A Secret Unforgotten

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Chapter 1

The shimmering candles created warmth though out the room, a shadowy figure passed by the open door. Charlotte’s head swirled around but there was nothing there. The candles caught the shimmer of her deep blue eyes. Her perfect brunette hair flowed down past her shoulders. Confused she turned back to her book. It had to be a figure of her imagination because there was no such man that big. But there it was again! She swung around faster than humanly possible. There standing in the shadows, almost as if he was a shadow himself, was what looked like man but couldn’t possibly be one. He had to be at least seven feet tall, big; burley, and his eyes made a chill run down her spine.  He wore all black, black shirt, black pants, and a black trench coat, that surprisingly, touched the floor. But what was the most frightening was the platinum gold earring stud that stuck out like a sore thumb. A draft was blowing through the open door. Something more than a storm was coming. The man lunged towards me. I leapt back, crashing into the chair behind me. Looking up at him I stared. He had long black hair, that looked to be pulled into a sleek ponytail, his lips looked to be chapped and red like they had been bleeding, and his eyes looked to be to big for his face. I gasped. His eye, they were black, black as coal, black… as nothing. He took that moment to leap at me. His black- gloved hands closed around my neck. Taking me into the depths of somewhere unknown. The last thing I herd before the blackness swallowed me was “ My Queen.”  

            Charlotte woke with a start. It was just a dream she thought. Just a dream. She dreamed about that night over and over. It seemed to haunt her every time she let the darkness overcome her.

             She looked at the clock on her white, Ruff Betten, nightstand next to her bed. Beeping back at her was the horrid numbers 5:30 a.m. Ugh I thought. Knowing I wasn’t going to get anymore sleep, I tossed the covers aside and headed down to the kitchen for a crusaunt and some orange juice.

            I padded bare foot down the stairs leading to the kitchen. It was a modern kitchen, to match the rest of the house, with a marble topped island in the center and exquisite furniture to match, it had a huge refrigerator, almost hidden in the wall, to acquire all their needs.

            Walking over to the huge fridge I opened it up and grabbed the pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice, their housekeeper always freshly squeezed if for her and her brother. It was the one thing that was practically a tradition by now, that they picked up from their parents. Not the cheap kind you buy from the grocery stores, but the real stuff. Nothing could match it.

            Taking my breakfast over to the kitchen table I sat down and gazed out the big wall window facing the ocean. The sun was just rising over the horizon, yellow rays illuminating the water. Looking out over the ocean, I couldn’t help but wonder if my parents were watching the same sun rise somewhere. Exactly seven years, today, my parents were abducted.

There are only specific details I remember from that night. They came late, midnight or so, and they came with a purpose. I remember a big man standing over me, he wore all black and he was massive. But the one distinctive feature I remember is the platinum gold earring in his right ear. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. There was a familiarity about it. I remember he started towards me, reaching for me, he picked me up and slug me over his shoulder, oblivious to my kicking and screaming, but someone hit him from behind and he dropped me and I hit my head on the floor. Through blurry eyes I saw the big man let out a big, horrendous bellow as he leapt over the bed and out, what I thought, was the window, but would be impossible for someone to survive that jump. For all I knew I could have been hallucinating. The next thing I remember is nothing. Black. Daniel said I had passed out when I hit my head.

They came and went without a trace. When I woke the next day my parents were gone. No one was left but Daniel and I. We were alone.        

We’ve been kind of moving around since then. One day, about three years ago when we had just moved to California, we stumbled across a video our parents had made for us. They told us that if we were watching this they were gone. They told us that people who took them would come back for us; they would not rest until they had us. Although we fear the day they find us we aren’t afraid. We have taken many martial arts and self-defense classes; we have even taken weapons training; guns, knives, you name it. Hell we even know how to use a rubber band to kill someone, yeah I know skilled. We like to think of it as our training for the day that awaits us. Its kind of an inside joke between us, even though it isn’t really all that funny. We haven’t really felt the need to stay in one place for long. California is the longest we have ever stayed. It feels kind of nice, having a permanent place to retreat to that is.

Hearing footsteps behind me, I turned around. Standing in the stairwell was my groggy eyed twin brother Daniel. Muttering a good morning he headed to the fridge for freshly squeezed orange juice. Like brother, like sister she thought and smiled.     

He sat down next to her and looked across the water. “Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” he asked.

I smiled and said, “ I like to think so, but I’m not always right now am I?”

He smiled and laughed. “ It’s been seven years today. Can you believe it? It feels like a lifetime. I miss how we used to sit down and all have dinner after my basketball games. Dad would tell bad jokes and mom would smile and give him the ‘you need to work on your humor’ look.”

“Then he would laugh and reach across the table to grab her hand and they’d stay like that the whole meal, ” I finished. “It does feel like a life time ago, I miss them so much Daniel,” I stuttered, close to tears

Daniel reached for my hand and squeezed it. “ So do I. So do I,” he repeated softly.