Prologue

 

 

Five fingers. 

 “I’m done.”   

Four fingers. 

“Just keep him talking.”

Three fingers. 

“I really hate to do this.” Perfect shot.

Two fingers.  

 “Poor Mason. You just had to get mixed up in things. This shouldn’t have happened. I should’ve been able to get away, everyone should’ve been safe. But no! You had to exist…you know too much.”  

One finger. 

“You….You’re alive” 

And then… I slipped. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

 

Ding!  My dad’s computer screen lit up and I jolted out of my skin. I jumped up and ran over to the computer. My game had been downloading for hours and I was really bored. Thinking that my hours of patience had finally paid off, I checked the screen. But it wasn’t my game. It was a message. TOP SECRET INFORMATION. I was curious so I opened it. It said: “COMPLETE. MEET OR CALL A.S.A.P.” What’s complete?? Why is it top secret??? Ever since Mom died he’d been so secretive and he always shut me out so maybe he wouldn’t have told me if something was happening. I started to search the first floor. There seemed to be nothing wrong, but something told me I had to keep looking. I tried to look for any detail that could’ve stood out. But there was nothing. I finally gave up. I turned around and something caught my eye. I spun around to my left to see what could’ve caught my attention. Nothing looked strange…until I looked at the wall. There was a square of it that looked very out of place. The paint was messed up. I walked over and looked a little closer. It wasn’t part of the wall…it was a trap door. I opened it and climbed down the stairs. Almost at once, I heard voices.  

“What should we do now, Tristen?”  

“What do you mean, what do we do?! We’ve done this millions of times before. Pull yourself together!” I heard my dad say angrily. “We need to put her someplace where nobody will ever find her.  We’ll hide her, send the standard ransom note, and wait. If we get no response from the family, we kill her. Simple as that.” 

“Understood, sir.”  

“What?! Dad? This has to be some sort of mistake. Why would he kill an innocent girl?!”  I climbed back up before either of them could see me, closed the trap door, and ran back to my room. I’m going to clear my dad’s name. This has to be a mistake. I opened my computer and started researching. I opened the search engine and typed in Tristen Murray. Nothing. Then I tried Tristen Murray Undercover Operation. Nothing. Just as I was shutting my computer, my dad knocked on my door. “Mason, I’m leaving on a business trip for about a week or so. You can drive so you’ll be fine.”  

“Okay. Bye.” I said as cheerfully as possible. As soon as I heard the front door slam, I rushed over to my dad’s office. My game didn’t matter anymore. I checked my dad’s e-mail again. The message he got had been deleted. Another dead end. I exited out and walked back up to my room. When I opened the door, I saw a figure dressed in all black standing in the middle of my room.  

“What were you looking for, Mason?” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

I panicked. I was never a good liar. With curly brown hair, preppy clothes, and a spoiled attitude, nobody liked me. I’m not even going to lie…nobody liked me. I was a gamer at heart so I never really got to talk to anyone anyways. Even though I didn’t talk, I hated so many people…and this guy is one of them. The menacing way he coughed loudly snapped me back to reality. “Um, I was just checking to see if my game had finished downloading, sir.”  

“Oh, really? And did it?” He asked in a sarcastic tone. 

“N-n-no. Not yet.” I was terrified. This was the man I had seen talking to my dad. “Dad must have left him to watch me.”  I thought. There was a cold and brutal look in the man’s eyes as he stared at me. In the sunlight I could see something shiny sticking out of his pocket. It was a knife. I started to freak out internally. He was going to kill me. I had to get away. I decided to try something super risky.  

“He won’t let you kill me.” I said. 

“I have no idea who you are referring to. I work alone.” He said menacingly as he took a step towards me. 

“You know very well who I’m referring to. Dad.” I said as I backed up. 

“Dad?” He asked. Another step. 

“TRISTEN MURRAY!” I was so overwhelmed with fear that I started screaming. “DON’T ACT LIKE YOU DON’T KNOW WHO I’M TALKING ABOUT! YOU WORK FOR THE GUY!”  

“Yes, I suppose I do. But he isn’t here now is he?” He said as he took another step towards me. I backed up and hit a wall. He saw his chance and put a knife to my neck. “If I were you, I’d listen real carefully to what I’m about to say.” His voice went from yelling to a menacing whisper in a split second. “Stay away from your dad. Stay away from me. And mind your own damn business. Or else.” He moved the knife to where it was no longer touching my neck, put it in his pocket, and walked out. After a couple of minutes I heard the front door slam. I slid down the wall and for the first time since my mom died, I started to cry. I sat there for hours, listening to the sound of my own sobs. I thought about what the man had said, and I decided that I had to know if my dad was dangerous. There had always been one floor of my house that I was never allowed to enter. Until now.

I got up hastily and ran out of my room. I sprinted down the hallway, pressed the elevator button, and stepped in. “The fifth floor.”  The elevator dinged as it reached the fifth floor. The forbidden floor. I wandered out of the elevator and looked around in wonder. I had never been here before. I started down the hallway. There were so many gigantic doors, each one leading to a different section of the forbidden floor. Trying the first door on the left, I turned the knob and walked in. Nothing. The room was completely empty. I walked back out and closed the door.

A little further down the hallway, there was another door. It was covered in cobwebs and taped on the knob was a tattered sign. It read: KEEP OUT! Of course, I didn’t listen. I opened the door and wandered inside. It looked completely normal. But I knew it wasn’t. It smelled like a dead bodies. As I stepped further into the room, my head hit something that was dangling from the ceiling. I thought it was just a broken ceiling fan or something. But when I looked up…I was looking into my mother’s eyes. My mother’s dead body was hanging from the ceiling above me. As I looked up, blood dripped onto my face. Her head was tied by a rope. Her mouth was open from a long-since faded scream of horror. My mother had been murdered.

 

Chapter 3

 

          I looked up at my mother until blood filled my eyes and I couldn’t see anymore.  The more I looked at her, the more I saw someone that I knew wasn’t my mother. This lady, in her last moments, became someone else. She became someone that begs for forgiveness, someone that tries to survive but fails miserably. Someone that falls right before reaching the finish line. Someone that didn’t make it. But I was determined not to turn into my mother. I wasn’t going to die like she did. In one second, I knew who had done it. It was my father that killed her. He killed her so he could show me what would happen if I ever found out. And now the same thing is going to happen to me. “Oh god. Oh my god. I’m going to die right next to my mother. Exactly like her.”

         

          “Hmmmm. You are very observant, dear Mason. You know, if I didn’t have to do this, we would be best friends. But I have to. I’m sorry.” For a moment, I thought I could see pity in his eyes. I thought he was going to spare me. I was wrong. The flash of pity changed to an enraged and bitter expression. He pulled a rope out of his pocket. I already couldn’t breathe. I was going to die. I turned and ran as fast as I could. I tried so hard to escape, but he was too fast. By the time I had reached the stairs, he had already prepared the rope and he was running after me. I could hear his footsteps right next to me. But he wasn’t even close to me. All of a sudden, everything stopped. The house was completely silent. A hand closed over my mouth. And then not only did everything go silent…Everything went black.

 

          I woke up on the floor. But I wasn’t dead. It didn’t make any sense. Earlier, my dad’s goon looked as though he was going to kill me right there. But I wasn’t dead! He had left me alive. So there was still hope that I could defeat my dad. But I couldn’t kill him. I just couldn’t. I had to survive long enough to help him get better. My thoughts were interrupted by a terrifying crash. Then came the words, “Mason. Come here.” I looked around, not knowing where the sound was coming from. “Mason.” It seemed like the wall was speaking. But it was my dad’s goon. He was trapped in the wall. That must be why I could hear footsteps earlier. I couldn’t tear down the wall, though. I had to find out a way to get in there and help him. Even though he tried to kill me, I wasn’t about to leave him there to die. I tore through the house, busted open the door, and started looking for a sledgehammer. Within minutes, I found one. I ran over to the house and started tearing the wall down. Suddenly, the sledgehammer made a huge whack. The last thing I heard from my dad’s goon was his head crack against the brick as I pulled his limp body out of the remnants of the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

The smack of his head hitting the brick made the worst sound I’d ever heard. I could see the exact moment his eyes went lifeless and his body went limp. I remembered the first time I ever saw him.

 

It was a freezing December night. My father had been in his office since the morning with some guy I haven’t even seen before. He looked mean and menacing. They had locked the door behind them but I had gotten to hear bits and pieces of the conversation. They were talking about my mother. They were plotting her death. My father didn’t want to do it. But this guy did. He finally convinced my dad. Automatically I hated him. I wanted to kill him. So I made a pact with myself. If he killed my mother, I would kill him. I would avenge her death.

 

I was in even more danger than ever before. If my dad found out that I killed his right-hand man with a hammer…I’d be killed with that same freaking hammer. I couldn’t risk being caught so I decided that I’d leave the body in the wall. For now, I guess. I’d come back later and move it. But for now…I had to take care of something. I walked back to the front of the house and the first thing I noticed was that the front door was open. And I hadn’t left it open. I was going to face whatever was in there sooner or later…might as well face it sooner. I shakily stepped into the house. It was completely silent. Too silent. Maybe my dad was home. Maybe he figured I wasn’t home. The first place he goes is always his office. His office door was completely shut. I slowly inched closer and closer. But as I reached the door, I heard a scream. It was my dad. I tried the doorknob. It was locked. He screamed again. Then everything went silent. The door flew open. But the room was empty. Nobody was in there. I yelled for my father. But there was no answer. I decided I had to go look for him. While I was thinking, I noticed something red out of the corner of my eye. I looked to my right. There was a trail of crimson blood leading through the wall. There couldn’t have been a way through the wall! I had watched enough movies to know that there was always a lever that opened a secret door, though. So I started looking for it. After about ten minutes of searching, I found it. I pressed down and a door in the wall swung open. The trail of blood led up the stairs. I kept walking. The trail led to the left. Into the room where my mother was. I slowly opened the door. My eyes followed the trail of blood all the way to the end of the room. I stepped onto it.

 

At the end of the trail…I saw a head laying against the wall, eyes that were glazed open, blood running from a body like a river of rubies. My father was dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

          I didn’t bury him…I put him in the same room as my mother. I sat there for hours. Silently weeping. Sometimes wandering through the room. After a while, it got really dark. I finally had the strength to look at my dead parents. I looked at them and I said “I will avenge your death. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

 

I took my eyes off of them and looked to the side. There was a door. I said goodbye to my parents one last time, before I set their bodies on fire. And left through the door. I stepped into the doorway and turned on the light. White packets. All I saw were shelves and shelves of white packets. I stepped further in. All of a sudden, the door slammed behind me and locked. I heard a cackle from the other side. Someone had been in the room with me the whole time. I pounded my fists against the door, hoping and hoping it would give and push open. But it never did. I was trapped. No windows. No open doors. Nothing except me and those shelves. What could they be? I walked over to the shelf closest to me and ripped a packet open. I dumped it upside down and white powder came out. So much of it. I tried another packet. More white powder. Another. More white powder. It was endless. The floor was now covered in white powder. It was cocaine. My dad was a druggy. He was a serial killer that was always high. Now I was glad he died. He deserved it.

 

          I could feel myself going insane. I kept pounding on the door and screaming until I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke down. I started to cry. Just as I was going to give up, the door flew open. And I tumbled onto the burning body of my father. As soon as I saw his burning body, I lost it. I ran out of the room as fast as I could. I busted through my dad’s office door. Stumbling, I found exactly what I needed to follow my father’s legacy…

 

Rope.