Kill Or Be Killed

Chapter Twenty-Three

Scale Number: 1

Kalayavan looked back toward the sofa where Caterina was curled up at the end, her eyes glued on the sketch pad in her lap. He'd picked her up one along with a set of sketching pencils the last time they'd stopped, before getting that less than fulfilling 'dinner'.

At first she'd refused to use it saying she didn't draw anymore.

But when she couldn't get any answers to the same question, she thankfully had finally let the subject of his access card go, and picked up her first stylus. Clearly she could handle more than he thought, although if he thought about it too much, she was taking it a little too in stride. He wasn't sure that it would come up again at some point, and he wasn't sure he wanted to keep avoiding the truth. Soon he would tell her everything, but first he needed to make sure they weren't in someone else's cross-hairs first.

Someone who hasn't seemed to follow them, having last made contact with his threatening photos. Careful to be even more observant than he normally would, Kalayavan had been looking for any kind of signs that they may have had someone on their trail. Any familiar faces, cars or even the voices of the people around them; making sure to catalog each of them away for usable references later.

Even though he was grateful, the Sepireer couldn't help but wonder where the thief went. They hadn't seemed like the kind to give up, and definitely weren't he kind to be ignored. Otherwise they wouldn't have gone out of their way to taunt him in the first place. Which was the only reason he'd thought of taking her to Chris', his people might not have been able to stop one of his kind, but their deaths would give enough time to get away as the thief worked through their worthless lives.

"Are you allergic to borax?"

Kalayavan was ripped from his thoughts by the bizarre question, "What?"

She chewed on her bottom lip, scratching out a couple more lines before admitting, "I'm compiling a checklist, and this would cross something off."

Walking out to where she was sitting, he lifted a brow when she closed the cover of her book to hide whatever it was she'd been doing. "What kind of list? She looked embarrassed by his inquiry, spiking his interest more, holding his hand out for the book, "Let me see, Caterina." He thought she was going to tuck it between her body and the arm of the couch, a pathetic attempt to hide it from him. Not that he wouldn't be happy to have a reason to scoop her up and take it anyway. But she was coming to learn to behave, even if she was still reluctant when handing it over. Looking down as she fiddled with the pencil in her hand, too flustered to watch his reaction.

Regardless of her hesitation, or whatever kind of list she'd listed on paper, he would be sure to reward her later.

Flipping the cover open, he anticipated to see an actual list of words with check boxes. Only what he found was completely unexpected, "I thought you only started using this an hour ago."

There were three pages filled front to back with different headshot portraits of him. Only each one had the features of some kind of mythological creatures. All of which he could identify because she'd put a little label in her perfect scrip under each.

'Werewolf'

'Vampire'

'Siren'

'Demon'

'Genie'

Along with another thirteen creature versions of him.

His talented little pet looked up through her long thick eyelashes, commenting sheepishly, "I did."