Cyan had fallen asleep next to the oven again, he had been doing that often after closing up his uncle’s candy shop, when a knock at the side door woke him up. He stretched lightly and made his way to the door to see a young white rabbit that he’d never met before. She was grinning eagerly, and friendly, so Cyan unlocked the door.
“‘Ello there,” The bunny said as Cyan shut and relocked the door. “Ya must be Cyan.”
“Yeah that is my name, hello there.” Cyan said with a sleepy grin. “Who are you?”
“Names Kasa, Lil sent me to get some things,” the lapine explained. “For the place where rodents like to meet.” Cyan scratched the back of their groggy head, confused. Kasa looked around to make sure there was no one else and then leaned close and whispered, “The Vole.”
“Oh, yeah.” Cyan shook himself to clear his head a little. “Sorry just woke from a cat nap.”
“Well, Lilith can’t make the runs herself anymore.” Kasa explained. “I’ll be making the pick ups this time…we’re going to need a lot more cookies than usual…”
Cyan nodded vaguely. He’d heard that the urchins had lost a lot of food supplies due to an explosion in Wheatstone. He offered to give what the rabbit could carry, but told her she shouldn’t try to take a cart to the Warrens since it was too dangerous…and obvious.
“I c’n fight,” Kasa insisted as she patted her pocket knife while putting a cookie into her upper pocket, but Cyan insisted and was starting to win the argument when the sound of broken glass came from the front.
Looking over Cyan saw that someone had used a club to break his window and they were now reaching a dirty hand for the lock on the door. Confusion and fear took hold as the door was thrown open and three armed men rushed inside looking around, shouting for them to get out. Two more men coming in more slowly from behind.
Kasa moved in front of Cyan defensively, dropping the cookies and reaching for her knife, which was when the three men rushed her and swung their clubs.
The bunny never stood a chance as the crazed men attacked swinging their clubs and yelling for them to get out. Kasa fell back onto Cyan, the lapine’s eye closed and swelling already and blood leaking out of their nose.
Cyan looked up at the men terrified and confused, they were shouting that they should have cleared out when they’d been told. The cheetah had no idea what they were talking about though, he hadn’t received any sort of threats…but as the dunnykin diver knocked over the cash register he took the hint and started to drag Kasa out of the building as quickly as he could.
“Put it as far from the Welcome Center as possible, Theodore.” The man in the blue suit ordered calmly. Cyan looked over as he was dragging Kasa out and noticed a giant man putting down something near the wall on the toy shop side. The man in blue turned towards them, his calm features punctuating the fear and desperation that was on the other men’s. “There may be only two more minutes on that bomb. Maybe less.”
Cyan stared back at the man and then at the large device…had it been ticking before they’d even come in the door? Cyan pulled on Kasa, who was still struggling to get to her own feet uselessly, and made their way out of the door. Cyan noted a derelict vessel, ugly and rusted that was waiting out over the pier for the men, and they leapt down onto the roof of the vessel to escape. The man in blue walked out slowly making his exit the same way just maybe a minute before the explosive went off and the walls of the toy and candy shop collapsed on top of each other and began to consume each other in flames from the gas.
Cyan watched his shop burn dejectedly, and then started to drag his new friend towards the hospital.
Be First to Comment