Three Hearts Left Intact

Chapter 37: Memories

From behind them, the three men looked seeing Zander holding a colorful sheet of paper in his hands while Nina smiled brightly at him. "He was getting bored so I suggested we have some fun coloring." She said pushing Zander's back gently. "And he decided to make a little something for you."

Shyly Zander took small steps forwards until he was in front of Alex. Handing him his work, Alex took one look at it was nearly teared on the spot. Looking back up at Zander he had a half worried and half excited face on. "I love it." He told the small man while holding it close to his chest.

"Oh come on, let me see it." James bickered trying to get behind Alex's shoulder to look at the art work.

Proud of the creation, Alex turned the sheet around revealing a small drawing of both Alex and Zander in high school. Inside of a building on the bleachers a small cartoonish character resembling Zander was standing as he cheered, as a cartooned version of Alex was in fight mode on the wrestling mat. One small part that struck Alex's heart particularly was the small hearts coming out of the boy in the bleachers body.

"That's actually really well drawn. I wasn't expecting all that." James laughed grabbing the paper from Alex.

"He wanted to show you when he first started thinking of you." Nina walked over besides James and laid her head on his shoulder longing for a moment when she'd have her own little to make memories with.

In a lost for words he left James and Nina with the drawing and walked over to Zander and gave him a tight hug. "Thank you for the drawing, I think it's amazing." He smiled sweetly pulling Zander close to his chest and rubbing his back. "How about you and I go get ready for bed and have a long chat?"

"Ok!" Zander ran back down the hall and into his room grabbing a few things. Before Alex followed after him, he went back to the table and grabbed the photo of him and his wife on there. Without needing a second thought he smirked tearing the picture in half before disposing it in a bin. Standing tall and proud he went down the hall to meet up with Zander.

All while everyone was at a high, Mallix couldn't help but feel cold at the sight of the image. The mere thought of it caused the hairs on his arm to stand as it brought back memories of the one thing he wanted. The only thing he wanted more than anything in the world. His girls.

Seeing Alex follow after Zander and Nina and James talking about their future in the kitchen, a dark cloud cast itself over Mallix. As his world was falling apart, others were being built. Everyone around him was happy and enjoying their moments.

A singular tear dropped onto his polo shirt. Sitting alone in the living room, he stared out the window over viewing the sunset occurring behind the lake. The sight itself was breathtaking, but he couldn't shake from his mind the terrors his girls must be suffering through.

Taking the responsibility upon himself, Mallix refused to sleep tonight. He would try to develop another plan of attack against the facility using the old blueprint until Alex could pick up the new one. Since they got the out of date layout of the place, Mallix spent every night in his room sketching out different methods and ways of getting them back.

He wanted to be ready for when the new layout comes in. He sketched out ideas as a way of having some kind of idea to base the plan off when the real blueprint came in.

As he began getting lost in his head of yet another way of breaking his girls out, James and Nina joined him in the living room. "You alright, you look horrible?" James laughed hard before Nina playfully slapped his arm.

Shaking her head in disapproval she looked at Mallix who was as pale as a ghost and looked to be fatigued. "Are you ok? You look like you've seen a ghost."

The second her mouth shut, Mallix wanted to laugh seeing the irony of it all. He felt as though he had seen a ghost. The ghost of his past life, one that had his wife and girl in it to fill it up, flashing before his eyes.

"I'm fine." He answered returning back to his view of the outside world, watching as the sun was disappearing behind the horizon. Until all that was left was the vast array of colors that illuminated in the sky.

"Alright cool, we're going to watch a movie." James settled himself comfortable into the couch grabbing the remote to the tv besides him. "What do you want to wat-" he began to turn his head towards Nina who had the most unimpressed look on her face.

"I don't get you sometimes." Turning back to face Mallix, Nina could see the pain that filled his eyes and anger in his heart. "We're going to get them back M. Have some faith in us. Once we get the new plans of the Fendly's base we won't stop working until we have a workable plan that we can rely on. Then once that's done, we just need to get supplies and we'll be on our way to rescue them. I know your scared and worried about them, but we all know there strong. We have to be strong too if we want to get them out of that horrible place. And that means to be well rested, you look like you haven't slept in years." She jokingly warned.

Seeing the small smile loosen up his demeanor she turned back to James, leaving Mallix to think about her words.

"Why'd you do that?" Her boyfriend asked being genuinely confused with the situation.

Rolling her eyes, Nina held her finger to his lips before replacing it with her lips. 'I don't understand men sometimes' she thought laughing at her own statement in her mind before pulling away and resting her head on his shoulder while he wrapped his arm around her. "Forget it, put on a movie now."

Not faring away from orders, James obliged and found them a movie. Putting it on he grabbed Nina close to him and kissed her cheek gently. Seeing how soft and affectionate James was had enough of an effect to make Mallix smile. If he couldn't be happy right now, at least his little brother was. Looking at things from a broader view, his smile widened, thinking about how everyone around him was happy. They gave him the motivation he needed to stay out of the dark.

After third wheeling the movie with James and Nina, Mallix could hear them both softly snoring. He shut the tv off and threw a blanket over them before walking off to his room. For a second he contemplated about sleep, but his mind began wandering again. He needed to be working and staying productive to get his girls back. Pulling out the outdated layout from under his pillow, Mallix grabbed a sheet of paper and began writing thoughts down that flowed to his head.
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Let me know what you think. Thanks Lexx signing off