Ella stood impatiently in the doorway of her apartment. Her raven, black hair was pulled back in a sleek bun. She closed her stark-white bathrobe tightly around her bony frame.  She thought of the girl's special bond and seven new angry wrinkles appeared.

She remembered, "Those girls always preferred one another to me. Even when they were babies they would squall if I separated them."

As babies Izzy and Bell slept entwined in one another's arms and legs as if they were still in the womb. Once Ella put a partition in the crib to separate them but their screams became so unbearable she reunited them. Their soulful attachment infuriated her to this day. She was jealous of their relationship. She was keenly aware she'd never had that sort of a connection with another human being--not even her own children! Then an uninvited thought entered her wicked mind. She remembered the special bond she'd had with her  own grandpa Ellis. But then... the fire... I was eight... I started it... all my fault... he's dead... Mother's Dead... Father's dead... Princess is dead... Bile rose in her throat. Ella swallowed hard, she breathed in deeply. As she exhaled she pushed away the dark memories.

Private Niles stood there nervously. She had insisted on an update about her missing daughters. His voice cracked. "I'm sorry ma'am but our police dogs lost their scent. They trailed them into the 7th Avenue subway tunnel entrance but then they lost 'em. Three dogs went in but only one dog came out. Something must've really spooked Sting here. Who knows what happened to Crazy and Motley."  Sting lay at the nineteen-year-old soldier's feet. The dog whined and licked his bloody wounds.

"It's been nearly a week now. How is it you've still not managed to capture two skinny teenagers? One of the girls is blind and deaf for pity's sake! Why beneath this dreadful earth didn't you go in after them? It's your job isn't it? They're fugitives you know." Ella began shaking with rage. She took a few more deep breath's to keep her composure.

"Yes ma'am, we're aware of their crimes. Officers are posted at each tunnel entrance all over Brooklyn. They've gotta come up sometime. There's no way anyone can live down there indefinitely. When they pop up they'll be hauled in for questioning."

The thought of going down into the tunnels petrified Punchy Niles. He'd been down there only once and would rather clean a thousand piss pots than face the Warrior Ghosts.  After his one and only encounter with a WG he ran out of the tunnels and vomited his guts out into a nearby metal trash can.  At first his comrades didn't believe him. They taunted him saying he was 'afraid of little kids.'  But after an hour of his mumbling... "Big ghosts with weapons... Big ghosts with weapons..." They decided to check it out for themselves.  Half dozen soldiers descended the subway stairs with loaded machine guns. If there were any "warriors" in the tunnels they'd soon be dead warriors. Six soldiers went down and only one came up. She never recovered. After three months of babbling and peeing herself the army finally put her out of her misery.

"I don't want them questioned. I want them punished. They broke the law." How dare they run away from me? "I want the ungrateful brats sent away for good."

The young officer couldn't believe this woman's coldness. "So far there've been no cases of children sentenced to death or even life in prison for reading unsafe books ma'am."

"Things could change however couldn't they?" Ella asked hopefully.

"Yes ma'am the new regime is getting stricter and stricter with its regulations." Private Niles shifted the weight in his feet. Ella intimidated him.

"What about fifty-nine year old men?" Ella thought of Alfred and hated him passionately.

"Yes ma'am, more than likely he'll be detained and sent to a work camp until he is sixty and then..." The young soldier paused, he didn't like what he was about to say.

Ella enjoyed finishing his sentence. "And then you will kill him."

Private Niles nodded his head in agreement. "Ma'am when we find your girls do you want us to bring them to you?"

"No, I want them arrested... or whatever it is you do with fugitives who are minors."

"We usually send them to Unity Camp for retraining unless..." The young soldier couldn't bring himself to say the words.

Ella tapped her foot. "Unless what?"

Punchy looked nervously at his feet. "Unless they're sick ma'am."

Ella pressed, "What do you do with the sick ones?"

The polite officer hung his head even lower and mumbled, "Well ma'am they've just reached a decision that 'all persons who are too sick to work are too sick to eat.'"

Ella was growing even more impatient. "What does that mean exactly?"

Finally, he let the dreaded words out. "Death ma'am. It means death."

"Good." She slammed the door in Punchy Niles' face. She'd been made a fool of by everyone she'd ever trusted. Her husband Peter who left her, his father Alfred and now her very own daughters. They will all pay for what they've done to me. Ella began to scrub her spotless apartment floor for the third time that day. It was only six o'clock in the morning.

Izzy, Bell and the dogs ran the opposite direction hoping to catch up with the rest of the Tunnel Children. The girls moved quickly and with a renewed confidence with Grace and Speed by their sides. Izzy had found a piece of rope and fashioned a leash on Grace. He seemed honored to guide his new blind and deaf master. Speed stuck close to Izzy's side as if he were wearing an invisible leash.

"Izzy have you noticed something strange?"

Izzy back-spelled, "W-H-A-T?"

"Ever since we started eating the food King left by the invisible Author we haven't gone to the bathroom. Not number one or number two."

"R  U  S-U-R-E?"

"Yes... I haven't gone in days and neither have the other children."

Izzy thought about it and realized she hadn't had the urge to urinate or defecate either. That's peculiar..."H-O-W  D-O  U  K-N-O-W  T-H-E  K-I-D-S  H-A-V-E  N-O-T  G-O-N-E?"

"I can keenly smell Izzy... The babies didn't need changing and not once did I step in fresh poop or pee.  Oh and there's another thing. Everyone smells sweeter."

"T-H-A-T-S  O-D-D."

"Even the dogs are starting to smell better." Bell asked, "Have you ever known dog's pungent breath to smell sweet?"

Izzy pondered on her own gut and noticed it had never felt more right, there was no gurgling or gas.  Suddenly something else occurred to her. "R  U  T-H-I-R-S-T-Y?"

Bell answered, "No, not in the least. And that's another thing... I had nothing else to feed the babies. So I put little pieces of the cake into their mouths and it dissolved like..."

"M-I-L-K."

"Yes, like milk! It even smelled like fresh mother's milk."

Izzy pat Bell's back. That was their signal which meant is he had heard her.

The invisible king had been leaving them the perfect food. It not only tasted like what you craved but it nourished your body with whatever it lacked while wasting nothing. All of the cake-like substance was absorbed into energy and left the diner without hunger or thirst.

"W-E  H-A-V  2  F-I-N-D  T-H-E  K-I-D-S."

"Yes we do." Bell teased, "Do you want to run?"

"S-I-L-L-Y   Q-U-E-S-T-I-O-N."

The foursome took off running towards their new family.  They needed to wake up next to the children. They knew in order for them to survive they must continue feeding them the perfect food.

-End of chapter 3-
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Author's note: I will upload a new chapter every Tuesday and Thursday before midnight. (Or I'll turn into a pumpkin!) If you enjoyed this chapter please vote, comment (even edits are more than welcome!) If you have something you'd like me to read please message me. Be blessed!