[Attack and Escape – Part 2]

"Shh... you will be safe as long as you are with us, Kaylen." Kyren hugged his sister tightly against his chest, pressing her face against him to soften her quiet sobs and desperately stroking her hair in the hopes of calming her down. Kaylen was thankfully unscathed from the whole ordeal, but the same could not be said for him or his butlers.

Kyren could not complain at all about the bruises and small superficial wounds that he had received. Kyvan had gotten a large slash across his back when one attacker had been too close to Kaylen, and Kylar had his right arm twisted in a bad shape, and a badly bleeding wound on his temple. His butlers were in bad shape, but their attackers had it worse. Kyren could not escape the realization that many of the men he had seen tonight would not be able to live past the night, but the adrenaline and danger of their current situation was effective in keeping away the haunting thoughts.

"No signs of anyone on my end." Kyvan reported, retreating away from the window and hobbling quickly over to the bed where Kyren and Kaylen were huddled together in the corner of the small room.

After spending a good part of an hour crawling through the trapdoor tunnel that Kyrano had shoved all of them in, following the only light from a candle and flint that had been left almost too randomly on the floor, the four of them had emerged into a nondescript room that had only a bed and a single cupboard that held rations enough to last a few days, and a first-aid box.

Not sure what to make out of the room, but not wanting to be exposed in the open, Kylar and Kyvan had quickly decided to block off the entrance of the tunnel by shifting the heavy wardrobe in front of the trapdoor, and remained within the room, waiting for things to calm down.

"Was Miss Kaylen hurt?" Kyvan asked carefully, concerned eyes pinned on the siblings sitting huddled on the bed with Kaylen sobbing quietly in Kyren's embrace.

"I don't think so." Kyren roamed his hands up and down his sister's limbs since she had refused to tear herself from his embrace ever since they emerged into the room. "Bloody and dirtied, but she's fine."

"What about you? You received a few cuts."

"They are nothing." Kyren shook his head adamantly. "You and Kylar have it much worse."

"We're supposed to protect you from getting harmed." Kyvan's soft voice answered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be stupid." Kyren could not believe that his butler was still apologizing even after all that they had gone through, and all that Kyren had witnessed. "Sit down before you faint from the blood loss. You've been leaking like a broken tank all over the floor. I'll patch you up."

"You know how to patch up wounds?" Kyvan's surprise was a good opportunity for Kyren to force his butler sit down on the edge of the bed with a strong hand. Carefully laying down his sister who had cried herself to sleep while wrapped in his embrace, the young master of the Greaves-Crawford Household wordlessly retrieved the first-aid box from where they had seen it in the cupboard, laying it out on the floor.

"Where did Kylar go?" Kyren asked casually to break the silence of his butler watching his movements with a careful eye. Did Kyvan doubt his skills at patching people up? Sure, he had never learnt it formally before he was exiled, but after watching Kay –well, the man now identified as Kyrano –patch him up when he had first been taken in, Kyren had learnt a thing or two about keeping wounds bandaged.

"He went out to scout the area and set up some traps in case anyone came for us." Kyvan answered. "We have bottled water in the cupboard, but I think this safe room was meant for only one person. Uncle probably didn't think about storing enough food for the four of us. You should save the water for drinking purposes instead of cleaning my wound."

"I'm using it to clean your wound so that I can patch you up faster and you can go out to get drinking water for us." Kyren answered, not realizing how much he had actually missed this kind of petty arguments with his butlers.

Back before his exile, though, Kyren had never really had these kind of push-and-pull conversations with his butlers –mostly because he accepted whatever they offered thinking it was natural. But now that he had experienced living outside alone –well, as alone as his savior could possibly allow him –he was beginning to realize that the things that his butlers had been doing for him all this while had not been normal. The things that he used to take for granted, the things that they had done under the excuse of serving him like the stellar butlers that they were; they were all things that Kyren should never have accepted as if they were to be expected.

No wonder his mother had said that he had made his butlers useless. He had been insulted and his pride had been hurt the first time Louise had said it, but now Kyren could not deny that his mother had been absolutely right. He had been a disgraceful young master to his butlers.

"I hope you have been doing well the past month." Kyvan said after a long pause of silence that passed between them in which Kyren did his best to attend to his butler's wound as gently as he could. Regardless of how the young butler tried to fake his strength, Kyren could feel every small jolt and flinch that his butler made at his touch.

"I learnt many things." Kyren answered vaguely. There were many issues that he would have to address with his butlers –mainly to apologize to them for having been such a terrible master to them –after they returned to the Mansion, but Kyren knew better than to say all of them while they were still in danger.

Thankfully, it seemed as if his butler understood his unspoken intentions and didn't push the point. It seemed as if Kyvan had more questions though.

"Uncle... Kyrano. I never imagined that he would be still alive after all this while. He is really a mad man, isn't he?"

"When he was still disguised, and I knew him as Kay, I was always wondering what his real identity could possibly be. He had the mannerisms of a perfect butler, but he ran the business so well that I thought he was a disgraced young master. He knew things like how Dad used to follow your father around trying to pretend to be a servant, how many archery competitions Mum won when she was younger... I always thought he just had a very good information network." Kyren admitted, thinking back on what had happened and the conversation they shared back in the apartment.

He had been furious back when he had first found out that the person who had taken him in was not only someone who was supposed to be dead the whole time, but the very same butler who had given up on serving his mother. Kyren was not sure of the reason why Kyrano refused to ever see his mother again despite having survived this whole time, but he had been determined to drag the man back into the Mansion. Yet, now that he had calmed down –just a little bit –now, he was beginning to see the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

What was there to be achieved in bringing Kyrano back into the Greaves-Crawford Household? Other than the fact that he was supposed to be a dead man, Kyrano also held the crimes of his past –having single-handedly murdered his own ex-master and ruined the Crawford Household. Even if everyone in the Greaves-Crawford Household knew about the things that Kyrano had saved the then-Young Mistress from, the public would definitely not be as forgiving with the ex-butler, or any Household who would welcome such a man back into their folds. Kyren couldn't even begin to imagine the rumors and the talks that would arise in the public sphere.

"And I can't believe Dad knew that he was alive all along and never dropped any hints."

"There has to be a good reason. Keyron wouldn't keep secrets from Mum and Dad unless it was something dangerous." Kyren reasoned. "Would we ever find out what happened? He didn't seem to be in good shape even when he came into the bedroom to lend us a hand."

"There were bullet wounds on his chest. It was a miracle that he was still up and moving at all."

"I know he was described to us as a legend, but I don't think a man is going to survive all that."

"I'd usually agree with you, but for some reason, I don't think Kyrano is a man who goes by normal standards." This probably had to be the very first time that Kyren was hearing something not particularly rational coming out from his butler's lips. Ever since Kyvan and Kylar had started attending the Butler's Academy, the two of them had been strict, precise and perfectly rational as butlers the whole time to Kyren.

"You have to be kidding me. There's no way someone can survive what we saw."

Any reply that could have possibly come was interrupted with rushed knocks on the door. Suddenly alert, Kyren returned to the bed and made sure that he was installed close to his sleeping sister as his butler cautiously approached the door, tapping lightly back.

There had to be some sort of pre-agreed signal between the twins, because a rhythmic tapping came back on the door, and Kyvan opened the door immediately upon that signal. Kyren could only stare in surprise at the load that Kylar had brought in along with him, dragging the weight into the room as Kyvan closed the door quickly.

"What-"

"We're in an abandoned building at the far edge of town. There's still one working washroom on the floor below this one. Wash and dry your shirt and jacket there. We're going to need lots of cloth as bandage for him if we want to keep him alive." Kylar's orders were strict and all butler-like, and it was well-heeded by the younger twin brother who nodded seriously, grabbed the mentioned cloths and went running out the door as Kyren slid his butt back off the bed, approaching the load that Kylar had unceremoniously dumped on the floor.

"Kyren, this isn't something a butler should be saying, but I'm going to need your help." Kylar's steady voice was strangely a very calming factor for Kyren. In fact, the steadiness of his butler's voice reminded him of... well, it reminded him of the unconscious man that Kylar had dragged into the room.

"I think right now we're past the point of master-and-butler. I might not be good enough to replace your broken arm, but tell me what I can do. We'll even things out later."

"No, Kyren......" The breathy voice that interrupted the conversation took both young men by surprise, looking down to see eyes that were barely open and struggling to stay awake. "A young master should not dirty his hands if he has his butler..."

"Well, it's all thanks to you that I have to dirty my hands." Kyren answered with a roll of his eyes. "Someday I'm going to report to my mother about this."

"Miss Louise cannot..." Kyrano's weak hands struggled to reach the young master, and Kyren was much too soft to ignore the hands of a man who had –despite his past –saved him once and taught him a whole new world of business for the past one month.

"I know, I know. You make sure you survive this, then we talk about letting Mum know about this whole mess, okay?" Kyren squeezed for good measure, and his reassurance must have been settling enough before the semi-conscious man nodded slowly, a serene smile spread across his face.

"You've grown up well... You remind me of Louise..."

With those words –and for the first time, Kyren's mother's name without any honorifics –Kyrano Reyes faded away from consciousness.

________________________________________________________________________________

"I found him while I was scoping out our area. It seems like he came running to secure our safety the moment we disappeared through the trap door." Kylar explained as Kyren and his butlers sat together in a circle after having tended to Kyrano's wounds. The man in question was cleaned up as best as the three of them could afford to with their current resources, burning up a high fever, but not in any life-threatening situations –at least not yet.

None of them could be sure if Kyrano could recover without proper medical help, but their current situation prevented them from rushing the man to a hospital immediately. Besides, Kyrano Reyes was supposed to be dead. Sending a dead man into the hospital was practically begging for questions to be asked, and rumors about the Greaves-Crawford Household would start all over again.

"Did he say whether our fathers are okay?" Kyren asked quietly. While he knew that the Head Butler was a man of stellar capabilities very much like the unconscious man sharing the room with them, the young master of the Greaves-Crawford Household could not deny the fact that Keyron had been injured in the shoulder already before the attackers had come in, and the sheer number of enemies had even managed to pin his butlers' father down to the ground.

"He didn't say, but if Uncle could leave the apartment, then I guess he trusted our father to watch over Master Brandon well." Kylar answered, nibbling softly at the pack of biscuit that had been produced from the cupboard. The three of them had decided to ration the food between them for as long as they could survive considering the fact that they had Kaylen and an unconscious, heavily-injured Kyrano with them. If it was only the three of them, Kyren would have made the quick decision for them to brave the odds and go out looking for help.

Kyren had learnt, after all, that many townspeople were very willing to prove their loyalties and help anyone in relation to the Greaves-Crawford Household. Now that Kyren had been reunited with his butlers, they could no doubt prove his identity as the young master of the town's most beloved household.

"What now?" Kyvan asked quietly, casting a careful eye over to the bed where the young mistress was still sleeping peacefully. The three of them had done their best to remain as quiet as possible during the cleaning-up and patching up process of each other and Kyrano, and thus Kaylen had managed to sleep throughout the whole thing. It probably helped that they were already well into the night, and way past Kaylen's bedtime. It was either that, or the fact that the adrenaline had run out for the poor little girl.

"I want to get Kaylen out of this as soon as possible." Kyren expressed, glad that his butlers nodded in calm agreement. They had not met for the past month, but Kyren was silently grateful that neither Kylar nor Kyvan had seemed to have changed –not even a single bit –during his absence. They were still the stellar butlers that they always had been, but now that Kyren had learnt of the hardships of being a nobody, he was coming to realize exactly how important they were to him, and how essential they were to his survival.

"I still have my phone." Kyvan offered, withdrawing it from his pants pocket as evidence. "I turned it off when we emerged from the tunnel, but I think I can make a call once before anyone tries to trace us. I can contact Dad to send someone here to save us once Kaylen wakes up."

"No." Kyren's shake of head surprised his butlers. "This won't end with just us going home safely. The Hague family has been on our tail for as long as we know, and I'm sick of this. Dad and Mum dismantled their empire, but all James did was just to go underground and get himself power. I'm going to stop them, or my name isn't Kyren Greaves-Crawford."

"It's dangerous. If Miss Louise couldn't catch James herself, then-"

"It's not that Mum couldn't catch him, but she didn't bother with him. But I've had enough of them trying to harm me, Kaylen or my parents. Call me petty, but I'm not that nice to let him off now that he has pointed a gun once at me and Dad." Kyren swore. Sure, it might be a stupid decision to not go home with his little sister, but Kyren couldn't be sure if his mother would even accept him home.

Louise had made it clear, hadn't she? Kyren could not return to his family until he had done something she deemed worthy of a young master of the Greaves-Crawford Household. Sure, he had helped Lyca Trading gain reputation and success in the recent month, but that had all been because of Kyrano's secret help. The man had admitted himself, hadn't he? He had created Lyca Trading just to help Kyren learn about the business world. Whatever the intention had been, it was a fact that Kyren had not been fully and solely responsible in throwing Lyca Trading into meteoric success – Kyrano's foundations had been crucial to his plans working out. Kyren couldn't be sure, but there was chance that his mother wouldn't acknowledge his work with Lyca as something worthy of accepting him back. Kyren needed to look for another chance to prove his worth, and until then, he wasn't planning to beg his way back home just yet.

"You're not going to change your mind even if we try to stop you?" Kylar questioned quietly, deep black eyes staring at his master, his biscuit half-forgotten in his hand.

"You can try." Kyren admitted. "But I'm not going back. Besides, someone has to stay back to watch after Kyrano. I don't think he wants Mum to see him for whatever reason."

"You win." Kylar sighed in resignation, not that there had been much opposition put up in the first place. "Miss Kaylen isn't going to want to be the only one going home, so I'm going to need everyone's cooperation. Kyvan, I trust you to bring Miss Kaylen out to Town Square. There might be James's people, but at least you have more chance of keeping safe if you are exposed to the public. Kyren and I won't be in the room when Miss Kaylen wakes up –she won't leave this place if she sees that we're not leaving as well –so you will have to assure her that the both of us will meet you two at Town Square. Keep her occupied until Dad comes to pick her up. Come back here once you're done."

"You're not going back with Kaylen?" Kyren asked in confusion. "Even if she's safe with your father, she might end up sneaking out again to look for us."

"Miss Kaylen might have been brave to sneak out once, but look at what she went through. Before she works up any guts to sneak out again, Miss Louise would already have her locked up in her room." Kylar answered knowingly, and despite crude words, Kyren found rationality behind them.

"But shouldn't Kyvan be with her at least? If something happens to the both of us, at least Kaylen has someone by her side."

"I know you care for your sister, Kyren." The young butler in topic spoke up this time with a small reassuring smile, still nibbling on his biscuit. Both Kylar and Kyvan shared many similarities as twins, but it could not be disputed that Kyvan as the younger twin was generally more easy-going and expressive while Kylar tended to be the very-stable, completely trustworthy elder brother. "I care for my brother too."

"Are you saying you don't trust me with him?" Kyren teased, unable to stop his grin. They might have grown up being taught that they were supposed to be master-and-butlers, but the fact remained that their fathers had been so close and displayed so much behavior as friends and almost-brothers that ran against the norm that the sons had come to learn of the same thing.

"I'm saying I want to be right next to my big brother, right, Kylar?" The childish voice that Kyvan affected was so unnatural that Kyren immediately mimicked a vomiting face while the big brother in question cringed, an amused smile breaking through the serious expression that had been hanging there moments ago.

"You're going to need all the help you can get, Kyren, if you plan to take on James Hague without Miss Louise or Master Brandon's help." Kylar answered Kyren instead. "And even though Miss Louise gave strict orders for us to not help you while you are in exile, I don't think she can say anything against the two of us helping a stranger that we met in town in the middle of a dangerous situation."

"Strangers? Fine." Kyren raised a brow, smirking at how sly his butler was trying to be against his own mistress. He set aside his biscuit and extended his hand over to Kylar, a look of expectance written on his face.

"Nice to meet you, Kylar Reyes of the Greaves-Crawford Household. My name is Kay."