Chapter 28

The night, once a time where Ryan Sullivan plied his silver tongue on vulnerable sorority girls in dim keg parties and bars, now has a new meaning. Fear. Monsters both real and imagined live within its confines terrifying the burgeoning little girl within. Who can banish that fear? Mommy and Daddy. Despite this clear defeat, Ryan/Kaylee continues to try and assert himself.

Excerpt:

Gradually, the banishment of the dark and the hand stopped my incessant, uncontrollable sniveling. Through it all, I shook and mewled words that mostly didn’t exist. I turned to face the two voices in my room. A smiling, yet worried Kathryn, hair mussed, clad in a silk nightgown, looked down at me. Within her look and her touch, there was love. It was palpable. Thomas stood next to her at my bedside. He was the one who plugged in the Frozen-themed night light.

As the group descends towards the counselor, I practically run into the hallway. I leap into action and stand defiantly in front of her. My declaration of “get back to your stations immediately” is met with comments about how I am just as bad as "her kind” for taking the side of the “splicer-babies”. The situation is much worse than I had first thought, and at the rate that it was escalating, I am sure it will quickly get completely out of hand. Thinking fast, I loudly tell the counselor to follow me to the operations section.

Following the events of Thanksgiving, the drive to live my life as Alexa became stronger. The need to be Alexa had almost completely taken over. The only thing that was holding me back was Jenny. As often as she told me it didn’t matter to her, some part of me felt like it did. I felt like if I was Alexa, I was not giving her everything she deserved as a companion. I spoke with Dr. Burke about this at every session we had. She would always tell me that I needed to believe Jenny and what she was saying. She did understand my concerns, but said that I had to live my life for myself and the other things would work out.

Milsy and Tarvan accompany Parrel to see a recent development suggested by Garia. What they find is a development new to Anmar but still in its infancy, a modern blast furnace. They see how the huge brick tower can easily produce pure iron but there is a loading problem. Milsy remembers something that happened to her long ago in the castle...

What Milsy Did

by Penny Lane

16 - The Tower of Fire