Chapter 33

"Have you found anything?" I asked Lindsey.

We were currently sitting in her basement—which barely even looked like one because of all the equipment. Lindsey was running some tests on the envelopes and papers to see if she could at least find some fingerprints apart from mine. She tapped away on her keyboard as everyone else stood behind her, waiting impatiently.

"I think I found something!" she exclaimed, and I was quick by her side.

"Bingo," Wesley muttered.

"For some reason, there is no picture of her, but it says here that she will be eighteen in two weeks. Her blood type is AB negative, and her skin tone is white. That's all the information I could find about her," Lindsey informed me with a frown.

Why was there such little information about her?

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Eva Clark," she answered, and it just felt like a truck just hit me.

I took a step back in disbelief, my mind running back to the napkin on top of my mother's body that day.

Riddle me this. I am the product of a betrayal, yet the blessing of a secret love. I am the most hidden secret, yet I'm always exposed to the open world. You know what I am, but at the same time, you don't. I am the truth that you're looking for, yet you don't seem to find. Little do you know that I've been under your nose this entire time.

What am I?

-E.C.

"Amelia..." Danielle whispered.

"That's my sister," I said slowly.

Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at me simultaneously. I looked over at Danielle and she lowered her head guiltily, Kenneth placing a comforting hand over her shoulder. "You knew about this too, didn't you?"

"Lily, I—" she started, but I interrupted her.

"Didn't you?" I asked once again and glared daggers at her. She sighed and nodded slowly before taking a step back.

I definitely lost it.

I grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face against the wall behind her. She screamed in pain as I heard the crack of her nose breaking. The others yelled at me to stop, but I ignored them and threw Danielle to the floor. Blood trickled down her nose and into her mouth and I kicked her side. My vision was blurry, but I didn't stop. 

Before I could continue kicking her, I was pulled back and somebody held my arms behind my back. I struggled against the person, screaming profanities and continued to glare at Danielle. Kenneth was at her side in an instant, inspecting her nose as she cried.

"I should've known," I growled in her direction. "I should've never trusted you! You're a huge rat, you piece of garbage!"

"Amelia, calm down!" Wesley hissed in my ear, but I only struggled more.

I threw my head back, and the back of my head connected with his jaw quite painfully. I stomped down on his foot and he staggered back a bit, loosening his hold on me. Using this as an advantage, I used all the strength I could muster to throw him over my shoulder. He fell on his back and wheezed, and the couple looked at me, frightened.

"What else do you know?" I asked and took a threatening step forward.

"Lily—" Lindsey said, and I glared at her. She sighed and held her arms up in surrender.

"That's all we know," Kenneth said calmly.

"Of course, you knew as well," I huffed and shook my head in disappointment. "Lindsey, hand me your handcuffs."

Danielle only cried more and held her nose in pain. Lindsey handed two handcuffs warily and Wesley stood up, rubbing his jaw with an angry expression. 

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Keeping them alive," I answered and handcuffed one of their wrists to a leg of a heavy table. I double checked the handcuffs to make sure they were secure around their wrists and glared at them. "You're lucky I'm not going to kill you."

Lindsey went to check Danielle's nose and I glanced down at my knuckles. There was some dried blood on them due to the fight that broke loose earlier at the shooting range. We had left the gym before the police barged in. The whole house was guarded up, so if some intruder appeared, we would be alerted.

I excused myself from the room and silently went upstairs to the bathroom. I washed my hands and got rid of the blood before looking at my face in the mirror. There were some bruises on my left cheek and a small cut above my left eyebrow. Sighing, I splashed some water on my face and arms, wincing a bit as the water made contact with the cuts. Lastly, I dried myself with a towel and looked down at the necklace.

It surprised me how after everything that happened, it was still attached to my neck. I fiddled with it for a bit, my mind racing back to the events from earlier. The feeling of Chase's lips on mine was still prominent as I slowly brushed my fingers over my lips. He risked his life and got abducted just to save me. Now he was paying the price that I should be paying.

All I could feel right now was rage. Pure, burning rage.

I slammed my hands against the sink and screamed out in frustration. I kicked the door over and over again, not caring if I managed to break a hole through it. As I pulled at my hair, I cried and punched the door continuously.

Chase provoked a fight, me beating Gregory, Bryce found me, the betrayal from my friends, my mom ended up in a hospital, Chase getting abducted...

None of that was supposed to happen.

After a few minutes, I managed to calm down, and I washed my face again. My eyes and nose were red from crying, and my throat was still sore from the chokehold. I breathed in and out heavily, switching the light off and stood in the darkness for a minute or so. I didn't know for how long, but I waited until the redness wore off a little.

A small, red flashing dot caught my attention, and I furrowed my brows at this. I reached forward with my finger and touched the mirror, where the flashing light shone.

Now, the light flashed against my finger, and my breathing became frantic. Slowly, I looked down at my necklace and felt like crying all over again. The ruby that decorated my necklace was flashing red, and I wrapped my fingers around it and bolted out of the bathroom. I rushed inside the basement and snatched the necklace from around my neck, slamming it on the table and grabbing everyone's attention.

"We need to leave, now!" I warned, and Lindsey looked at the necklace.

"Why? What is it?" Wesley asked warily.

"We're being tracked," I whispered. "That's why they found us earlier. They have been tracking me down this entire time."

I separated the ruby from the necklace and smashed it as hard as possible against the table. The ruby broke, and sure enough, a small tracking device appeared in between the shattered pieces.

"How creative of them," Wesley muttered.

"We're leaving in five," Lindsey commented and started talking rapidly into a walkie-talkie.

The rattle of metal caught our attention, and we all looked at the handcuffed couple.

"What about us? What are we going to do?" Kenneth asked, and Danielle looked at me with wide eyes.

I threw my things to the ground and crouched so that we were at eye level. "Pray for them to not find you and kill you, Kenny." I pouted and ruffled their hair mockingly. I grabbed my things and started making my way up the stairs as Danielle yelled.

"You can't do this, Amelia! You can't leave us here like this!" she exclaimed, and I stopped to give her a blank stare.

"Oh, sweetie, but I can," I said sweetly and grinned innocently at her.

She struggled against the handcuffs and kept yelling, but I ignored her and hurried up. The others followed me without saying anything, and we were greeted with some armed men. I was quick to get in my fighting stance, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me from doing anything.

"They're with us. Someone detected unusual movement from some miles away, so we better get ready to fight," Lindsey whispered to me, and I relaxed.

We hurried our way to the back of her house, and the firing of guns started echoing through the halls. My eyes widened and I turned around, looking in the direction the gunshots were coming from. Shouts were heard from outside the house and Wesley tugged at my arm desperately.

"Come on, Lily!" he shouted over the commotion and dragged me behind him.

Danielle and Kenneth's pained screams were heard in the background, and I tried to cover my ears to block them out.

I didn't want to hear their screams—I couldn't.

We stepped out of the house and got inside different cars, instantly speeding up and getting out of the place. I loaded two handguns and rolled the window down when we got close to the intruders. They noticed the cars and quickly aimed at us before shooting. Instead of cowering away, I aimed and shot back.

I watched how bodies fell limp on the floor as I kept on shooting. We were almost out the gates when a random car pulled at our side and the windows rolled down. When my eyes met the barrel of a machine gun, I cursed loudly.

"Duck!" I screamed, and everybody ducked just in time for the person behind the trigger to shoot at us. I covered my head with my hands as bullets flew over us and people started screaming. Our car swayed and hit the other car sideways, successfully managing to knock the machine gun out of the owners' hands. Once my eyes made contact with the enemy, my blood started to boil.

Tyler pulled out another gun, but I was quick to aim my own at him and pull the trigger. Blood oozed out of the middle of his forehead, but that didn't stop me from pulling the trigger over and over again. My heart was thumping with adrenaline as I finally aimed at one of the tires on the car and shot one last bullet. His car swayed dangerously and crashed into a street pole, finally bringing this battle to an end.

I rolled the window back up and breathed heavily, finally feeling some relief in killing one of the men responsible for all this.

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[Edited: September 11th, 2020 by michh_44]

The culprit behind the riddle has finally been revealed. Who knew that it would've been her sister this whole time? And, what grudge could she hold against Amelia to do all those terrible things? The answer to all your questions are in the next chapters, so keep reading to find out! Vote, comment, and don't hate me xx