2 (:

Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Some light bulbs weren’t working so some part of the tunnels were dark and muddy, and the others were light and normal.

I was in one of those city tunnels. This one went to an old forgotten ballroom; I had been here before following other clues but had never gotten anywhere. The shoeprint I found in the principal office was made of the same reddish sand the ballroom had.

I was dressed in all in black, if someone saw I wanted them to think I was some gothic girl. I had the blond wig just in case someone knew my real hair colour. These were stupid but necessary precautions.

The light started to grow stronger. I put a scarf around my head so my blue eyes were the only thing visible. I kept going. In the entrances I stopped to look at the room.

It’s grandest never failing to take my breath away. It was one of those old ballrooms that were surrounded by columns, each column with a different kind of decoration. There was another entrance at the top of some stairs that led to a little room with a big wood table. But the really extraordinary thing was all the light this room had, it looked like if the room took the light it was given and multiplied at least three times more.

I heard footsteps but instead of running away I followed my gut feeling, I stayed.  I listened.  The footsteps were coming from the stairs.

I put myself between the entrances and the stairs so they could easily see me.

Two persons walked out of the table room. One was an old man and the other one a boy with black hair. Then the boy looked up and I saw what I had missed before. It was him. The murderer. The tall boy with green eyes and black hair. The boy that killed my aunt.

Without thinking I pointed the gun to the columns behind them, blocking the other entrance. If they wanted to go out they would have to pass by me first.

The old man took a gun out and the boy just started at me with wide eyes.

I ran to the boy, he was the weak point. I took him by the arm and put the gun in his temple.

‘Give me your gun’ was all I said. The old man looked like he was about to shoot me ‘just give it to me. I really don’t want to shoot him; it would make my new outfit a mess’ I had learn that if you talk like you don’t care for the person life they will do anything you want ‘come on, I’m losing my patience’

He put his gun down. His eyes never leaving my face. After he put his gun down he didn’t move, he wanted me to go near him, it was clear in his eyes.

‘How about you kick it?’ I said making my gun go to the middle of the boy’s eyes.

He did as I told him. I picked it up. It wasn’t heavy and it had some kind of decorations, a nice gun actually.

I let the boy go. This was the part I enjoyed, the little dramatic part. I made them stand apart pointing a gun at each one of them.

The boy looked like he was about to passed out. I put the gun pointing at him down; he seemed to relax before he saw my hand moving. I wanted them to see who I was. I took the scarf off.

The scarf fell to the floor and my black hair went loose. The boy looked at me with his eyes and mouth open, like if he was seeing a ghost. The blond wig lay at my feet.

The old man was petrified. His face just like the boys.

I hadn’t notice before but the man looked just like the boy only in an older version. His hair was black with some withes showing up. He had the same strong chin and nose the boy had. The only difference was the eyes; the boys were green and the old man’s were brown.

‘Who are you?’ they seemed to flinch when I talked.

‘Mary...’ The boy started to say. But I cut him off with a hand gesture. That was my real name, I didn’t know how he knew it but I wasn’t going to let him talk to me without drawing some lines.

The old man was still petrified.

‘Do. Not. Call. Me. That.’ I said it slowly to make sure he understood he was swimming in dangerous waters. ‘How about you call me Kat? And then tell me who you are’ my voice going from the I-don’t-care patience one to the I-will-kill-you cold voice.

That single name brought far too many hard times to my mind; my parents’ murder, my aunts murder, the crimes I had to make to get off the cops hands and worst of all: the happy times, the dinner party with my aunt, the park, my aunt’s house, my friends and all the good stuff.

‘Ok’ the man said. He started to speak but the boy cut him off with the same hand gesture I made to cut him off.

‘I’m Josh’ he said. He moved a step closer. I pointed the gun at him and he took the step back ‘Bet you can’t defend yourself without that gun’

‘Of course I can. I just wanted to show you that I kept the gun you used to kill my aunt’ I said with a fake sweet voice. He looked shy and hurt, again ‘Don’t try to be smart again and I won’t have to use words to hurt you’

‘I’m Josh’ He said. Every time he said his name some images tried to come back but when I tried to catch them they just disappeared. ‘That man over there is Jacob’

All the images the boys name brought came back to me with the man’s name. A stone castle, a bright blue lake, a black horse, my mom, my dad and a 3-years-old boy staring at me with wide eyes. There were more but they didn’t stay as long.

I dropped the guns. I felt weak, my legs no longer hold me, and I fell to my knees. The memories still going around my head. Half me said it was my past and the other part said they were just fantasy pictures.

Josh and Jacob were coming. They were talking but I couldn’t hear them. The images were still flashing. Then my mom image stood still and I knew that all those images were real. I lived in a place very far away from here. I was some kind of royal girl. My parents had a crown on their heads so if I was right; I was some sort of princess. Those images were my past and the people in front of me were my...

‘Family’ I whispered. I looked at Josh’s green worried eyes. I tried to beg him to explain but the darkness was fast, it took me in less than 30 seconds.

I fainted.

1 (:

‘You will never get me’ I shouted to him while I ran to the hidden ramp.

‘I will’ said his voice closer than I expect it.

‘You are fast’ I said stopping and turning to face him ‘but you don’t know what is to be me’

I turned on the fire alarm and while he was confused I jumped into the ramp, a sort of dark tunnel that leads outside the school. I had found it while I was looking for an entrance.

He would never know what is to be the most wanted in your country with just 13 years of life. He was just a stupid undercover 16 years old cop, he would never know what it is to be someone like me.

I stepped outside the school. I took the wig off, put a long coat and then just walked in the school like every single kid in the area.

Being guilty of a crime I never did was the sort of thing I was accused of.

I had never killed my aunt. I was just going inside the house when I heard her shout for help, my natural answer was to run and stop what was hurting her. I had been on school that day, practicing a play, which is why I had that horrible itchy blond wig on.

I got into the kitchen, there was a tall boy pointing a gun at the only person who had welcome me in the house after my parents died. He had green eyes and black hair. He had a long black coat and some orange pants.

He was telling her to hand me to him but my aunt just keep saying no, that she wasn’t going to let me go.

I don’t remember what happened after that.

I woke up a street away from the house with the green-eyes man coat on and a gun in my hand, the gun in my hand.

I ran back to the house. There were cops all around it. I went in ignoring all the stares the gun was given.

My aunt was lying in the living room floor, there was blood all around her head, but I could easy see the bullet hole between her eyes. I was 10 years old and I had seen my parents and aunt die in front of my eyes.

The police thought that I had murdered her; they took a picture of me with the wig still on. After that I remember myself just running away from the police. My life now goes around finding the green-eyes tall boy. I’m always following clues, false clues.

‘Hi Kat’ said a high pitch voice behind me.

Lizzie was a girl I had made friends with. She was blond, fat and small. Annoying as anyone could get but her dad was a cop so I always knew, thanks to her, if the cops had taking a true clue about me.

I usually change my name when I got to a new place but the cops still found me. I went by my dead aunts’ name at that time, Katherine. I usually never picked names no so obvious but I was getting tired of running away so I really didn’t had the head or concentration for finding another name.

‘Hi Liz’ I answered trying to force a smile. It didn’t come out.

We were now in the entrance stairs.

‘Were you ignoring me?’ She asked. She seemed in a dull note today, usually that answer could have gotten a million questions about my day.

I just looked at her in surprise, I hadn’t heard anything.

‘I was calling you’ she said with a puzzle tone.

‘Oh’ that explained the dull tone ‘didn’t hear it. I was thinking’

‘About what?’ she asked in that annoying voice of hers ‘about who?’ she added moving her eyebrows up and down.

‘About my parents’ I said before she started daydreaming about the boys in school.

‘Oh’ she looked disappointed. It was obvious that she wanted some gossip to spread around the school.

I ignore her the rest of the way to our trig class. I was still thinking about the clue I found in the principal office that morning, before the undercover cop got me. I knew it was a real clue, I felt it in my gut and my gut never lies.

‘So trig test today?’ I asked before going inside the classroom 101.

‘Yeah, is going to be so easy’ she winked at me. Liz was different from her dad, he respected the rules, and she evades rules.

‘You got the answers?’ I said taking her by the arm before she could open the door.

‘Yeah. Every single one of them’ she was proud of that.

This time faking a smile wasn’t so hard.

‘Good’ I said with the fake smile still on my lips.

We opened the door.

‘You are late’ said my trig teacher with her old-woman voice.

I could see Liz was going to crack up, maybe start saying it was my fault and all that rubbish. I shot her a warning look.

Ms. Anderson our 50 years old teacher was still waiting for an answer.

‘You see Ms. Anderson’ I started in the voice of someone who was going to take a long time explaining ‘there is this guy that is always on the hallway’ not entirely false. There was always a guy in the hallway ‘he stopped us’ this is where the fake part starts ‘saying he needed to talk to us. He asked our names and then out of nowhere I remembered’ Some of my classmates were starting to smile, they knew I was the best at stupid short stories ‘you always say I’m the stupidest in the class. So all I did was pretend that I didn’t remember my name’ half the class was chuckling now. They knew what I meant, she always said I was a stupid young lady ‘My smart classmate here’ I pointing at Lizzie ‘tried to make me hurry up but like I am a so narrow mind person I didn’t listen to her’ Most of my classmates were laughing now, just nerds were serious like if the president was being insulted ‘That’s why we are late, miss’

I faced my classmates and made a little bow. Then I went to my last-row seat, I winked at the hot guys in that class, they winked back.

Unluckily Ms. Anderson wasn’t finish with Lizzie. She had that horrible smile of hers, the one that could make the batman villain look like a sweet girl.

‘Is that right?’ she pointed at me ‘did she tell the truth?’ 

Lizzie was obviously going to crack up. I started packing my books on the bag, she looked once at me and I nodded.

‘She lied’ her eyes filled with tears. She was a good actress. ‘The reason we were late...’ she started some tears running down her cheeks.

I looked around no one except, Ms. Anderson, was buying it. All the school knew how good she was.

‘She stopped on the bathroom two times and one on the gym’ that was all fake. Some heads turned and looked at me with puzzle in their eyes. I shook my head, that wasn’t true. ‘That is why we are late, Ms. Anderson’

‘Miss. Scott go to...’ said Ms. Anderson.

‘The principal office, I know’ I cut her off. I stood and walked to the front of the class. I stood there facing the class. I made a bow very slowly. When I was up everyone was looking at me with a confused face except one, Lizzie, she know I wasn’t coming back. Real tears filled her eyes.

‘This is the last time I will bother you, miss’ I said turning to face Ms. Anderson ‘I’m leaving’

I walked out of the class thinking about a escape plan. I needed to get out of the boarding place the only things I wanted to take with me: My dark clothes, the long coat and my moms’ necklace.