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Part Twenty-Two

   "You're okay," Jack whispered, holding his son close. "Mom is waiting inside the walls for you right now. Why did you leave like that?"

   "I don't...I don't know..." Axel broke off, beginning to shed even more tears than he thought possible. He was used to crying, but by now it felt as if all the tears had run him dry.

   "It's alright, now," his father tried to console. It did no good to pound him with questions if he wasn't in the right mindset to answer them in the first place. "We just need to go back now, okay?"

   Axel could only mutter a muffled 'mhm' into his father's chest, still clinging on tight and giving off no indication that he was ready to let go. It might've taken a minute or two to pry his fingers from Jack's homemade sweater, but once they popped off one by one, Jack grabbed his son's hand and started to lead him down to the entrance.

   The cracking and crunching of the cereal beneath their feet was not the most ideal, especially now that the humans had quieted down, but it was better than having them yelling and scaring Axel into submission once more. All Jack had to do was get him back to their home, put him to the nest with a good story, and lead him into a deep slumber before getting a hard lecture from Drizzle about his stupid actions.

   And then, without warning, a single pair of footsteps pounded their way through the floor, rapidly approaching the table, and a deep voice grumbled out an explanation of what transpired.

   Jack's grip on Axel's hand clenched, leaving them both stuck in their tracks, waiting for whatever might happen next. They could hear the human speaking, asking for help about what to do next, but hadn't heard a response. Which meant either the human was crazy, or he was speaking to one of the borrowers inside the box.

   Jack hoped it wasn't the ladder. And it appeared Lady Luck was on his side, because the human wasn't, in fact, talking to a borrower in a cereal box.

   No, instead, the human's boots and overwhelming voice rattled Jack and Axel until it came to a stop at the end of the table, put a phone down in front of the box, and left them once more.

   'That makes more sense,' Thought Jack, 'He's on the phone with another human.'

   It made loads of sense, to the point of Jack sighing in relief, until it didn't anymore.

   "I heard a story once from my dad about a burglar who broke in and gave the owner of the house a concussion. My dad's brother watched the whole thing and apparently the guy felt guilty, because he took care of her for the rest of the night. Dad told me that story whenever he wanted me to go to bed, I never thought it would actually come in handy..." The phone's audio blared out, loud enough to pierce through Jack and Axel's skulls, leaving the youngest of the two covering his ears with the palms of his hands for the second time that day.

   Only, where Axel expected Jack to look down and make sure his son was okay, he found his father with an expression on his face he had never seen before.

   Jack stood in the box of cereal, closer to the entrance with every new step, transfixed on the phone ahead of them. It lay on the table, perfectly still, and yet it had the power to crash Jack's entire world down with a single story.

   He knew exactly who was on the other side of that phone.

   Drizzle was supposed to keep an eye on things. Making Axel's nest comfortable for when he inevitably returned, creating a scripted speech in her head for when Jack was finally able to listen, doing everything she could to take her mind off the fact that her family was in danger. And yet. The only thing she could focus on was a familiar voice floating through the outside bedroom, telling a story that she knew by heart. And judging by the way the human did everything the phone was telling him to do, the person telling the story must've been someone he listened to.