Keeper of the Lost Cities Story; The Lost Secret

Chapter 8

Kai was groaning and her head hurt pretty bad. Bricen was now on top of her from their fall. Kai tried to move, which seemed to get Bricen to come to his senses and quickly get off of her. 

He was blushing a lot, and Kai was sure she was too. To be fair it is kind of an embarrassing situation to be in. 

"Oh sorry Kai," He says sheepishly. Kai can't help but burst out laughing, which hurts.

He reaches down to help her up and she gently takes his hand. 

"That... was funny," Kai says between laughs. He grins at her and starts to say something but is cut off by Zayne.

"Yes! We win!" He yells running up behind Kai. "You guys good? That fall looked like it hurt," 

Kai blushed, "Yeah I'm good. Are you okay Bric?" She said looking at him.

"Yeah, I'm good," 

Asher walks up with Amaria and frowns when he sees Kai and Bricen. She realizes that she's still holding Bricen's hand and drops it, letting her hand fall to her side. 

"Okay I now have a migraine and I don't think I can play again," Kai says rubbing the spot that Elwin has been treating on her head. 

"Yeah, I kinda hit my head hard when we fell," Bricen said smiling sheepishly at Kai, "Sorry again," 

Kai laughs and looks towards her throbbing shoulder. She suspected that Bricen had hit it when they fell. Sure enough, there was a nasty bruise forming. 

"Yeah, I was thinking we could bake something," Kasi said. 

Kasi's loving passion was baking and she always wanted to show off her skills to everyone. Of course, they loved it because it always resulted in tasty treats. 

"Yum!" Zayne says. Kasi smacks his arm jokingly, "You can't just eat it, you've gotta help," 

Zayne grins and shrugs. "Sure whatever you say,"

They walk back through the door to get inside and Kai leads everyone to the kitchen. As they enter, almost everyone gasps. Kai's kitchen was huge with almost every appliance you can think of. There were pots of fresh herbs hanging from the windows and many of the gnome's other cooking items that Kai had no clue how to use. 

"Woah, this is the biggest kitchen I've ever seen," Kasi says, her voice full of awe.

Kai's father loved to cook and bake, he would have the gnomes teach him all their favorite recipes. The two used to experiment and make new mixtures of flavors, some good and some very bad. The only ones who weren't surprised were Amaria, Asher, and Zayne. They were the only ones who had ever been to her house. 

"Okay, so what do you want to bake? There is probably some cookbook with about every recipe in here somewhere," Kai says opening drawers and cabinets. 

"Uh- maybe ripplefluffs," Kasi says snapping out of her awe, "They're easy and don't take too many ingredients," 

"Perfect," Kai says. "What do they need?" 

"Oh here look," Kasi says pulling out a large cookbook from some drawer. "Here is a perfect recipe." 

"Oh those look delicious," Amaria says looking over Kai's shoulder. Kai winced when she brushed against the bruise.

"Kai you okay?" Amaria asks. She turns to look at Kai's shoulder and makes a face. "Where is the first aid, I'm sure there is a balm to get rid of that bruise," 

"Bruise?" Bricen asks coming over to check on Kai. 

"Yeah, I think I hit it on something when we fell," Kai answers. "First aid should be in the bathroom, I can just go get it." 

"Nope come on," Amaria says and takes Kai's hand. "We're going to get a first aid kit real quick," She yells back to everyone else before dragging Kai away. Luckily Amaria knew which bathroom Kai was referring to. 

"Okay... Top left side?" She asks, remembering where the kit always is. 

"Yup, same as before," 

She hops up onto the counter and grabs it, almost losing balance when Asher walks in.

"Jeez you scared me," She says once she gets down. 

Asher chuckles, but his eyes don't look happy. "Sorry,"

Amaria rolls up Kai's sleeve so the whole bruise is showing. It was bigger than Kai thought. She began to wonder what she could have hit when she fell. 

"Wow, does that hurt?" Asher asks. Kai almost rolls her eyes, it obviously hurt. 

"Gosh girl that fall must have been hard," Amaria says teasing. 

"It was, Bricen literally fell for me," Kai jokes and that makes Amaria snort. Asher laughs slightly, but it doesn't seem that he finds it funny. 

Amaria rubs a cold ointment onto Kai's arm, which sends a weird sensation into her shoulder. Kai could see the bruise get better as soon as she wiped the stuff off. 

"Thank you," Kai says as Amaria reaches to put the first aid back into the high cabinet. 

"No problemo," 

Kai giggles and helps Amaria down from climbing the counter while Asher continues to watch silently. He has been acting weird since the game of Base Quest. It bothers Kai so she grabs his and Amaria's hands and leads them to a room. 

"Remember this?" She asks as they get into the room. 

Kai looks at Amaria, who is tearing up. Kai is surprised at Amaria's sudden display of emotion in this room. Asher was more reserved, but she saw a huge grin on his face. 

"Yes, of course," He says, his voice was quiet and loud at the same time. 

"Our room," Amaria chokes out a small sobish laugh that Kai didn't know could happen. 

"We played in here all the time," Kai says.

The room was exactly as she had left it 5 years ago. Some of the toys were still sprawled around the floor from when they had played with them. Kai can almost imagine their ten-year-old selves in this room playing together. At that time, Marella was often with them too, but Kai didn't want to think about that.

"Wow, five years," Asher whispers.

Suddenly it felt like Kai had been punched in the stomach. She isn't sure if his comment is meant to be a jab at Kai for not having him over. 

"Sorry, it's not like that," Asher says like he read her mind. "I'm just saying... It's been a while." 

Kai smiles sadly, "I'm sorry I never had you over Asher," She reaches for his hand. "I wanted to, but it was just too hard. You always remind me of him," 

Asher has a look on his face that Kai doesn't understand, but she doesn't need to. She needs her friend to know that she cares for him. Kai really cares for Asher, more than she likes to admit.