Syndedeménos (Connected)

CHAPTER 08

Following Pgymy and Mateo was the path that Keenan chose. Keenan tried to restrain himself from running away and waited for Sean to take action after he had disappeared all night. Keenan's prediction was that if Sean couldn't reach him this morning, then soon there should be news on television about the disappearance of the eldest son of the Aldrich family. In accordance with the anticipation that had been done by Keenan before the accident occurred.

Keenan's gaze was on a small figure walking in front of him, but his mind was focused on something else. Various questions flashed through his mind and made Keenan curious about the motive behind the kîdnapping that happened to him.

Why would a kîdnapper deliberately provide information about their kîdnapping strategy, which was to use Karen as bait for him? Are they lying? But why would they lie?

After descending the stairs to several floors, Pygmy opened the emergency door and that three men arrived at a place not much different from the floor where Keenan was tied. But at the other end of the parking lot there was a room where most of the walls had been replaced by glass. Keenan squinted his eyes as he surveyed the conditions around the room that was several tens of meters in front of him. Keenan's gaze caught five children running between the pillars, then one of the children stopped running when she noticed that several people were walking towards her.

"They're coming!" shouted a girl about eight years old with blonde pigtail hair. Even the girl's shouted could reach the ears of people tens of meters away.

The other four children also looked at Keenan, Pygmy and Mateo, but they immediately ran towards the open glass door. And a small child who shouted immediately ran over to the three people who had just arrived on the floor.

“You will stay with them. I don't think it's decent for you to tell them that you're a kîdnap victim, do you?” Pygmy stopped in his steps and spoke in a relaxed tone. Keenan didn't have time to react to Pygmy's words because his gaze was immediately focused on a small figure at his waist that was looking up at him.

"Hi! My name is Mary. I'll take you inside for breakfast.” The girl named Mary said with a big smile when she saw Keenan. Before Keenan could think of an appropriate response, a small hand grabbed his right hand. Mary held Keenan's hand while looking at him with enthusiasm.

With his body slightly lowered and his hands still grasped, Keenan tried to follow the direction of Mary's footsteps who intended to lead them into the room through the open glass door. Although almost all the walls of the room are made of glass, the conditions in the room cannot be clearly seen from outside because the glass has been covered with various leftover materials such as banners or clothes.

As he got closer to the glass door, Keenan could hear a loud, high-frequency sound from behind the door. From the doorway, Keenan could already see the number of small children in the room. About twenty children filled the room which had an area of about fifty square meters. Some were queuing for food in the corner of the room and some have filled the long chair in the middle of the room. After waiting in line, each of the children will carry a tray of food.

Mary pulled Keenan until they were both at the end of the queue. Almost all the children in line turned around to look at the stranger among them, but no one dared to say hello to Keenan. Only Mary dared to approach Keenan openly. Or maybe no one dared to approach Keenan because Mary had approached him first.

"Here's breakfast for you," said a girl who was distributing food to the children when Keenan was already at the front of the queue.

Keenan just kept quiet and looked at the girl in front of him for a while. The girl of Keenan's age had a chubby face with long ponytail brown hair. She looked nervous because Keenan looked at her for more than five seconds, then she continued her activities of preparing food for Mary : pouring curry soup into a bowl and placing it in part of the trays beside the one already filled with rice.

"Mary, after seeing the dishes in his box, don't take them okay?" said the girl, giving the tray to the little girl beside Keenan while stealing glances at Keenan who was still looking at her.

"Okay, Haylie!"

No. She wasn't a person named Aquila.

Previously Keenan wondered if the girl who distributed the food was Aquila. But Keenan analyzed that the behavior of the person in front of him was too reckless to be the leader who had kîdnapped him.

Mary walked in front of Keenan to show him an empty seat in the corner of one of the four long chairs in the room. Keenan followed Mary's footsteps and put the lunch box and a glass of mineral water on the wooden table. When Keenan opened his lunch box, Mary let out the word "wow" with an expressive face. Needless to say, Mary's face showed a desire to devour Keenan's food.

"Take what you like." Keenan finally let out a calm tone of voice again because at least there was nothing that required him to be alert in this room. There was only the bustle of the voices of children joking with each other.

"Finally you’ve spoken. I like your warm voice."

Mary's words made Keenan smile a little. An automatic response that Keenan made because it was what Karen also had said to him.

"What's your name?"

"Just call me Keenan."

"Okay, Keenan. From today onwards we will be friends. Aquila will be glad that I've accompanied the new member."

Aquila's name sounded in Keenan's ears again for the second time. As if all control of the whole situation belonged to Aquila alone. But before continuing to predict his own question, Keenan decided to put food into his stomach which had been empty since last afternoon. Even for eating the supper provided by Thalia he didn’t do it because too focused on driving to where Karen was.

When he was about to take his cutlery, Keenan found Mary looking busy choosing between meat, eggs or deep-fried shrimp in Keenan's food. Mary and the other children had only curry gravy with a few pieces of potato and carrot rising and falling in the bowl. No protein at all. It was not strange that Mary was so excited when she saw the contents of Keenan's food.

Keenan took the chopsticks over the lid of the lunch box, grabbed a few pieces of meat and placed them on top of Mary's rice bowl. Then Keenan also moved the eggs and shrimp one by one, following where the meat was placed. A wide smile spontaneously appeared on Mary's face.

"Thanks, Keenan. I want to eat it right now, but we have to wait for Haylie and Zack to sit here. Then we'll pray first."

Hearing what Mary said made Keenan sighed impatiently. Waiting uncertainty was something he never liked. Especially waiting for people he didn’t know at all.