TEN STEPS, The Kenny Ackerman Story BOOK THREE ~MAYBES by Melly O' Hara

BEYOND

CHAPTER    5    BEYOND

The honeymoon was over.
The past six months of being enveloped in our own little world, where only peace and Kenny and I existed was about to fade into a memory that I would draw on again and again in future days, as life became more uncertain and our time together more limited. With her arrival back at the Reiss Estate; Sasha's message heralded, not only her return, but the beginning of the end.

My love for her mingled with resentment because, as he healed and his strength returned, I could find no excuse to restrain Kenny's growing restlessness; his impatience at his inability to live a life that he found meaningful. A life, that I knew for him, would inevitably be filled with violence and danger; involving a cause he could fight for. Literally.
I had no doubt that his new-found wisdom would temper his actions somewhat, but to expect him to remain in the shack that had become our home was a dream that was never going to be fulfilled. Not whilst he had the famed, altered Ackerman DNA; that compelled him to fight.
And, for the past six months, it had been the very first time in his life when he'd had nothing and no-one to fight for.
Rod Reiss' suggestion to Kenny, just before he'd died, that night in the underground Cavern of the Reiss Chapel when Rod had made his ultimate grasp for power and double-crossed him; abandoning him, and suggesting that 'Kenny live a quiet life in retirement', was gradually coming to fruition.
And it was driving Kenny slowly mad.

All he was waiting for, was an opportunity.

And that opportunity came in the form of a message from Sasha, informing me that she, Connie and Jean were taking their turn at volunteering on the Estate; that Queen Historia had finally turned into her dreamed of orphanage. As an unloved, abandoned child, that had grown up on the Reiss Estate herself, she had dreamed of giving other destitute children the same bucolic childhood she'd had.
With one major difference.
These children would know love.

Sasha had been correct in her assessment that Historia's orphanage would not impinge on Kenny's and my privacy. It hadn't. In fact, I hadn't even known that Historia had returned to the Estate or started populating it, until nearly six months after Sasha's last visit. It was only when Sasha sent a Reiss Estate farmhand to apprise me of her arrival that I realised that the outside world had continued to move on without us. And changes were being made.
What I  didn't realise, however, was how profound the changes were, until the day I reunited with my beloved cousin. How far-reaching these changes would be. Or how personal.

The mild, sunny days and chilly nights of Autumn that had given way to the grey rain of Winter, had now transformed into the sweet freshness of Spring; since I'd last seen Sasha and Connie. The arrival of the farmhand, bearing the news that Sasha was at the main house and that Queen Historia had given permission for me to visit; had come on yet another beautiful Spring day.
The blue sky was punctuated with the billowy, soft white clouds that remained after the previous night's rain. The damp green grass, glistened emerald all around, replacing the gilded blonde of the paddocks that had met Sasha on her previous visit to the Estate. And everywhere, the trees shone with their burgeoning buds of purple, pink, white and yellow, as the warm breeze danced through their branches.

As I saddled Ginger for the ride to the Estate after the farmhand returned to the main house, his task accomplished, l resumed my arguing with Kenny's insistence that he accompany me on my visit. Reminding him that though Sasha and Connie had accepted him, and kept his survival a secret shared between just the four of us, that they wouldn't be the only occupants of the farmhouse. Jean would be there. And his silence would not be so easily won. Not to mention, the Queen of Paradise; Historia. The young woman whom he'd kidnapped and whose mother he'd killed in front of her.
This would definitely be no tea-party.
And he was not to come.