Full Rotation: Preventable Part 2

It was another quiet night inside the RV. David busily shuffled through files and Hailey was up front driving. Rian glared out the window still curious as to when Nair would finally come home. After the encounter they had two months ago, it made him mildly worried that there was a possibility that something may have happened. After all, Nair had told him that he’d come home after two months. Right about now he’s been gone for five months and it seemed that everyone had accepted that he wasn’t coming back. Rian didn’t tell David and Hailey that he’d seen Nair only two months ago, he just couldn’t.

Sure he cared about them, but he had promised Nair that he wouldn’t tell them, and no matter how furious he may be at Nair, he upheld that promise. As he began scowling harder the RV came to a stop, signalling that they’d arrived at their next destination. While Rian couldn’t see anything from the window, he was sure that they’d be staying at a hotel for tonight. Hailey stopped in the doorway, observing the two in silence.

“You two coming? Or will I have a whole hotel room to myself?” David turned around and quickly smiled apologetically. He had been distracted with all the papers in front of him.

“Of course, sorry.” He seemed pretty tired if his voice was any indication. Rian just got up and walked past them to look up at the hotel. It was a pretty nice one, around six stories.

“Alright, I’ll get us checked in. Make sure you have all of your stuff, okay.” Hailey said as she stepped off the RV and paused. She smiled and ruffled Rian’s head which made him shoot her an annoyed look. “I still haven’t given up on him.” Was all she said as she walked towards the automatic double doors. Rian tilted his head and sighed as he fixed with his hair.

“I only need my laptop, do you want to carry the bags?” David asked as he poked his head out from the RV. Rian contemplated for a moment,

“Sure, give me mine and Hailey’s.” He responded as he held up his hand. After David reappeared, he gave the two bags to Rian.

“Thanks.” He said as they began making their way towards the hotel. David turned back to the RV and locked it with his key thobe. Rian couldn’t help but sense something that made him glance around suspiciously. But once they were inside he didn’t worry about it.

Once the three arrived at their room, the bags were dropped disgracefully on the floor and all three seemed to head straight for the beds and sofa. Rian dropped on the sofa and gave a sigh as he found it was quite comfortable.

“I think it’ll be an early night for all of us.” Rian smirked as he glanced to look over at her.

“You call one in the morning an early night?” Hailey laughed and rolled over to kick off her shoes.

“For us, I’d say it is.” David pulled off his own shoes and he too finally fell back on his own bed. He smiled contently,

“If we ever head out this way, we should hit this hotel up again.” All three of them could agree with that. Rian pulled off his shoes and got up to sit them by the door. He then opened the hotel’s closet and snatched the extra blanket.

“Alright, let’s go to sleep then.” He said as he dropped on the couch and pulled the blanket over himself. David stood up and hit the lights as he went into the bathroom to properly get ready for bed.

“Go ahead and get settled in and we’ll be in bed soon too.” Hailey said as she seemed to move, rather disappointed, to brush her own teeth and change. Rian gave a sound of acknowledgement and turned away from the bathroom to stare at the back of the couch. He only wished that Nair was here.

---

A sound woke Rian from his rather restless sleep. He quickly got up and pushed the blanket off his form as he quickly looked around the room. The hairs along the back of his neck stood up, a rather odd reaction, Rian thought. The teen swallowed nervously and stood up, noticing that David and Hailey were still fast asleep. Suddenly, a pair of hands clutched over his mouth causing him to panic, trying to get a look at the attacker.

The last person he ever wanted to see was leering down at him. Rian found his blood run cold as he quickly felt his limbs lock up in pure terror. Victouthern kept one hand over Rian’s mouth and exposed that he was holding that knife in his hand. It sent another wave of fear over his entire body. But what he didn’t expect was to get tossed away by someone else. The black-haired boy hit the wall by the door and quickly turned around to see white-hair and piercing ice blue eyes. Rian forced himself to stand despite still feeling paralyzed and hit the lights. As he turned back he saw Victouthern glaring daggers at Nair and Hailey holding her pistol as well as David holding his specialized assault rifle.

“I bet you’re regretting your decision now.” Nair spoke coldly the wind coming in from the window blowing his hair and his black jacket.

“Not really, I’ll just have to work harder.” Victouthern responded as he glanced down at the knife, carefully running his finger down the blade. “After all, it’s not like I’m powerless. And you’d be stupid to think I came here unprepared.” He looked back to Rian who stayed by the door, clearly still terrified to move.

“Is Rian okay?” Hailey asked, her gun and eyes still on Victouthern. Nair made eye contact with Rian, who seemed to be watching Victouthern like a gazelle ready to flee from a cheetah.

“He’s fine.” He said shifting his stance a bit. Victouthern continued running his fingers over his knife.

“I’m so happy you haven’t tried to attack me. It means you’re scared.” He said with a playful smile, “But you won’t want to attack me, because I planted four bombs in this hotel.” Hailey glanced over at David who returned the look. “There are a total of six floors in this hotel, including the basement and lobby. So you’ll have plenty of places to check.” Nair swiftly moved forward, catching him off guard, as he grabbed his neck roughly.

“And you think that’ll stop us from attacking you?” Victouthern was unshaken by the chokehold and instead chuckled with a grin.

“Because I have to be in proximity of the bombs and…” A loud crash startled all four as two large things stood where Rian had been sleeping and where the nightstand had been. One had four arms and the other had a highly mutilated mouth full of sharp teeth. They were humanoid, but based on their lifeless eyes and drooling they were anything but human. The giant creature with four arms effortlessly snatched Hailey and David’s arms that were holding their guns. The second monster seemed to be glaring right at Nair. “What do you think of these two? They may not be lookers, but they’re much stronger than any of my previous experiments.” Rian clutched his hand and looked hesitantly between the monster holding both the agents and the one drilling holes into Nair.

“How the hell did you sneak these things into this hotel?” Nair asked glancing from the beast to Victouthern’s smug face.

“I didn’t have to. I just killed anyone that got in the way. The smart ones ran.” He spoke casually, as if it was no big issue.

“You really are a dislikeable person aren’t you.” Nair said with a bitter voice, he looked at Rian this time who stilled seemed to be contemplating what to do.

“Who do you want me to fight?” Rian finally spoke, this time looking back to Nair. The white-haired boy smiled softly,

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll take the one with all the teeth who’s standing next to me. I’ll let you handle the one who’s got David and Hailey.” Rian shifted his attention to the four armed monster, who seemed to be holding Hailey and David with ease, despite their struggling.

“Do you think it’ll be that easy? There’s a reason I brought these two creatures to fight you two.” Victouthern said with a smirk. The monster with a mouth full of teeth suddenly lurched forward with unexpected speed, crushing the floor where Nair had been holding Victouthern. “Weren’t expecting that were you? Good, now I want you two to crush the three of them. No distractions, and I’ll take this one.” He directed as he spoke to the monsters and then returned his attention to Rian. Victouthern now stood between Rian and the monster holding David and Hailey. The second monster standing beside him.

“Good luck with that.” Hailey snapped as she jabbed a knife into the arm that had been holding her. It screamed with an almost human voice as dark red blood began pouring from the wound. “We aren’t useless. There’s a reason we’ve been assigned to protect Nair and succeeded for so long.” She retrieved her gun as the monster finally calmed down, it’s wound closing surprisingly fast. She held the pistol in one hand and the knife in the other and jabbed the monster quickly with several stabs. The monster shrieked again and tried to grab her with one of its three hands, but clearly lacked coordination.

“Enjoying playing with your food? I said I want them dead! Crush her!” As if a switch had been flipped, the monster became more focused. It was faster and began attempting to flatten anything nearby. Nair shot some vines coated in thorns at the creature, restraining it somewhat. This allowed Hailey to jab to the knife deep into the monster's arm and made it release David.

“How do you like that, Victouthern?” Nair said with a grin. Victouthern gave a slow clap before he gave a very dark smile.

“It was perfect actually. So perfect that I have exactly what I wanted.” The second monster was holding Rian in its large hand. Part of its hand covered Rian’s mouth. “It still took three of you to deal with this monster right? So now that I have what I need I’ll leave you three here to deal with it.” He pulled a device from his coat and threw it to the floor. “Looks like I won’t need this anymore. Don’t forget about those bombs either.” He jumped atop the creature’s shoulder and it jumped through the window, breaking it wide open and leaving a hole in its wake.

“It was all a distraction to get Rian, dammit!” Nair muttered as he looked back at the creature remaining. It was back to its original, clumsy state. “I didn’t come back just to lose Rian.” He made thick, thorn covered vines and made them latch onto the creature’s thick skin. David loaded his gun, putting his own knife back into his pajama pocket.
“It’s a good thing we keep our weapons nearby.” He looked at Nair and back to the monster. “Go after him. We’ll kill this thing.” He said and raised the assault rifle disguised as a pistol. He began firing rounds into the creature, which roared and continued to struggle against the vines that restrained it. Nair finally swallowed and looked to David.

“You better not get hurt if I leave.” Hailey shot the monster as well. Her knife was still in her other hand, if the monster attempted to reach towards her it was brutally cut.

“Hurry up and go, you know we can handle ourselves.” Nair nodded and ran towards the window as he jumped after the enormous monster. The white-haired boy could only hope they were right. But the last thing he wanted was to lose Rian after disappearing to hone his abilities. Filled with ambition, he increased his pace and followed the large humanoid footprints. He would bring back Rian, and he would never forgive Victouthern.