and go to retrieve it in order to change into something of my own. It’s gone. I search the whole room, up and down, to no avail. I growl and head downstairs, ready to snap at the person who dared to take my stuff.

I wander into the TV room, as Pale Boy called it last night. It’s spotless. You wouldn’t have guessed that seven half-starving children had eaten here the night before. There is no sound what so ever. The house is silent. With the twins here, that is nearly impossible. I meander around, in and out of rooms, hunting for my team and Pale Boy. I try each door to find that most of them are locked and in most of the unlocked rooms, they are completely empty. Room after room, I come up with nothing. 

I do, however, find the fitness room Trace was talking about. It literally looks like a whole gym in here. I walk through one of the back doors and find a giant pool. Seriously, this house has everything. I climb back up the stairs and find myself in the TV room again in what feels like hours after I began my exploration. Collapsing into the megasoft sofa, I heave a surrendering sigh. I fold up in the corner, draw my legs up to my chest, and shut my eyes. I finally start to drift back off into the lovely numbness of sleep, but of course, my peace and tranquility are ruined.

The lot of them walk in through the sliding glass door laughing their asses off.

Trace steps through first, a giant white smile on his perfectly unblemished face. When he smiles, he has these dimples that show, making him look younger than, what I’m guessing, he really is, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. He turns and sees me curled into a ball on the couch.

“So who was the unlucky bloke who had to wake you with a kiss? Send him my condolences, would you, Princess?” he says. Archer, the one who hated him, throws his head back and laughs, then gives Trace a high five.

“I thought you guys despised each other,” I voice.

“Nahh,” Arch waves away my comment. “Trace and I are buds.”

“A little old school COD and then they were best friends,” Tammy reports.

Of course. Archer has become the double traitor. If he keeps this up, I’ll have to kick his ass, even if that requires me to jump, the tall bastard.

“Food’s in the kitchen, help yourself,” Trace says as he tosses a pair of keys on the table and moseys out of the room.

“Where’s he going?” I ask the others as I stand.

“It’s best not to ask,” Jackie answers, already sounding like an expert on everything Trace.

I scrunch up my nose in disgust. Everyone just bonded to him, in less than 24 hours. It took me months to gain some of their trust and then Pale Boy swoops in and just steals them away.

“So, where were you?” I inquire.

“Trace and I were showing the others how to milk cows and ride horses,” Graham responds. “I hadn’t realized how much I miss my farm.”

“I had no idea that milking a cow was so difficult,” Jackie laughs. The day before her sister had died, and now she’s joking around. I guess it could be faking or just her way of healing, but I grieved for, well, I still am grieving for my family, and that was years ago. Maybe she’s just better at hiding it.