No, I won’t kill you… but they will.
He then looked over at the little figure that just stood still at that spot looking over at him. A cold chill went down his spin.
“Are you the one they had sent to kill me?” Kevin stuttered.
Then suddenly someone from behind pressed a rifle behind the masked figure’s head. “Don’t move…” Derik uttered in a cold voice holding up the rifle to his head.
The masked figure quickly slips his hand into his pocket to take out something, but then Derik pressed the gun harder against his head. “Don’t even think about it…” Derik said in a cold killer voice and it scared Kevin. He had never seen Derik this way before. The masked figure slowly raised his both hands up in the air, in a quick surrender.
“Show yourself…” Derik quickly said holding up the gun at his head.
The masked figure brought his hands down but Derik quickly cautioned him “ah ah … do it very slowly.” He then placed his hands over the mask and slowly took it off revealing the face of a young teenage boy. The teenager looked up at them and then uttered out in a calm tone. “I just came to talk…”
Derik moved towards him cautiously holding the gun to his head. Derik quickly searched his pocket and took out a shiny knife with irregular shape blades. Derik held the knife up at his face and then said to him. “You just came to talk huh?”
The little boy then raised his head up and looked into Derik’s eye coldly. “You’d already be dead if I wanted the both of you dead.” again the boy uttered calmly. Then he turned to look over at Kevin then said “…like I said, am just here to talk.”
Derik quickly took out a cuff and bonded his both hands with it.
“…now, let’s talk” Derik said to him.
The boy then looked over the cuffs Derik had placed over his wrist, and then he asked “is this necessary?”
“You just threatened me and you expect I should trust you. I don’t want to take my chances with you… am done underestimating anyone who belongs to Beocraft.”
Kevin who had been looking at the little boy came forward am then asked out of curiosity. “Why will a teenage boy be allowed on a powerful organization such as Beocraft.”
Derik bent to look at him in the face, then he asked, “Who are you really?”
“My name is Jeffrey.” He started “…and the man you refer to as T-Rex is my father.”
Silence fell…
* *
William drove into the walk way in front of his own apartment and then parked his car in the garage. The rain was gently and calm. He waited in his car for a while holding his wheel really tight with a strong grip. His eyes were blurry from the tears that covered his eye.
He buried his head down on the wheel and then whimpered. He then began to hit the staring wheel with his fist as he sobbed in pains.
Getting down from his car, he took out an umbrella to cover himself from the rain, then he staggered towards the door. He got into the house and then threw himself on the coach. His cloths were wet.
William had never felt this devastated in his entirely life. It felt like a big part of him had been taken away now Elena was gone. He felt himself suddenly despising everyone around him, especially Derik. He couldn’t understand where all this anger and sudden hatred for Derik was coming from. In his heart, he blamed Derik solely for the death of his wife.
Suddenly his phone began to ring and it frustrated him the more. He threw his phone aside on the table in front of him then he leaned back on the coach closing his both eye to the world, he then recollect what had happened earlier.
Natasha had left home that morning for school with the anticipation of coming home to meet her mum. He then began to rehearse what he was going to say to his daughter as soon as she gets back from school. But then his phone continued buzzing on the table which was making him really nuts. He then stood up, frustrated at whoever was calling. He picked up his phone from to table to see who had been calling.
Frank…
He wonder what was so important that frank kept calling over and over again. Then he finally picked up.
“Sire, I heard about what had happened to your wife…” came the voice over the phone “please accept my heartfelt condolences. I deeply regret who had happened to her. I am sorry she ended up a victim of one of those shifters.”
William who had been quietly listening to what he was saying said “Frank, you didn’t call my number continuously over and over again just so we could talk about my wife or did you?
“There’s been a major problem at the laboratory…” frank suddenly went mute, then he said “Mr. Shade just broke out of the laboratory few minutes ago. He left two lab attendants dead. Shade is now running loose on the streets and as long as he is out there, lives are being endangered.”
When frank didn’t hear any response, he went ahead to explain. “We were preparing him for the re-education process and he just suddenly went out of control. The lab assistants who had tried to stop him both lost their lives in the process. Right now we have an additional problem which has to be…”William cut the call before he could finish. Then he turned off his handset and threw it back on the table. He then lay back on the coach.
A new problem at the office… he thought
He felt like the whole world was spinning right before his eyes.
The door slowly opens and Natasha just stood there at the door with her bag pack hanging over her back. She was surprised to see her dad at home so early.
“Dad?” she called out. “You are home early today you never come home this early. Is mum back home already?”
William was numbed as he turned to look at her. He struggled to hold back the tears but they just kept coming.
“Dad, what’s wrong.” Her facial expression suddenly changed.
She took a few paces towards him, and then she stopped mid way into the room when she finally realized something.
“Dad… Where is mum?”
William didn’t know what to say to her. He turned to look at Natasha with the tears in his eyes. His lips were trembling and his eyes were red. He just shook his head in tears at Natasha. “Honey, your mother… she’s…. she’s gone.” He tried to hide the quiver in his voice.
Tears spilled on her check, then she asked. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
William looked away from her. He felt so ashamed seeing his daughter watch him cry. “Your mum…She’s not coming back. Her body was found this afternoon.” William finally let loose. He then began to cry uncontrollably not minding his daughter was standing right there.
Natasha gasped as she quickly covered her mouth with both her palms. She let out a shrill cry. Natasha threw her bag on the floor and then ran out into the rain.
“Natasha wait!” William called out to her but she just kept running.
She ran into the garden and then fell on the wet grass. She cried out so loudly looking up at the rainy sky. The raindrops which fell on her face felt like the sky also cried with her.
She let out all her frustration on the grasses around her, pulling them off one after the other. She soiled herself on the damp floor. She felt her heart ache as she knelt down there crying her eyes out. She began to hit the ground as she kept screaming to the top of her voice.
“no! no! no! no!” she exclaimed loudly while she kept hitting her hands hard on the ground.
She felt someone placed a hand on his shoulder. “Dad, please go away… I want to be alone right now” she said with a teary eye.
The hands clutched on her shoulder. It didn’t feel like her Dad’s. Slowly turning to see who it was, she was stricken with horror when she saw a hooded masked figure standing beside her holding a shovel on one arm and placing the other on her shoulder.
He just stared coldly at her from his mask.
Natasha wanted to let out a scream but she was immediately knocked out with the shovel. She collapsed onto the wet soil. She felt herself being dragged away on the wet soil. Her world went da
rk. That was the last thing she remembered.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: TENSION RISING
“Natasha! …Natasha!!” William called loudly, walking along the walk way and looking around for his daughter. He had searched her room through her window she had left open but she wasn’t in there.
“Natasha, where the hell are you?” William called out while looking around. “Natasha you are making me worried about you, come on out already. It’s not safe for you to be out alone.”
He stood there and yelled at the top of his voice “Natashaaaaa!!!” Then he moved his eye around hoping he would find her, but then his eye fell on an old lady sitting in the next compound enjoying the cold afternoon breeze. She was just staring at him through her sunshades as she sat there.
William walked up to her “afternoon Mrs. Peterson, I am looking for my daughter have you by any chance seen her around? You see, she got home a while ago to the sad news that her mum just pass away, so she ran off. Did you happen to see her?”
The old lady took off her glasses. Looking at him with sad pitiful eyes, she said. “…oh dear lord William, I am so sorry about your wife.”
“It’s okay Mrs. Peterson…” William said trying to hide his grief. “…have you seen my daughter around?”
“…saw hear a little while ago. The poor girl was crying her eyes out.”
“Did you see where she went?”
Mrs. Peterson gestured towards the garden “I think I saw her go that way.”
“Thank you Mrs. Peterson” William said and then her left in a hurry.
“Accept my condolences…” Mrs. Peterson uttered with a pitiful look on her face.
William quickly got into his garden. There was no one there. He noticed a little portion on the ground which the grasses there had been uprooted.
His heart began to beat faster when he noticed Natasha’s footwear was lying on the damp floor. He bent down to pick it up, he then noticed there was a foot mark on the ground close to where he’d found her foot wear. He then examined it, his eye widened when he realized that footprint wasn’t Natasha’s. The footprint seemed to belong to someone else with a bigger foot. He then saw the path which was made on the ground by someone being dragged away. His worst fear was finally becoming a reality.
Natasha has been kidnapped.
He opened his eye in deep horror.
* *
“William, you are looking at this the wrong way.” Alex said “…from what you’ve described to me, I don’t think it is T-Rex that’d kidnapped your daughter.”
William frowned at Alex who sat at the far end of the coach. “the shifter in question had already made two attempts to kidnap my daughter but failed… what made you think he didn’t decide to push his luck and succeeded this time.”
Alex brought an A2 sized file with the picture of the masked man with the letter ‘C’ mark on his mask. Then he handed it over to William for him to examine it.
“A similar kidnap like this one took place over a year ago. A young lady, she goes by the name Loretta was also kidnapped from her home the day she was alone with her dad. She was kidnapped by the masked figure whose picture you see on that file. The two deceased detectives Murphy and Leonard were both assigned to find the kidnapped victim.”
Alex then brought out another picture and then placed it in front of William, then he said “I believe you are already acquitted with Kevin Logan. He attains the same collage with your daughter.”
William stared closely over the picture of Kevin which Alex had handed over to him. “I know this kid…” William quickly recognized him through the picture “he brought my daughter home to me right after she went missing from the hospital. But what does he have to do in all of this?”
“He’s got everything to do with what’s been happening. Your daughter’s kidnap, the two officers who had lost their lives in the line of their duty, the torture of the little girl found in the park… everything. All these deaths revolve around Kevin Logan.”
William was suddenly perplexed. His mood was slowly changing “you are not making any sense right now, detectives. Are you saying Kevin was indirectly involved in the kidnap of my daughter?”
“Sir, you’ve clearly misunderstood what I’m trying to say. I am not accusing Mr. Logan for the recent kidnap of your daughter. All I am saying is that your daughter’s kidnap revolves around Mr. Kevin Logan.”
Alex bent towards William then he said, “…Loretta was engaged to be married to Kevin at the time she was kidnapped. Their wedding was supposed to be two days after she was kidnapped. T-Rex tortured her to death and made her fiancée watched how he rip every part of her apart. The day she died was the day they were supposed to get married.”
“I don’t understand, why telling me all this? What does this have to do with my daughter’s kidnap?” William grew impatient.
“It’s possible the same masked figure that’d kidnapped Loretta over a year ago also kidnapped your daughter.”
“My daughter has no affiliation towards this kid, why would my daughter be involved in all this?”
“I strongly believe they are both in an intimate relationship that you are unaware of.” Alex admitted.
William was getting more pissed and he didn’t hide his disappointment. Then Alex looked closely at him and said “Do you know what today is?”
“April 24th”
“…that’s exactly two days to Kevin’s birthday.” He looked over at William and then said, “I hope you know exactly where I am going with this…”
William buried his face in both his palms. He was visibly sweating.
“Your daughter’s kidnap today wasn’t just a mere coincidence. It had been planed from the beginning. This masked man wants to recreate an event similar to the one which had taken place over a year ago with Loretta. he kidnapped your daughter two days to Kevin’s birthday just as he’d kidnapped Loretta two days to her wedding.”
Alex explained, “A year ago, T-Rex had wanted to make Loretta’s death significant, so he tortured her on the day there were both supposed to get married, and that is exactly what he intends to do this time with your daughter. He is going to wait until Kevin’s birthday to torture her to death…”
The room was left in sheer silence.
The door suddenly burst open and then both men looked towards that direction. Derik walked in with the teenage boy on cuffs, then he closed the door behind him.
“What is the meaning of this?” William stood up from the coach obviously agitated.
“Sir, I am really sorry to interrupt… but this is really important.”
“What is more important than finding the kidnaper that’d taken my daughter?” William sassed sounding more pissed at him.
Derik froze. He suddenly understood why William acted hostile towards him.
“Natasha… has been… kidnapped?” Derik stuttered, his eyes were wild.
Alex said “she was taken just a few hours ago.”
“We have to get her back.” Derik said with a tone of total concern, “we have to…”
“This is Jeffrey…” Derik said turning over to look at Jeffrey as he stood right next to him in still bounded in cuffs. ”He is T-Rex’s son...”
Silence fell in the room.
All eyes fell on Jeffrey as he stood there with a cuff around his wrist. Jeffrey just stared blankly at the ceiling. William quickly stood up to charged at Jeffrey but Derik quickly hold him back. “Sir, please you have to listen…” Derik pleaded.
“As much as I want to lay my hands on this kid, I just couldn’t.” Derik said after he had succeeded in holding William back. “This boy is our key to defeating T-Rex and finding your daughter.”
Derik watched William breath heavily in anger then he rose a finger at Derik “you better know what you are doing.”
When Derik had seen William was now calm he turn over to Jeffrey and nodded his head at him. Jeffrey took the signal, then he started, “My name is Jeffrey and I am a member of Beocraft…”
he started.
William’s eye widened. An angry frown appeared over his forehead.
“I never asked to become one of them but they choose me. They all came to me and made me an offer to join them.”
“You could have easily denied their request you know.” Alex said interrupting him.
“I could have… but then I’d be dead.” Jeffrey uttered coldly. “Beocraft cannot be defeated easily because it was created on dark magic thousands of years ago when the first shifters walked the earth. Beocraft was original created for strong and powerful alliance among shifters with strong political background. Their original goal was to positively impact on the society where they inhabit. But then their goal changed gradually over the years when the mask was brought into Beocraft as a means of hiding each of our identities from ourselves. The mask is said to have been forged from dark magic which allows the wearer the ability to shape shift.”
“…I thought shifters transform themselves into half animal without the need to use anything to aid in their transformation.” Alex said skeptically.
“The mask allows us shape shift into anything we want, both human and animal alike.”
Derik then realized something. “T-Rex is the only member who doesn’t attack with his mask on, could it be possible the face he is wearing isn’t his real face.”
Jeffrey looked over at him and then said “T-Rex is not the man you think he is… you’ve been fighting the wrong shifter all along. T-Rex is not even his real name, it’s a code name we use each time we meet. The Rex name is only a prefix we attach to the letters on each our mask. My mask has the latter ‘M’ marked on it, the prefix Rex is then attached to this letter to form my code name M-Rex”
Everyone in the room was amazed.
“Can you help us find your father?” Alex asked
There was a long silence from Jeffrey then he said, “I have never set my eyes on my father let alone known his real identity or his real name. Everyone at Beocraft is extremely careful not to disclose their identity to just anyone not even their close relative.”
William was growing impatient from all the questions they were asking Jeffrey. He picked up the picture Alex had shown to him earlier and then slammed it on the table before Jeffrey.
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