Beyond the Breaking Point - Chapter 2A Chapter by Gokai RamashitaChapter 2 It was Finn’s turn to knock on the door again. He had followed the instructions exactly, room 155 in the apartment building that their late grandma lived in. The door opened, a woman about thirty-five opened the door only part way, barring the way in. “...Hello?” The statement said two things, Who are you and what are you doing here. Cassie seemed to hide behind Finn as he answered as professionally as he could. “My name is Fineas Smith, and, well, my dead brother told me to go here.” The woman had long and curly dark hair that hung in a heap down her shoulders and an olive complexion that bore no signs of makeup. Finn got a great chance to observe her face as the woman stuck her head farther out into the hallway and looked at Finn intently. “What was your ...brother’s name,” “Zach… Zachary Joseph Smith,” The woman opened the door. Ushering Finn and the animal that clung to his arm inside. Finn carried both of their suitcases in and when he entered the hallway that branched to what he presumed was her bedroom, Finn set the heavy bags down, massaging his arm afterward. “My name is Linda,” The woman said over her shoulder as she led them to the comfortable modern-style living room. Everything in the house seemed to be either white or gray. Everything except the newcomers in their foreign clothes and the woman's eyes, which were a warm brown. Finn could swear that he knew those eyes from somewhere. “How do you know my brother?” Finn gave voice to a million thoughts in his head at once. “A better question is how do I know your father…” Linda said, “but I know your brother through… work.” Linda put her hands on her hips, standing in the light of an oversized window sending her silhouette onto a coffee table that Finn was standing behind. Finn wondered what line of work Linda was involved in that she would know Zach personally. Cassie still clung to Finn’s arm and he could tell it was beginning to go numb. “My brother told me to go here. Why?” Linda took a deep breath “This… Might come as a shock to you, but I, technically, am your second aunt.” Finn must have looked as surprised as he felt because the woman held up her hand and looked past her shoulder, closing her eyes. Gathering herself; stopping a barrage of questions. “If you don't want to be sent to foster care, I’d get settled in,” Finn hadn't thought about what would happen to him and his sister now that Zach is dead. Linda went into the kitchen, putting her head in her hands and mumbling something to herself. Despite all of the questions that clouded Finn’s mind. Finn thought it would be best if he did what Linda told him to do, settle in. *** Finn had now successfully explored every single room in the modern apartment. On the main floor, there were two full bathrooms, both perfectly spotless, a room where Linda slept, her queen size bed neatly folded and an absurd amount of pillows stacked against the (black) headboard. The kitchen, fully stocked with food items you would find in a health store. The living room, and two other guest bedrooms for Finn and Cassie, who, after some serious coaxing was able to be pried off Finn’s sore arm. Finn had thrown his suitcase on the twin bed in his bedroom, ignoring the empty drawers that sat to the right of the window that let in the sun. Finn walked to the opposite side of the hallway that, if Finn remembered correctly, led to the second bathroom and lightly knocked on the door, which swung open on by itself. Finn half expected Cassie to spring for cover but he found her lying on her bed staring at the plain white ceiling. Finn had no doubt that she was envisioning what the room would be like after she was finished with it. Pink. Finn sat down on the edge of the bed and looked over his shoulder at Cassie, then past her and at the windowsill. Cassie had already set up a line of stuffed animals on the window sill, but there was one missing. It was the one Cassie held most dear, a plain teddy bear known as Mr. McStuffins. “Did you forget McStuffins?” Cassie sat up, propping her back against the headboard of the bed and sitting on a pillow, she nodded her head solemnly. She still hadn't spoken since the tea party. “Do you want me to go get it?” Cassie had to think about this one, trying to determine whether she would rather be alone in Linda’s apartment or spending the night without Mr. McStuffins. Finally, Cassie replied. “Can you be fast?” Finn told her the truth. “I’m the fastest person in school,” Cassie thought for another period of time. Weighing the dangers of staying with Linda versus spending the night with her teddy bear. “Alright, but hurry... please,” *** It was garbage day. He was still running to their house to get Cassie’s bear when he noticed. But now he stopped running and was walking down the sidewalk past of the “picture perfect” neighborhood. The rain had stopped and now the sun beat down for the last few minutes before it hid its face again. The air felt hot and sticky and Finn was reluctant to breathe it in. Finn had advanced almost all of the way down the road when he saw something that troubled him, a generic white van with a strapped-down-ladder on the roof was parked in front his driveway. This troubled him greatly, so Finn moved cautiously, careful to avoid attention. Finn considered the idea of a burglary taking place in his house. It wasn't out of the question. Finn decided to learn a little more about the subject at hand, so he sprinted across his neighbor’s yard and up to the side of his house. He was about to look through the window that would have undoubtedly shown him the living room and whatever remained of the mess he had created when the package arrived when he heard a quiet POP. Finn was sure that it had been a silenced gunshot. *** There was no other sound like it, a silenced gunshot. Finn was sure he had heard it and now he was concerned about what was going on. Why would the people in his house fire a gunshot? Were they killing someone? Ya gotta’ get in their head, think like they’re thinking. Finn remembered that conversation he had with Zach. It had been something about the game of pool but Finn applied it to the current situation. Finn sat down on the ground with his back to the house, holding his hands to his temples, thinking. The only logical reason a gunshot would have been fired was to break through a lock or break something. It didn't make sense to shoot somebody in there because the only people in the house were the burglars themselves. They must have been trying to break into the safe that was on the second level of the house, in his father’s study. What would have Zach done? Finn knew exactly what Zach would have done; right then and there, he decided to do exactly that. Finn started to scale the side of the house. *** The elegant house that his father had built was beautiful. Built like a victorian style house it had plenty of ledges and handholds to grab onto, but even still, Finn had used the gutter more than once. Finn pulled himself up one hand in front of the other, straining his arms nearly to their full potential. Adrenaline surged through his body as he crawled and inched on a vertical line to the open window on the second floor. He would have walked through the main door but the notion that burglars would just leave such an obvious entrance as that unguarded was ridiculous. It was his room that he wanted to get into. Once he was in his bedroom, where he would carry out the rest of the plan that formulated in his mind. Finn’s hand grasped the edge of the windowsill of the open window that stuck out a few inches from the rest of the wall. He had begun to pull himself up when the flimsy windowsill edge snapped off. Finn fell for about three feet when his other hand caught hold of the gutter that led down to the ground. Thankfully, Finn’s room was in a corner of the house and so he had the option to grab onto it, but he still didn't trust the flimsy piece of metal and he prayed it would be able to sustain his weight as he made his way to the correct height and began the trek back to the place he was at just a second earlier. When he made it there, he was much more careful when he pulled himself up, making sure to grip the whole of the windowsill and not just the edge. Finn pulled himself into his own room after almost 10 minutes of careful scaling. Finn’s chest heaved up and down as he lay on the board paneling that served as his bedroom flooring. He only waited for a few seconds before getting back on his feet and crossed his bedroom floor, making absolutely no sound whatsoever. When he reached the bedroom door, he started to open it, only to find that it creaked terribly. Finn winced as he swung the door to the point where he could slip through. Hopefully, nobody heard it. Finn moved across the hallway and was about to peer into his father’s study when he heard a hoarse whisper coming from within. “SHUT UP, I thought I heard something,” *** Two of the men in the room had no idea what their leader was talking about. The leader, his name was Peter, hushed his comrades as he listened more closely. Fine tuning his ears to the normal sounds of the house and what was out of place. Peter had been sure he heard a door open. Peter pushed the side of his ski mask up so that he could hear better as he stood in the middle of the room. Yes, he was sure of his hunch now. He had heard something. Peter briskly walked to the door of the room and looked out into the hallway. *** Finn could see the man through the crack in the closet door, but he prayed to God that the man couldn’t see him. His pursuer had two guns. One in a shoulder holster that he wore on top of the black hoodie he was wearing and another in a holster at his side. The man turned around once, twice, looking for anything that could be out of place. That was when Finn saw the mouse. Finn had never been afraid of mice, and he didn't make a sound as it crawled across his foot. But Finn’s heart nearly stopped when he saw what the mouse was heading for, a mousetrap. Finn prayed that he would ignore it; maybe just decide better of taking the tiny bit of peanut butter on the end of the metal tongue that represented death for the mouse, and a noise loud enough to draw attention for Finn. The mouse was at the foot of the trap now. Finn’s heart rate doubled in speed when the mouse touched the peanut butter with its nose. Finn let out a sigh of relief just in time to witness the mouse go back for a second helping. SNAP. Finn could see the man jump when the mouse trap went off. It must have attracted the man’s attention because he reached for the handle of the closet. Finn prepared himself to spring out of the closet and was about to do so when the man stopped. “HEY! Peter, we found it!” Peter stopped. “Then let's get outta here,” The man went back into the room. Finn heaved a sigh of relief. It would have been hard to fight back in the cramped space of the closet. Finn reached out with his hand, grappling in the dark for the handle to get out of the cramped space. Finn wasn't claustrophobic, but he didn't like staying in this tiny of a space while people rummaged through his father’s belongings. Finn eased the door open. Stepped out into the hallway and was walking towards the sounds, trying to do some reconnaissance when the sounds coming from the room came steadily closer. Finn frantically searched for a hiding spot, and, finding one, dived through the open bathroom door. The air went out of Finn’s chest as he landed on his stomach in the bathroom. Finn got to his feet, turned around, and stared straight into the ski-masked face of a burglar. “YO! There’s a kid in here!” The man shouted over his shoulder and, in doing so, gave Finn a perfect opportunity for a upward jab to the man’s chin. The man reeled back in surprise as one of the other men replied. “C’mon! Either kill the kid or get out of here!” Finn didn't plan on letting them do either of those things. The man had recovered from the blow Finn delivered and was now stumbling into the bathroom Finn was trapped in like an angry bear. The man’s true form was hidden by a bulky black hoodie but Finn could easily tell that he was much stronger than he was, so, as the other men ran down the hallway, heading for the staircase down, Finn grabbed the neck of the man’s hoodie and pulled. He then stepped to the left and shoved his right foot out to trip the man, who fell forward and hit his head on the hard porcelain toilet. Finn ran down the hallway in an attempt to catch up with the other men. When he got to the stairs that led down, Finn went down two steps and then jumped sideways, leaping over the rail that ran steadily down with the stairs and was nearly flattened, negative-twelve in elevation later. Finn got to his feet just as the men slammed the front door behind them but Finn was hot on their trail. Finn burst through the door and into the sticky atmosphere and ran down the driveway. The men were heading towards the white van and Finn wondered if they were even aware that he was following them. Without thinking, Finn leaped on the tail of the van, reached up and grabbed the bottom of the ladder that jutted out slightly as the van pulled away from the driveway, and started to race down the street, picking up speed rapidly. Using the ladder, Finn had pulled himself most of the way up the back of the van when it violently turned left. Finn’s entire body lurched in that direction, but his grip on the ladder only tightened. Finn began to climb onto the roof. *** Peter was driving, Roger was sitting in the passenger seat and Greg was in the back. They thought they had got away with the file, and Peter was glad. The CIA had payed them a hefty sum to retrieve the file and Peter was in deep debt. He glanced at the rear view mirror as he pressed down harder with his foot; forcing the van to go over fifty mph. Peter was about to tell Rodger to shred the file when a fist seemed to fall from the sky and land on the windshield, putting a huge crack into it. The van lurched sideways as Peter turned out of pure instinct. Peter had barely made sense of what had happened before another fist came, this one sent the crack all the way across the window before disappearing as someone pulled it back. Peter had just figured out that there must be someone on the roof when someone’s entire body fell forward as if on an axis, both fists slamming down onto the windshield, breaking it completely and making glass particles fly everywhere, blinding everyone in the van. Rodger was holding the file when the glass shattered and a kid fell through the hole that used to be their windshield, Rodger didn't see the kid coming fast enough and the kid snatched the file away from him, trying to pull himself up and onto the front of the van at the same time. Peter, trying to see with tiny glass particles in his eyes grabbed out blindly, eventually catching hold of the shirt of the unusual boy. Peter would forever regret doing that, because as he did so, a knife quickly cut across his hand, not quite cutting it off but causing extreme pain. Peter screamed and let go of the steering wheel with his remaining hand as he gripped his other in pain. The van careened off the road and onto the sidewalk, tearing up grass as it headed straight for a house, Peter tried to veer the van off its current course while Jones shouted orders and tried to help in some way. Peter succeeded in taking the van off its course to the house, but in doing so set it on a path that led straight towards an electric pole. Peter tried to turn the van but he wasn't fast enough. The right corner of the van made contact with the vertical piece of wood and the boy went flying, landing on the pavement almost 10 feet away. Peter’s head hit the steering wheel and he was about to black out when the boy painfully picked himself up and started to limp away.© 2016 Gokai Ramashita |
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Added on May 16, 2016 Last Updated on May 16, 2016 AuthorGokai RamashitaDickinson, NDAboutWell, my name is Gokai, I'm 15 and live somewhere way up north :). I've been writing for almost a year and I've found that I have a love (not to mention and understanding) for Writing. I've started fo.. more..Writing
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