The Return of the Lifebringer (Children of the Sun Book 3)

Chapter 14

"Alright, let's go."

They were almost out the door when Alor stopped. Kara looked back, clutching the soups tighter to her chest. "What is it?"

"I think I like this," staring into a freezer. "No, I know I like this." He took all the meat cans into one hand and reached into the freezer, pulling out a frozen package of hotdogs. "Mm, Telis."

"You remember that?" Kara asked, almost shocked as she turned around fully. She'd assumed he had just meant hot dogs in general, not a specific brand.

"Oh yeah, I remember these. I used to eat these with my brother when we were kids."

Then he froze, and Kara did too. Her eyes went wide as she realized she'd never actually told him what she had been intending.

"Oh, I have a little brother," Alor said, a bit more loudly than Kara would have liked.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his elbow. "We can talk about this after we are no longer trespassing."

As they sneaked into the warm darkness outside, Kara took a deep breath. They were in a larger city, Kara deciding that the anonymity it brought was safer than the alternative, despite the many, many cameras everywhere. But she knew her way around cameras, and outside of city centers, it was usually not that dangerous anyway.

She closed the back door of the supermarket, flinching as a man appeared a second later, walking past them. Some people had the worst timing ever. He didn't seem to notice anything suspicious though, possibly due to his tipsy state, which Kara deduced from the slight wobble in his walk.

"Back to the tent, then?" Alor asked, grinning at the hotdogs. Though that grin quickly faded. As did Kara's hopes for avoiding this conversation.

"Kara, um, where is my brother?"

Kara squeezed her eyes shut. There was no good answer to this, and she didn't even have enough information to objectively answer that question, but she would have to. Alor deserved to know this.

"He's—"

"Oh thank the gods you're alive," suddenly a voice interrupted her, saving her from the no doubt awkward conversation that would have followed. Kara turned towards it, almost reaching for her gun, but she recognized the voice immediately.

Orina Arithar. That was actually very surprising. Not only that she'd found them, but also that she was still alive and hadn't been turned into an Eternal and made to serve Enor.

Kara watched Orina hug her son tightly, not letting go despite Alor's obvious confusion and awkwardness. There was no way she hadn't noticed—she must have been ignoring it. Though seeing people express parental love had always made Kara uncomfortable, so after a few seconds she chose to stare at the asphalt underneath her feet instead. It was wet. It must have rained for the moment they'd gone to steal food.

When her peripheral vision showed her Orina had finally let go, Kara looked up again. Alor was scratching the back of his neck.

"Uh, and you are?"

An unbearably uncomfortable moment followed, during which Orina just gaped at her son with disbelief. "You.... Oh no."

She clearly knew what had happened—somehow—but Kara thought it would be best to explain it anyway, just to make sure they were on the same page.

"Yes, he is an Eternal now, and he is suffering from some kind of amnesia," Kara said, swallowing down her discomfort at having to say this. And at the look of sorrow Orina was giving her. "I thought his memory had been wiped, but he just remembered his brother. I think it just needs a kick start of some kind."