Hey guys, sorry for the long wait. I was stuck on this chapter, and I couldn't figure out how to get around it. But I figured it out. I'm getting the feeling that the chapters are coming out more episodic thank I like. I'm going to try to tie it all together, I promise. Sorry for the chapter being shorter than normal, but there wasn't much to be said this time… *sighs*

5 – Enter: Cad Spinner – 5

There was a cool, but gentle breeze. Goosebumps appeared on her arms and prickled her skin as her green-hazel eyes opened. She inhaled through her nose before she sat up smoothly, feeling more energised than she had ever had before. She got to her feet and grinned as she looked at her surroundings, feeling giddy and fully awake.

Something niggled at the back of her mind, telling her that something about this situation was not right, but she ignored it.

She was in a meadow. The meadow was surrounded on all sides by a dense forest, and snow-capped mountains rose high on the horizon. She grinned wide, and thought, This place is so beautiful! If I could, I'd have built a cabin right over there. She looked over at a part of the meadow that rested in the shadow of the trees, and figured that that would be where she would build the cabin. She'd have a nice big fireplace, where she'd sit in front of the fire and watch the flames dance during a cold winter's night.

The breeze played with her hair and caused her bangs to tickle her face, but that didn't bother her all that much. She was too focused on the beauty all around her. Wait until Damion sees this!

"Damion, come see this!" she called, even though something told her faintly that Damion wouldn't be there to answer her call.

To her delight, a familiar voice responded a few minutes later. "Coming, Audra!" Rapid foot-falls approached her from behind, and it wasn't long before she found herself being tackled from behind. She let out a playful cry as she was pushed to the ground, and grunted when something heavy landed on her back.

"Get off!" she demanded. She flailed until her attacker got the message, and he rolled off with a laugh. Audra pushed herself and looked at him, her lips stretching into a teeth-bearing smile of joy. Her brother was there, stretched out on the grass laughing his head off as he clutched his abdomen. "Damion!" she exclaimed happily. "You're actually here!"

Damion took a couple of seconds to calm himself down before he said, "I don't give up that easily! I looked for you everywhere, and I finally found you!" he let out a happy sigh as he rolled to his feet. She looked at him and noticed how much older he looked, even though she had sent him on his way less than a week ago. "That base was really cut off from the rest of the world, wasn't it?"

Audra shrugged. "I…guess."

He gave her a quick hug. "So…how have you been feeling? Has your breathing been okay?" he looked at her with a concerned look on his face.

She couldn't help but pause at that question, and bit the inside of her cheek as she thought back to how good she had been feeling. If I could only keep feeling that good, she thought wistfully. "My breathing's doing pretty good. It's such a nice change from before."

"That's good…" Damion said, an absentminded tone in his voice.

Audra continued to stare at the clouds, enjoying the sun on her face. She hadn't felt this good in a year, and she was going to take in it all as much as she could. She closed her green-hazel eyes and inhaled the fresh air. She never wanted this to end.

Ominous thunder suddenly rumbled off in the distance. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at the dark clouds building above the mountains. Worry nudged her heart as she realized that there was no shelter for them, and the thought of standing under the trees of the forest during a storm seemed dangerous and unappealing to her. But all thoughts of getting to cover vanished when her brother spoke again.

"That's good, because now I can do this!" She felt him suddenly shove her roughly in the back, forcing her to the ground. She rolled over and looked up at him in disbelief, raising her arms instinctively.

Her eyes widened as her brother descended upon her and wrapped his hands around her throat. She gasped instinctively as his fingers tightened painfully until she could breathe no more and she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. She clawed at his hands, but he somehow had an iron grip on her throat. "Why?" she managed to mouth. She didn't understand, she had done her best to take care of him.

"You're asking me why I'm doing this?" he snarled at her, his expression dark and murderous. She never thought she would ever see that expression on his face. He was such a loving and caring boy… "I'll tell you why! Do you know how much pain you put me through?! For the longest time I believed you were dead! But then I suddenly find you, and you are healthier than you ever were! Did you make it up?! Did you fake having cancer so that you wouldn't have to take care of me anymore?!"

Audra wanted to scream "no!" but couldn't as she was quickly running out of air. Panic rose and gripped her heart as she mouthed the word and no sound left her lips. She kept trying to speak, even as her vision began to fade and her brother's maniacal laughter faded off into the distance.

Audra lunged to a sitting position in bed, her clothes soaked with sweat. Her chest heaved with desperate pants, as if she had been dangerously starved of oxygen. She looked about in a panic, trying to pick her brother out in the darkness. Her panic lasted for several minutes before she suddenly came to the conclusion that she was in a familiar place.

That's right, she was in Maru's workshop. That meadow, and her brother…they were just a dream. Her brother hadn't tried to kill her—she was safe.

A shiver wracked her body, and she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, but there was nothing she could do about that. She focused on breathing in and out and on the amber light emitting from the stove nearby.

Once she had gotten her heartrate back to a normal pace, the sudden scraping of metal on metal sent her heart a-thundering again. She looked over, wide-eyed, in the direction of the source of the noise, and froze in place. Several seconds later, Maru emerged from the shadows, looking at her with wide eyes.

"I heard a scream," he said. "Is there anything wrong?"

Audra bit her bottom lip and looked away from the tug. She was tempted to tell him about the dream, no—nightmare she just had, but…she couldn't bring herself to do it. She just couldn't let it out and bother Maru with it. He had enough to deal with as it was when it came to day-to-day life. And he probably had to monitor her for a good long while because of how hard he had hit her head the day before.

"There's nothing wrong…" she said, quietly. "I just scared myself, that's all. The dark makes me jumpy." she chuckled weakly, trying to wave away his concern.

Maru had a dubious look on his face, and she had a feeling that he didn't believe what she had said. "I could hear you muttering in your sleep. I think we need to talk."

Maru managed to wheedle the nightmare from her, and she had to fight to keep herself from bursting into tears in front of him. After that, the tug seemed to be satisfied with what she told him, and he left her alone. He went back to wherever he was before, leaving Audra alone in the dark by herself, struggling to keep her mind from going back to the nightmare. She ended up only getting three more hours of sleep before the sun came up and she gave up trying to sleep.

Like she was a member of the undead, she rose from her bed of stuffed burlap sacks and walked to Maru's front door. She came to a stop just outside the hangar and sat down next to the door. Even though she told Maru about the nightmare, it still haunted her and seemed to taunt her from the depths of her mind in short bursts.

Damion wouldn't do something like that to me…right? she thought. He knows I love him. He knew I thought I would die back on the farm. I didn't know I would be transported here. I didn't know.

Her attention was thankfully pulled away from her tortuous thoughts by the sound of a feminine voice announcing over the tower's loudspeaker: "All aircraft, be advised. Superintendent Spinner has entered the base. I repeat, Superintendent Spinner has entered the base."

Audra blinked. Superintendent Spinner? Who was that?

Maru shot outside from within his hangar and screeched to a stop beside her. "Alright, Audra, inside! Don't want Spinner seeing you. I don't want to ever find out what he'd to a human," he told her.

Audra nodded in agreement, briefly thinking back to "Stranger Danger" saying that was popular when she was a child. She quickly climbed to her feet and walked as fast as her tired body would allow back into Maru's hangar. She crouched down by one of the windows beside the door and peeked up over the windowsill as a fancy white SUV came racing up. This must be Spinner.

Back when she was still healthy and was still living on the farm, on Earth, and her parents were still around, she used to have time to watch shows and the news and go peoplewatching. She used to be able to look at a person, examine their mannerisms and speech patterns, and deduce what they were like after a short while. But as soon as she saw Spinner, she knew she didn't like him. He looked too pristine, too put together for someone who was way out here, surrounded by trees and a national park. And his attitude sucked—that was apparent from the moment he opened his mouth.

Audra listened to him talk and watched him closely for what felt like forever. Near the end of his 'visit' she was forced to duck down and crouch low under the window when he glanced her way. She prayed feverishly that he had not been seen her—and when he continued on with his 'conversation' with Blade without it sounding like he was coming any closer, she allowed herself to breath a silent sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to be dragged away to die on an examination table.

Spinner sounded extremely selfish, and not someone she would trust to know about her. He didn't leave fast enough, and Audra didn't feel comfortable enough to leave the hangar until almost an hour had passed after he had driven off base.

"What a creep," she managed to comment to the person closest to her, which happened to be Dipper.

Dipper nodded in a way that told her that she agreed with her. "Cad Spinner is definitely not a friend. Did you know that he diverted a large chunk of our budget to the restoration of the Grand Fusel Lodge?"

Audra couldn't help but gasp. She knew she didn't know all that much about firefighting, but she knew that any sort of budget was important to the running and maintenance of the base and firefighters. "No way!" she exclaimed. "How dare he!" The restoration of the lodge was not more important than the lives of the firefighters and the well-being of the park. There would be no lodge if there were no firefighters!"

She watched as Dipper nodded in agreement before she firmly decided that she would find it extremely hard to ever like, or not be judgmental of, Cad Spinner.

Knockouts Apprentice: Aw, thanks. I'm glad you liked. It was so fun to write!

quasarsmom: Thanks :D

BulletTheF150: Yep, that's totally not Maru, lol. Safety? What is this safety you speak of?

NightshadeAuthoress: I'm glad you're liking it so much, and it pleases me to know that I'm writing them correctly, or in a way people like. That's the part I'm looking forward to writing so much because it will let me explore a part of Audra's thinking that I find quite intriguing. Should she tell Blade that she knows Nick? Should she tell him that his best friend is alive? Oh, and Nick's picture in Maru's hangar? Those are the topics I look forward to writing the most, lol. Thanks for the review!