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"Are they coming?" only a sliver of light seeped into the crawl space from the miniscule fissure between the trap door and the kitchen floor. The footfalls that thundered overhead across the tiled floor stopped abruptly. The men now stood between the buzzing kitchen lights and the trap door of the crawl space. Their shadows cast the hiding place into near blackness.

"Shush. They'll hear you, Chels," Pyro hissed.

He could barely see his own hand in front of his face let alone his little sister. It was without his sight that he realized how obvious fear could be. Chelsea was shaking uncontrollably and her hands were cold and clammy as she clutched his right hand tightly in both of hers. Whenever she spoke, even her voice came out in a quivering whisper.

"They've been around," the cold, monotonous voice characterized the man it belonged to. Pyro had managed to catch a glimpse of the man and his accomplice through the window before he and Chelsea had been ushered into the crawl space by their mother. If he closed his eyes, Pyro could picture the intruder inspecting ever inch of the kitchen, his pale eyes narrowed, missing nothing.

"Mrs. Tyler, we know they are here," the second trespasser cut in with a strong Southern accent. He would stand beside his partner, a bit shorter and stockier with less of a professional air. Both wore suits and ties and dress shoes, as if it was a business meeting they were attending.

Pyro know who they were. They were Pipers. People he had only heard about in whispers from tight circles.

"But you're mistaken," Adrienne Tyler replied fiercely, though even her voice shook.

"Mrs. Tyler, you must understand, it's for the betterment of the Unit5ed States of America that they be terminated. Now tell us where they are," the first man said firmly and slowly, as if he had taken great care in choosing the words he spoke.

There was a silence. For a moment, Pyro was sure the men had felt Chelsea's trembling through the floor or heard his and Chelsea's breathing.

The silence was ended abruptly by a click. A sickening knot seemed to have formed in Pyro’s stomach and he dared not breathe. Chelsea had begun sobbing softly and Pyro found himself praying that he men above did not hear.

"Where are they" the monotonous voice repeated.

"I won't tell your," Adrienne said defiantly, "they are my children."

There was a sigh. It was not of relief, or of sympathy. It was of frustration.

With ever blink Pyro could imagine the scene directly above him as vividly as if he was actually situated on the kitchen counter instead of the damp crawl space.

His mother, her straight red hair falling past her shoulders, stood perfectly straight meeting the first Piper's eyes with her dark blue ones. She was shaking; her face reddened, but she wouldn't back down. The two Pipers stood opposite. The first with a gun raised even to Adrienne Tyler's heart, stony face and serious. The second was on his colleague's left, smug faced and malicious.

The gunshot came suddenly, making Pyro jump. His heart skipped a beat, and his throat seemed to close up on him. Never had Pyro ever imagined such a sound, or what it alone could do to him.

A soft thud followed.

"They never cooperate," drawled the stockier man. As he spoke, something came dripping through the thin crack separating the trap door and the floor of the kitchen. It spread into the strip of light like a glistening red plague.

Chelsea uttered a horrified choking sound, like a small cry that had gotten caught in her throat. Pyro wanted to cover her eyes, but he seemed frozen in place, unable to breathe, unable to move. As much as he wanted to turn away, he could not. His gaze remained fixed on the growing pool of crimson blood trickling through the narrow sliver.

"Let's move her body away from the window," the first man's crisp voice remained emotionless. His partner must have responded with a nod because without another word, the shuffling and lifting of dead weight could be heard.

Chelsea was now sobbing violently into Pyro's shoulder, clutching his hand and Pyro couldn't bring himself to quiet her. Like a flash fire, a familiar wave of heat surged through his entire body and he was no longer rigid.

"Chelsea, shield. Now," he ordered. If the men heard him, so be it. Soon enough it would no longer matter.

Chelsea understood him instantly. She dropped her grasp on his hand and shrank away from him for her own safety into the deeper shadows of the crawl space.

With an sudden flash of orange light, the crawl space lit up, allowing Pyro a quick glimpse at his sister's tear-streaked face before flames licked up in front of him. Within moments, he couldn't see anything passed the reds and oranges of the fire and the black of the smoke.

Coughing into his shoulder, Pyro found the trap door and managed to lift it and struggle of of the crawl space.

He looked up; his dark gray eyes met the icy pair of the taller of the Pipers.

"Clever," he said simply, a rancorous smile slowly spreading across his gaunt face. Pyro gritted his teeth. The frustration showed on his face, now smeared with black of charcoal timber.

The second man came up from behind him and grabbed hold of his wrist only to jerk back, shrieking in pain. His hand blistered, immediately burned on contact with Pyro's now super-heated body.

Seizing the moment, Pyro too the handle of a butcher knife from the knife block and backed towards the window. Eyes fixed on his two assailants, Pyro pulled himself onto the counter. Both watched him. The burned one's dark eyes narrowed in hatred. The other seemed to by trying to predict what Pyro intended to do.

He smashed the kitchen window with the knife and swiftly as he could, darted out, slicing himself open on the broken glass of the panes and dropping the knife. But he didn't notice.

Without looking back at the collapsing of the charred timber, the shattering glass, the tongues of flame licking up to the sky completely engulfing his house, Pyro ran.