Page 28 of Albel

“Yes, that’s where I had to turn it off. The power also went off. I haven’t had time to check to see whether anyone else’s did or if it was just mine,” Daddy replies.

Galar turns around to face his men. “Go look downstairs and around the workshop to see if anything looks out of place and report back to me.”

They leave the room, and I take a deep breath in, the room feeling exponentially bigger. Galar sits in front of Daddy and me and smiles. Galar hunches his shoulders, almost like he’s trying to make himself appear smaller in front of me.

“I want to ask you a couple of questions. Do you think you’re up for answering them?” Galar asks.

“It’s okay, Little Pet,” Daddy gently says. “He’s one of the good guys, and Daddy isn’t going to leave you.”

“Have you been meeting with some not-so-good guys?” Galar tilts his head to the side. “I bet that can be kind of scary. I bet seeing all of us fill a room can be scary. We’re so big, and you’re just a little thing.”

I nod.

“And I know your Daddy must feel bad for having scared you, but I know he didn’t mean it. He would never want to do that to you,” Galar says. “Now, can you tell me what happened?”

I grip onto Daddy’s shirt and take a deep breath, slowly letting it out to calm my system.

“You can answer his question. Be as detailed as possible,” Daddy encourages me.

I look over at Galar. “I was asleep, so I don’t know much. But I woke up to the alarm going off and the power off. It felt eerie. It felt like the time the man came into the store.”

“Which man?” Galar asks.

I look up at Daddy. “The customer you’ve seen several times.”

Galar looks at Daddy with a raised eyebrow. “Your customer?”

“She hasn’t been around many Venkorian males, so she is wary around them. From the little I know about him, he doesn’t raise any red flags. He’s about to get his own pet,” Daddy explains. “I can forward you his information.”

“I would appreciate that,” Galar says before turning back to me. “What do you find weird about him that makes you uncomfortable?”

“He looks at me oddly and asks me some strange questions. I don’t like the way he stares at me. And he just makes me feel icky inside,” I reply hesitantly. “It’s like the room temperature drops whenever he’s there… I don’t know.”

“Those are great ways of expressing it. We’ll look into him more, so don’t you worry.” Galar smiles.

I turn to Daddy. “Could he have anything to do with the guard from the room?”

Daddy shakes his head. “We already looked into that guard and made sure that the family and friends he had wouldn’t try anything. They are being watched.”

I relax into his embrace at the sound of his words. He was a mean person. Really scary.

“There is another person?” Galar asks.

“No one that you need to worry about. He is serving life in prison,” Daddy replies.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about this incident?” Galar shifts in his seat.

“Everything was working fine, so I went upstairs to grab something. That’s when the power went out. Soon after, the alarm downstairs started to go off. Nothing looked like it was smashed or taken, though I didn’t look at it very thoroughly. I didn’t want to spend too much time there when I had my Little Pet with me,” Daddy explains the situation.

“And from the little you saw, were your cameras working?” Galar asks. “They aren’t hooked up to the main power source for your house, right?”

“They aren’t. I know most people’s are, but with Little Pet coming, I didn’t want anything to happen. I heard someone’s pet almost got kidnapped, and I didn’t want that to happen to Ella, so I changed it and hooked it up to make sure it was always running. It’s also connected to a generator that is hidden, so if they do find out where it’s connected to, it’ll still run,” Daddy details.

“Good. Do we have access to the clips?”

“You do. Your commanding officer is the only one who has the password, though, to get into the feed.”

I lean my head on Daddy’s chest and close my eyes. I just want this day to be over with. I want all these scary incidents to stop happening and to live a peaceful life with Daddy.