Grace's Path

Chapter One: Freedom

Finishing the last trick on my skateboard, I landed and rolled over to my father. His black eyes stared at me and I cringed under his stare. He wrinkled his nose before leaving. I let out a sigh of relief before skating down the hallway towards my room. Passing by the other doors in the hallway, I read all the signs.

No Entry.

Forbidden.

Do Not Enter.

Authorized Personnel Only.

Rolling my eyes at the in-your-face signs, I opened my door and let my board roll to a stop just under my bed. Closing and locking my door, I sat at my desk and pulled out my sketchbook, with a few coloured pencils, including my favourite dark green, red and silver pencils, sharpening them before grabbing my lead pencil and closing my eyes.

A body with defiant muscles, a sweat band with a symbol on both wrists and a head of hair but with no face. Grabbing the colours, I shaded in the drawing and sighed, giving the boy green coloured pants and a silver sweat band.

“What’s up?”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Andy, the only one of my father’s workers who talks to me, standing guard on my balcony.

“Another day in hell,” I said and Andy laughed, shaking his head before sitting on my bed to look at my other drawings.

“Why don’t your drawings have a face?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “it’s really hard to explain but I feel like I know the people in the drawings, I just don’t know how.”

I stared at the one of a red headed person, I’m not even sure if it was meant be a man or a woman but either way, the person felt familiar somehow.

“We need you Andy.”

“Grace, I need to go,” Andy mumbled and I nodded.

“Duty calls,” I smiled and watched as he left, unlocking and leaving my door open.

No one was standing guard on the balcony and no one was taking Andy’s position until almost three in the morning, I smirked, pulling on my jacket and shoved my throwing knives into the hidden pockets of my jacket. Slipping out onto my balcony, I free fell down towards the water surrounding my father’s building, diving into the water and torpedoing towards the pipe that leads to the sewers of New York. Coming up for breath at the other end of the tunnel, I heaved myself out of the water and scrunched my short red hair, in hopes of drying it, before standing up. Smoothing my some-what dry hair out, I pushed some of the bricks around, smiling when I found one of the loose ones. Pulling them out of the wall, I reached in and frowned. My second skateboard isn’t where I left it. Pushing the bricks back in, I heard the sound of metal on metal and crouched down low, hiding in the shadows. My blue eyes scanned the area, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing.

Pulling my jacket closer, I slipped out of the shadows and walked swiftly through the sewers. Turning the first corner, the sound of something being dropped behind me made me jump and glare over my shoulder. Stepping backwards, I kept my eyes glued on the sewer entrance before suddenly falling down into another section of the sewer. Trying to twist your body while falling is hard, believe me. Flinging my arms out, my hands curled around a pole and I swung myself to another sewer tunnel. Resting from my fall, I swallowed the saliva in my mouth before standing up and continuing my walk.

“Seriously guys, I think we should leave.”

I looked up from examining the clean cut through a pole, hearing a leader-like voice.

“Leo, I just need another minute,” another voice said. “This is a critical piece for the Battle Shell.”

“Battle what?” I mumbled and followed the voices, sticking to the shadows.

Looking around a corner, I noticed two large shadows, standing around with two more shadows, one kneeling and one bent over, looking like they were reaching for something.

“Did you guys hear something?” said the leader-like voice.

“Nope,” replied a gruff, deep voice.

I swallowed and stayed hidden, holding a couple of throwing knives in my hands. Peering around the corner, I noticed the shadows were gone and frowned, glancing at my surroundings. Stepping out of my hiding place, I turned on my heel, slowly, checking everything out.

“Grace!”

I turned and almost threw a knife at Andy.

“What are you doing down here?” I snapped.

“You’re father went to your room and you weren’t there,” he explained and I sighed, putting my knives away. “Come on.”

He turned on his heels and I glanced back over my shoulder, to see the shadows were gone, before following him back.

“Father, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry won’t cut it Gracie. You know my rules.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Now leave.”

I bowed my head before getting to my feet and storming out of the room. Andy was waiting outside the room and as I walked out, I glared at him.

“Gracie, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t Andy.”

I stomped past him and slammed my bedroom door, locking it and the balcony window too, before sitting at my desk. Looking at my corkboard on my wall, I stared at the drawing of a red turtle and sighed, before turning back to my sketchbook and drawing the shadows I saw this morning. The shadows looked really familiar, but I can’t place where I have seen them before.

“Grace? Please let me in.”

“No, go away Andy.”

“Okay but I did some digging around and found something you should see.”

I heard the sound of paper sliding under my door and glanced at it. A folder, with big bold lettering on it, was sitting under my door and printed it was my name, G. M. Jones?

I picked up the folder and glanced at the words. Jones? I am an Oroku. Sitting on my bed, I opened the folder and noticed a few home schooling assessments from when I was ten, a few drawings of turtles with different coloured backgrounds.

Turtles are my favourite animals, so of course I’m going to draw them.

Throwing the folder away, I heard a thud and looked at the folder again. The folder had ripped and there was a USB stick poking out of the rip. Picking up the USB and grabbing my laptop from my desk, I plugged in the USB and opened up the My Computer program. The USB stick was labelled G. M. Jones/Oroku. Opening the drive, I saw a folder with Origin, Photos, Other. The first two folders were password protected but the Other folder was accessible. Clicking on that folder, I noticed a video with my six year old face on it and another video with a news reporter as the thumbnail.

“Grace.”

Slamming my laptop closed, I shoved my laptop under the doona cover and unlocked my bedroom door. My Father, Oroku Saki, stood behind the door with his arms folded and standing behind him is Hun, his faithful servant.

“Father?”

“Grace, I need you to tell me everything Andy has said and done with you.”

I gulped before Hun pushed me back into my room and my Father closed the door, before turning to look at me with an unreadable expression.