Where Were You...

Chapter Twenty-Five | Where Were You…

Kit walked briskly through the walls, heart refusing to calm as it thundered against her ribs. Her thoughts dwelled on everything that had just happened. She was completely consumed with nothing else and relied completely on muscle memory as she traversed the beams leading back home.

What was that all about?

That kid thinks he's a human! That Borrower kid thinks he's a human.

He called out for her as if she was his mom.

What's his deal?

That guy Kers was right.

This is insane.

That kid is a pet, and he doesn't even know it. There's no way that human woman treats him like her actual son.

Humans don't see Borrowers as anything other than pets!

"Where were you?"

Kit stopped dead in her tracks and realized she was just outside of her home, and her brother Finnick was waiting outside for her. He was casually leaned up against the front entrance. He didn't even try to hide the fact he was waiting for her.

Kit huffed and tried pushing past her brother, but he easily stepped in front of her and blocked the doorway.

"You went, didn't you?" asked Finnick. The eldest Borrower brother suspected his sister would do something foolish, but he was too late to catch her or stop her from doing anything. He had tailed Kers to make sure he wasn't going immediately to the human woman and doubled back once he was done. There was just this looming, instinctual feeling that Finnick couldn't shake.

When he talked to his parents, they said she hadn't come down for dinner, but she had responded when they asked if she was there.

This was hours ago.

He went to her room, hoping beyond hope that Kit didn't do something ridiculous, and knocked on her door. The lack of response said it all. The eldest brother ducked outside and saw her window wide open and her belay thread hanging there in a challenging taunt.

With only one idea of where she went after all of these hours, Finnick knew there was nothing to be done except to wait and see what happened. There was no way he could get there in time, if he could even find out where the Borrower kid was staying down below in the human world and then find his sister on top of that.

Kit had this bad habit of doing what she thought was right regardless of the consequences, and now was one of those times.

Finnick could only hope that she was successful.

Sadly, seeing his sister storming up in a daze in absent minded frustration, Finnick knew she had failed.

This led them to their moment now as he blocked her way into their home.

"Well?" he prompted. His sister clenched her jaw and jerked her head away.

"Well what? Good for you! You caught me. Yeah, I went. Happy?" she grumbled under her breath. "Going to go tell mom and dad? Wake up the whole house so we can start moving?"

Finnick sighed and shook his head.

"No. I'll save that privilege for you," replied Finnick. "And the fact you don't have him here with you means that Kers guy was telling the truth."

"Yeah, so why don't you rub it in my face more?" growled Kit as she tried to push past her brother. "Now, move!"

"Not before you tell me what happened. What was he like? Did he say anything?" asked Finnick. Kit folded her arms indignantly. She was shaking, though her brother couldn't identify the sole reason as to why. Fear? Nerves? Frustration? Anger?

It didn't matter because she decided to answer his question.

"He doesn't know what he is, Fin. He thinks he's human. You should've heard him crying out for his mom – that human. It was the weirdest thing I've ever see. He was living in some kind of weird doll house with wires and water all hooked up to it. It basically looked like a small human house with screens and tech all over the place. It was so weird."

Finnick listened to his sister's words and considered them carefully. It sounded impossible for a Borrower to slip so easily into living like a human; that is, if they lived like a Borrower at all.

Kers had said something about thinking this kid had spent most of his life living with this human. Did the human capture Parker's parents? Did she take him away from them? Or was this actually a compassionate human taking care of an orphaned Borrower child?

Finnick sighed and stepped to the side, allowing his sister inside.

"Let's just hope nothing comes of it. You need to tell mom and dad sometime tomorrow, and you and I will be going out first thing to make sure he doesn't help the human tear down the house to try and find us," said Finnick. "And if you don't fess up, I'll tell them in the worst way possible."

"Goodie two shoes," grumbled Kit under her breath as she pushed past Finnick.

The eldest Borrower child knew the family was in quite the precarious situation, but fretting in the middle of the night wasn't going to solve the issue and they could only prepare for a reaction if anything came of it.

Who knew?

Maybe this Parker kid would think all of it was a bad dream and brush off seeing his sister.