Kc's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Kc walked back to Killerc's cabin with the locked box under her arm. The art school girl wanted something Killerc valued more than the key. But Kc did not know what that was. She had one way to find out. She would ask the man himself, and hope he never learned why. Killerc opened the door before she knocked. His black suit was buttoned tight. Silver rings caught the light on both hands. He looked at the box, then at her face. "You came back empty," he said. "No key." "Not yet," Kc said. She kept her voice steady. "I need to know something first. If you lost your key forever, what would hurt you more to lose?" His eyes narrowed. He stepped closer. "Who told you to ask that?" "No one." The lie sat cold in her mouth. "I want to understand the lesson." For a moment he said nothing. Then he almost smiled. "Good. A student should be curious." He pointed at the box in her hands. "That box holds nothing I need. The lock is the lesson, not the contents. What I want back is not iron. It is the girl who took my school and turned it against me." Kc's stomach dropped. "The girl in the forest." "She was my best student." His voice went flat. "She left. She built her own school under my nose. She keeps my key to remind me she won." He looked at Kc hard. "You met her." Kc could not hide it now. "Yes." "Then you know the cost of my teaching." He turned away. "Bring me her. Not the key. Her surrender. She comes back and admits she was wrong, and I will open every safe I own for you." Kc left the cabin with her plan in ruins. The girl wanted a prize from Killerc. Killerc wanted the girl herself. Each one demanded the other. She could not give one master what he wanted without betraying the other. She had asked her question and gotten a clear answer. The answer trapped her tighter than before. She stopped at the weathered sign at the forest fork. The painted letters read forgotten dog forest. Behind it the twisted tree stood over the dead dog's roots. Killerc had abandoned that dog. He had abandoned the girl. Now he wanted the girl to crawl back and call it her fault. Kc set the box down against the sign. She would not deliver a person like a coin. But she still needed the key, and she needed her lesson. There was a third path. She would tell the girl exactly what Killerc said. Let the girl decide what to do with the truth. Maybe the truth was the thing Killerc feared most of all. Kc picked up the box and walked toward the school with bright shutters. Her hands were steady now. She knew what she carried, and she knew what she would say.