Theodore

Eighth

The bold text is Theodore's POV, just a head's up.

We were suddenly back in that room full of paintings, I stared at Theodore then at my two friends who were staring in amazement at the paintings, then their eyes settled on the two of us. We were all just staring at each other when a voice broke us out of our daze.

"Humans?!" a familiar voice snapped, Theodore was the first one to react. He turned and faced the person where the voice is coming from, I turned to look at Ms. Tate, she seemed like she was a minute away from exploding.

"Theodore, a word with you." she said through gritted teeth and I saw Theodore swallow hard, and he stepped towards Miss Tate.

They left the room and I am left with Stephen and Viv. They were looking at me expectantly.

Right, how am I gonna explain this without sounding crazy?

- - - 

"Humans, Theodore! Why are there humans here?!" Miss Tate was going insane as we speak. Her blond hair was whipping back and forth, as she threw her hands up in the air for emphasis, every now and then pointing at me with an accsuing finger. I can't blame her, I was violating a lot of rules for just telling Viv and Stephen what the truth was, and now I brought them here.

"Claire's a human, yet you allow her here?" I suggested, shrugging my shoulders. I am in very deep trouble, I might as well do my best to scoot around it.

"She's your responsibility! They, on the other hand, are not your responsibility!" she threw her hands up in the air.

"They're the only ones she has left, they're her family!" I reasoned, trying to gesture at the three of them by the end of the hall. We were by the catwalk, the workers below didn't pay any attention to us like they usually do.

"Why not just tell me the real reason why you're doing this?" she snapped, suddenly pointing at the room as well.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"That you actually care about her." she said as a matter of fact. I only stared at her, not really bothering to answer her question. Suddenly I couldn't bare to look at her and I averted my gaze. "It's not your obligation to care for her! You of all people know the rules." she whispered, shaking her head.

"I don't care about the rules, I'm going to protect her and everyone that she cares about. Even if it means staying." I whispered back. Her eyes immediately turned wide, she was taken aback by what I said and the intensity of my voice like I was so sure.

"You can't be serious, don't say things like that Theodore!" she spat, I didn't look at her. "Look at you, Theodore. You've been here for as long as any of us can remember, and out of all the people you've protected, here you are now, choosing to care for someone."

"You're asking me to stop being human." I snapped my eyes back to meet hers. She only gaped at me, shaking her head in disapproval.

"You're not even human to begin with!" she practically yelled.

"That's not an excuse." I looked at her one last time and I knew that she sensed the firmness in my voice, she must have seen something in my eyes because she dropepd the subject immediately and switched to a new one.

"Well, I also want to talk to you about the new lead that we have about Lance, how he escaped." she said. I nodded.

"Tell that to Claire, she has every right to know, seeing that she's the one being hunted down. Meanwhile, I will deal with the humans." I spat out the last part and re-entered the room where Claire was with Viv and Stephen. To my surprise, she was by the mouth of the secret passage looking back and forth between the floor and me.

"Did you hear anything?" I asked, my voice slightly tight. She nodded. "Forget about it. Go talk to Miss Tate, I'll deal with Viv and Stephen." They both looked like lost puppies. I almost laughed, instead I grinned. Claire was still staring at me before I practically pushed her to the catwalk. I turned to look at Viv and Stephen who were still internalizing everything that has happened.

Now, how do I explain this without sounding like a teddy bear?

- - -

"Miss Tate, you wanted to talk to me?" I asked, politely. She nodded solemnly with her lips pursed together. She walked towards the other end and went down the stairs, I followed suit and I can see the factory, the people working, up close.

Midway down the stairs, Miss Tate stopped. She turned to look at me and pointed an accusing finger. "What did you do to Theodore? Somewhere along the way, the mission was deserted. Tell me, what have you done with our finest protector?"

"What are you saying?" I asked cautiously, she suddenly shook her head and kept walking down the steps.

"Nevermind, don't worry about it." she waved her hand off, as if to say it was nothing. Now, I'm curious. I decided to ask Theodore later.

"Listen, Claire. What I'm about to show you is how Lance escaped. He haven't recovered the footage before until now, I'm sure that you've seen the hourglass?" she said, without looking back. I nodded but then realized she won't be looking back to see if I was agreeing or not, so I just said yes. "Well, an outside force can only do that. We found the outside force and it wasn't who we were expecting."

We went down the stairs until the floor swallowed us and we were in the basement where a series of screans lined the walls and people busy buzzing about with data on sheet or encoding or deconding information. Miss Tate kept on moving towards the door by the end of the room, no one paid attention to me, I guess it's like that here.

By the end of the room was a door with a keypad next to it, Miss Tate entered the code and the door opened with a swish. The room had only one large screen and two guys typing away on the keyboard, I entered inside with a few questions in mind: How did they make so much money for the equipment that they're using? It's one of the first questions I took the courage to ask.

"We sell teddy bears, do you know how many people find a teddy bear as a necessity? That's how we make the money, besides we don't deen all the mundan necessities like food or sleep that's why we profit larger, we don't need sleep either and these people are not humans to begin with, they're protectors as well, at least they were thrown away by their owners, no longer needed or outgrown." there was a tinge of sadness in her voice. I simply nodded, understanding. She told the guy to bring up a file about Lance escaping.

On the screen, a scene played, the camera was focused on the glass case with the hourglass full and whole, nothing happened for a long time until a hooded guy appeared. He was holding a bat. He went back immediately and the next thing I know he's hitting the camera, tearing it to shreds. For a while later, it went back on, some sort of back up sequence I assume.

He was by the glass case now and hit it with the bat. He took out the hourglass and started hitting it's side to the wall until it cracked and sand poured out. The sand piled up until it ran out and it slowly formed into a human being. It was Lance, he seemed to be thanking the guy, then his hand immediately turned into sand then to a sword and he stabbed the man in the chest. Blood spilled to the floor as the man clutched his chest to stop the bleeding, Lance started walking away. The man looked at the camera and it shocked me.

My heart caught up in my throat and I knew in that moment that I wasn't sure what I would do, or what people are expecting me to do. My eyes widened as my brain processed who the person was: it was my father.