Backstitch

Chapter 6

The robots easily could have outrun them on foot, but they weren't capable of surpassing a life-sized dog and toy bulldozer. Once Ox led them around the corner of one of the cliffsides, the robots couldn't be seen from their vantage point. Lou was far from relaxing, though. He wouldn't feel safe until...well...the question was, when would he be safe? Lou's creator—known as Grayson Everett by his colleagues, but the blonde didn't have the boldness to go beyond a simple 'sir'—would stop at nothing until he was sure the prototype was disposed of. In his mind, as long as Lou was still around, he posed a risk for the company that their brand name would be defaced by the blonde's "defective behavior." Especially since fewer dolls were returning, which was not necessarily Lou's fault in the first place.

He loathed that fact as a means to overpower the anxiety gripping him from everything that had just taken place. Lou's spite must have manifested in his posture because a hand rest between his shoulders. Mismatched eyes looked at him softly, "We'll get you out of this, Lou, don't worry. We're in this together, now."

We're in this together.

Lou wished he could hear those words over and over. Whether he was allowed to experience it or not, this feeling of being around someone who cared about him was beyond words. It briefly reminded him of how he felt when Ox had stumbled his way into the Institute years ago. He might end up being alone again in the future, but for now, he wasn't. The blonde clung to that hope because he didn't know how much longer it would last.

The dog adjourned as Ox halted the bulldozer by the base of the cliff. They had gone through so many twists and turns. Ox had to be the only one who wasn't disoriented in which direction the villa was in. Hopefully, the robots would be just as perplexed about their whereabouts. The bunny hopped out of the driver seat, edging the machine as he pointed to a hole in the cliff, "There. It's a pipe, but I never found out where it leads. I doubt those metalheads will find Lou in there."

Wage crossed her arms, glaring at the blonde doll as he hopped down from the dog, "Alright, we've done our civic duty. Get lost, blondie."

Lou blinked, barely entertaining her with a glance in her direction. Setting his mouth in a fine line, he reared his head back to see the pipe that just partially peeked out of the rocks. "And how am I supposed to get up there?"

"Not our problem," the cook retorted. She waved a finger in the air as she turned on her heel to sit on the back of the bulldozer, "Let's get this show back on the road."

"I think the dog could get us up there," Mandy suggested. Carefully, she tight-rope-walked her way to the dog's head and settled on its nose with her arms stretched out for balance. Nolan shakily followed suit, but not as nimbly as the dark-skinned girl had made it out to be.

"Us?" Moxy echoed. "Mandy, you and Nolan aren't coming back to the villa?"

Nolan was faster to answer, "Not until Lou can come back with us. I can't speak for Mandy, but I'm not leaving Lou to just figure things out for himself. I'm staying with him to help." The brunette kneeled on the dog's nose, reaching a hand out for Lou to take. The blonde hesitated just a second before smiling small and accepting the offer. Nolan pulled him up to sit beside him. This time, the dog didn't growl.

"Why are you guys suddenly helping him?" LuckyBat quirked his mouth. "Mandy, it was just yesterday you were talking about how awful and manipulating Lou was for tricking Nolan into helping him."

Both aforementioned dolls looked at Mandy, reading very different expressions. Nolan looked angered, furrowing his brows at her, "Then why did you even come over last night? If you thought he was tricking me, why'd you agree to fix his hair?"