Fox Life

The taxi drive to the hotel seemed last forever for Iris. She wanted to find out what had happened to Kyro, but the ride just never seemed to end. One minute chased after another, but she just didn't see the hotel.     

And her mind worked in overdrive to come up with the worst possibilities. Was Kyro hurt? Detained again? Was Gale the one to write her because Kyro was no longer able to? Was he even at the hotel? Or was she rushing to supposedly stay safe?     

By the time she was ready to go mad from all the speculations about what could've happened, the taxi finally stopped. She quickly paid and ran out. Inside, she clicked on the elevator button maybe ten times in a fruitless attempt to make it come faster.     

When she reached their floor, she dashed through the corridor and burst through the door of their room. Kyro was sitting on the sofa, but upon seeing her he stood up, and she rammed into his chest, staggering him.     

"You're okay!" she shouted out, unable to hold back her joy. She wrapped her hands around him in a tight hold and just held onto him, breathing in his masculine scent.     

Everything was okay. He was okay. That was all that mattered.     

Kyro embraced her back, lowering his head on her shoulder. "Someone's excited to see me," he murmured in a light tone. Unlike her, he didn't seem too ruffled.     

Slight embarrassment threatened to color Iris' cheeks and she tried to push away, but Kyro didn't let her go. "Why running away now?" he asked teasingly. "Already had enough of me?"     

"You!" Iris glared at him, but with a wide smile on her face. If he could still joke around like that, it meant that nothing too bad could've happened.     

They stood in each other's embrace for a moment more, then went to sit on the sofa. Kyro told about what had happened, and it sent a chill down Iris' back. She'd guessed it might be like that, but to learn of it was still…     

The police had come to arrest Iris. They didn't say why or how they found out, but from their answers, Kyro had gathered that they had followed him again. Since Iris herself had nothing to track, like a phone, computer, or credit card under her name, they could only resort to follow the person closest to her.     

'So I'm a ticking time bomb,' Iris thought. For now, the authorities didn't have much against Kyro, but if they kept moving together, something was going to happen. Sooner or later.     

And could she be sure that the authorities really didn't have anything on Kyro? They hadn't exactly been hiding around here. They weren't going out too often, but the few times they did, more than a few people had seen them together. If anyone had been following them at that time…     

As if on cue, Kyro's phone rang. Iris' heart skipped a beat, but it was just his mother. She instantly apologized for breaking her promise not to contact him, but said that it's about Lucy. That instantly caught both Kyro's and Iris' attention.     

"I don't know what to do anymore," his mother said, her voice distraught. "The first two days since you left he acted normal, napping all the time as usual, but since the third day he stopped eating and moving in general. He's just sitting on the windowsill all the time, staring into the distance.     

"From time to time, he runs around the house as if looking for something, then meows loudly and returns to the window. I brought food and water straight to him, but he's refusing to even get close to it. Whenever I come over, he just looks at me with an empty gaze, then looks away, like it doesn't even matter."     

To prove her point, she turned on the camera, and over Kyro's shoulder, Iris saw a black ball lying on the windowsill. It didn't move when Kyro's mother got closer, didn't even raise its head. The two bowls of food, his favorite chicken, and water were untouched.     

Iris' heart squeezed at the sight of Lucy torturing himself like that. He probably thought that he was abandoned and no longer cared about what was going to happen. She'd heard before of cat's going into depression after losing their owners, but to see Lucy feeling like that was just heartbreaking.     

She wished she could extend her hand through the screen and ruffle his fur, tell him that everything was still all right, even if he wouldn't understand. Kyro wasn't gone, just busy helping her take care of things at her old home.     

But she couldn't do it—the technology wasn't there yet—and Lucy didn't seem to even recognize Kyro's voice through the phone. He just lay on the side, staring blankly into nothing.     

"Please do all you can for him, and I'll… think of something," Kyro said in a soft voice, his eyes pained as he stared at the screen with his beloved pet.     

The call was soon ended, and Iris moved to lean against Kyro. "It's going to be all right," she promised. "He's going to forgive you when you return."     

"I wonder about that," Kyro said, his voice low. It didn't seem like he believed her words. "I've never left him alone for longer than a couple days. He's always traveled everywhere with me."     

He rested his head in his hands which were placed on his knees and looked at the ground as if searching for an answer there. At that moment, he looked much worse than after being apprehend by Homeland in the states and the police here.     

And Iris understood him perfectly well. Lucy was the best cat in the world, and the two of them were hurting him like that. He didn't understand the words 'it has to be done' and just reacted on what he saw. Which in this case was him being left behind by himself.     

"It—" Iris' next words were interrupted by another notification from Kyro's phone. He didn't pick it up, but she managed to read it as it flashed on the screen.     

[Call me when you see this. You need to return. NOW.]     

It came from Gale.