Wishful Deviltry

Chapter Twenty Two

Karis woke up to the sound of her alarm clock blaring. Even though she had less than three hours of sleep, she managed to turn her alarm clock off without breaking it and pull on a pair of jeans with a t-shirt before Kaleb made it to her dorm room to wake her up. Today was the day that they were going to get Kaleb's parents back and find out if her parents can be saved.
    First, she and Kaleb would have to find something to put in the package to keep whoever wanted it satisfied without them realizing the package had been opened. Second, they had to exchange the package for Kaleb's parents then get out safely before the bad guys found out they had been tricked.
    Karis sat on a wooden chair by the door lacing up her black converse when there was a knock on the door. 'Finally, Kaleb decided to grace me with his presence.' Karis thought to herself as she started to open the door. Suddenly, the door crashed open, splintering the wood around the lock and knocking Karis face first down onto the floor. She felt her arms sting as they slapped the floor hard. Using her upper body strength, she pushed up enough to turn around only to be faced by Scraper standing at the door.  It was smiling down at her with the necklace in its hand.  The necklace that had been around her neck just two seconds ago. Flies were buzzing around the creature as the smell of rotten flesh hit Karis's nose, making her gag uncontrollably.
    Karis tried to get up to run, but the door had her legs pinned underneath it and without the necklace she did not have the strength power to move it. She stared in disbelief as the Scraper started making its way towards her.
   "What do you want from me?" Karis cried out to the monster. "You have the necklace, just leave me alone."
    "The necklace is just another piece of jewelry without you. My boss needs the key to make his weapon work.  And you are that key." The Scraper growled.
    As the Scraper started to move closer to Karis, flies started buzzing around her face. One landed on the tip of her nose, tickling her as it moved freely around her face. The Scraper grinned as it bent down next to Karis and started reaching for her with its razor sharp claws.
    Karis bolted upright in her bed, disoriented at first until her eyes focused on Kaleb sitting on the side of her bed with a feather in his hand.
    "Good morning sunshine." Kaleb snickered.
    "What are you doing? Where's the Scraper?" Karis gave Kaleb a dazed and confused look. "Was I dreaming?"
    "Whoa Karis, I just tickled your nose with this feather to wake you up. You're perfectly safe. I won't let anything happen to you."
    Karis let out a relieved breath, and then punched Kaleb hard in the arm. "Don't wake me up that way ever again. I thought I had flies all over my face."
    Kaleb chuckled as he rubbed his arm where Karis hit him. "Well, I can assure you there are no Scrapers or flies in this room. Now get up and get dressed. I'll wait in the other room for you. Oh, by the way, you are beautiful when you sleep.  You do this cute little thing with your nose."
    "Only when someone is tickling it with a feather, now get out." Karis interrupted as she threw her pillow at him. Kaleb caught the pillow in midair and threw it back at her hitting her in the head. Karis stuck her tongue out at him as he shut the door.
    "Oh yeah, make sure you brush your teeth. You smell like you were eating week old road kill." Kaleb laughed on the other side of the door.
    "Oh shut up!" Karis snapped as she jerked the covers off of her and walked in her bathroom to take a shower.

    Kaleb sat on the couch, waiting patiently when Jessica came out of her room dressed in cargo pants and a camouflage shirt that was skin tight. "Did you finally wake up Karis? I knew that feather thing would work on her."
    "Yeah. She didn't think it was too funny." Kaleb snorted. "By the way, what time are we supposed to meet everybody?"
    "We're meeting at the healing room entrance at five thirty."
    Kaleb glanced down at his watch. "Cool that gives us about thirty minutes. I packed some daggers and my throwing knives in my backpack.  Are you taking anything?"
    "I'm carrying my butterfly knives along with a razor blade in my back pocket and a boot knife. Oh and my awesome beauty moves." Jessica said as she did a little belly dance, turned around in a circle and then bowed.
    "Okay, I would definitely stick to your knives, although with those moves they might die of laughter." Kaleb chuckled.
    Jessica stopped dancing and put her hands on her hips. "That was so not funny. I'm going to go check on Taren to see how she's doing. I'll meet y'all in a little bit."
    "Right, healing room, five thirty. Got it, we'll see you there shortly."
    Jessica pointed her finger at Kaleb before she opened the door. "You two have less than twenty minutes, no freaky stuff."
   "Don't worry, that's so far from my mind at this point in time. Now if we succeed at this mission then anything could happen." Kaleb said with a smirk.
    "Now you're talking my language. I'll see you two in a bit." Jessica smiled as she walked out and shut the door behind her.
    Kaleb closed his eyes as leaned his head back on the couch thinking about his parents and the smiles upon their faces when they see each other again. He prayed to himself that everything would go as planned and no one would end up hurt. A shadow past over his closed eye lids as Kaleb felt something cool and wet fall in droplets on his face. He opened his eyes to find Karis leaning over him smiling, her damp hair dripping a couple drops on his face. She leaned down and softly kissed his lips and her necklace fell forward to lightly hit Kaleb's forehead. As she went to get up, Kaleb placed his hands on either side of her face and without moving, brought her forehead down to his lips, giving her a light kiss and then releasing her.
    Karis moved around the couch to sit next to Kaleb.  She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. "Are you ready for this today? I'm worried that this so called boss is going to know what we're up to and I don't know."
    Kaleb placed his finger on Karis's mouth then grabbed her hand to help her up off the couch with him. He gazed at Karis with affection as he lightly touched her cheek with the back of his hand. "Let's just do what we're supposed to do and go from there."
   "Okay, what time do we meet the others?" Karis agreed.
    "Right now." Kaleb said, not taking his eyes off of her. "You're so beautiful, do you know that?"
    "Thank you; now let's go before you start making me cry."
    "Wait, one more thing." Kaleb said as he bent down and kissed Karis one last time on her lips. He pulled back and looked straight into her eyes. "When we're done with this mission, I want us to go on our real date."
    "You got yourself a date!" Karis smiled as she followed Kaleb out the door.