Keditha's Destiny

Chapter Four

"Mom?" I cry. "Mommy!" I notice an eerie glow shine under my door and smoke fills the room. I hide under my blanket, hoping it would go away.

My dad swings open my door. It hits the wall with a loud slam. "Julian!" He rushes to my bed. "Don't breath in the smoke!" He instructs, picking me up.

"Where's mommy?" I ask, as he carries me through the house. I see a huge fire coming from my parents room. My eyes widen. "Dad! Look!"

"I know, buddy. Just keep calm."

"Mommy! Where are you!" I yell as dad carries me outside. Dad places me down, darting back towards the house.

I grab his sleeve. "Dad wait! Where are you going?" I ask.

He ruffles my hair. "I'm going to find your mother, stay here okay? We'll be out soon."

I nod. My lower lip trembles as I watch him run back inside. They'll be out soon, dad said they would so it must be true.

A couple minutes pass and my parents still haven't shown. The fire continues to spread, consuming the whole house. I grab the arm of someone walking past. "Please help me! my parents, they're still inside!"

They shrug me off and continue on their way. No one cared. I wasn't from around here, I didn't matter. Nor did my parents.

Sirens sound in the distance as firefighters make their way to my house. But it was too late. I knew it was.

Tears falling down my face, I dart down the street away from the house and my parents, being consumed by the darkness of the night.

"Hey, I'm not sure where Johnny is hiding Richard's kid but I narrowed it down." Donnie says, knocking me out of my daydream.

"How many places?" I ask cautiously. Johnny always switched up his location. He never stayed in one spot for over a month. There could be hundreds of places he could be.

"Five." Donnie says.

Louis pauses his card game, looking at Donnie with a weird look. "Only five? Are you sure?"

Donnie nods, showing Louis his notepad. "Mhm." He says proudly.

"Are you sure your math is correct?"

Donnie frowns. He slaps Louis in the face with the notebook. "Is my math correct..." He mumbles. "Of course my math is correct you dimwit!"

Louis flinches back, thinking he was going to get slapped again. "Okay, I get it. It's just that Johnny has alot of places."

"I agree with Louis." I say. "We trust you, but it seems odd."

Donnie slaps his notebook on the coffee table. "Let me put this into perspective for you idiots, so you'll understand." Louis and I exchange a look, trying not to laugh. "You take the total number of Johnny's bases, you eliminate the ones he's been to recently and the ones he couldn't hide a hostage."

Donnie grabs his notebook, started scribbling in it. "Also get rid of the buildings under construction and or been bought by a business. And you got five."

I sigh, leaning back on the couch. "So Athena is in one of these buildings?" I ask him.

Donnie pauses. "Yes, well I mean possibly."

Louis narrows his eyes, frowning. "Possibly? What do you mean possibly?"

"Well, I mean we don't know all of his bases. I mean sure we've been doing a good job at keeping up with his base changes, but we've could missed one...or a couple."

"Just give us the buildings you have and we'll go check them out." I tell Donnie.

He nods. "I'll go get Kenny, and then we can head out."

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Louis asks. "I know that you want to know what happened to your parents but is it really worth breaking the peace between Hollister and us?"

"I don't know, but we have to take the chance."

Louis frowns. "Julian, can I be honest with you?" He cleans up his card game, not looking at me.

"Are you ever not?" I say smirking, causing Louis to laugh.

"Fair." He clears his throat. "I don't think we should help Richard. Yes I understand there's a young girl's life on the line but Hollister has so much fire power than we do. I don't think we can risk it."

I sigh, pushing myself to my feet. "What about what happened to my parents?" I question.

"We can figure out another way to get it out of him if we have to. Or we look somewhere else."

I raise an eyebrow. "What do you mean? You want us to torture him or something?"

"Who are you torturing?" Kenny asks, walking into the room with Donnie.

"Richard, apparently." I mutter.

Kenny glances between Louis and I. "What? We can't do that."

"We're not." Louis tells him. "I'm just saying we need to keep in mind the risks of saving Athena. We could start a war."

Donnie picks his notebook up, heading for the door. "We can risk the war. Besides Johnny is a pretty reasonable guy...right?" He asks.

"Depends on what you mean by reasonable." Louis says. "He only does something if it'll benefit him. I don't think we can give anything in exchange for his hostage."

"We want to trade with him? That doesn't seem right..." Kenny says. "She is a human being."

I sigh. "Listen, we're going to save her and it's not just because I want to know what happened to my parents but because she doesn't deserve to be imprisoned like that." Louis opens his mouth to say something but I cut him off. "I don't care about ticking off Hollister or starting a war. If anything, he had it coming."

The three men watch me carefully, not saying a thing. "Well! That settles it, let's go." Donnie says after a moment, darting out the door.

Kenny shrugs. "You're the boss."

I look him straight in the eyes, narrowing them. "Do you have a problem with me?"

Kenny shakes his head. "No sir." He says mockingly before following Donnie out the door.

I look at Louis who just shrugs. I sigh deeply. "You're driving." I say tossing the keys to him.