Hidden Secret- Chapter 1

A/N: Don't own Chicago Fire, NONE OF IT. But rightfully, I own my created character, Mackenzie Lynn.

I'm just a no one, literally as I'm speaking my words now. Every person who says they're nobody in the world is just kidding. When I say it, it's certainly true. In my family, everyone knows my mother, father, older brother and sister Ray and Rose. But not me, the youngest of my siblings by eight years: Mackenzie. I didn't get the special 'R' name family tradition as I have been told that my existence was just a mistake. I was never actually planned when my mother found out she was pregnant the third time. It runs through the family, every couple decides how many kids they wanted before the first was born. My parents wanted two, but accidentally went for the third. I have certainly no birth certificate, social security number, nothing at all.

Growing up, I stayed home all the time, doing chores and the dirty work for my family as if I were the slave of the family. I've gotten used to the fact that they treat me like this when I just turned fourteen, it was an everyday thing I do. Whenever visitors come over, I have to go down in the basement, which is finished but off limits with people over at the house. With how much time I'm alone with myself, I actually kind of liked being alone. I never really experienced being around a lot of people all the time, thinking about it gives me the chills. But it was just me and how I was "raised".

I was actually home school by my mother through elementary school level to high school level. My mother, Rita, wanted me to head off to college just like my brother and sister did after their graduation of public high school. But with the things we had to go through like enrollment and everything I didn't have, my father, Rich, refused to let me go out. My education stopped at my senior year in high school at home. Since Rose stayed home in Illinois for college and lived in our household until she graduated, she would always sneak down in the basement with me with her school work and teach me. I learned about what she was trying to major in and all of her classes she took too.

Speaking of relationships, with my family, it's like a hanging off the thread type. My father and I aren't close. He's the one out of all of my family members who really disliked me, he was the one who didn't want me in the first place. Almost every day of my life, there would be a session of the day where he would abuse me in any way he could think of. The both of us had our distance throughout the house. My brother, Ray, was another who didn't like me either, and I didn't know exactly why. He would always keep his distance away from me too, eyeing me with dirty looks and everything. My mother and I somewhat got along with each other, we would talk to each other at some points, she would do nice things for me and was the one who suggested to send me off to college. But since that point when I was eighteen, we grew apart. But with my sister, Rose, she was actually a person who I really loved more than anyone else and she loved me back too. At night when we were younger, the both of us would do fun things at night like watch tv or a movie, talk about stuff even when I really had nothing to say and we just stuck together perfectly, even though I'm no one in the outside world.

To this day as I just entered my early adulthood, I'm still living with my parents, a reasonable explanation is what I don't have as everyone has but me. Still, I haven't gone outside either. Rose bought me a laptop and a phone so the both of us could keep in contact with each other as she moved out to Massachusetts with her husband, Wyatt. It grew lonely in the house as my brother and sister moved out a few years ago. My parents were out late every night doing things I didn't know and didn't return home until early morning the next day, tired, they go to bed and sleep throughout the whole day until about six in the afternoon and go out again, repeating the whole process.

Just one day throughout the summer time, Rose returns home back in Chicago to visit for a couple of weeks while her husband is on a business trip for a couple of months. Let's just say that I was very much glad to see her again. Hugging her, I missed her long dark brown hair in my face with her smell of cherry blossoms perfume. I was slightly taller than her by about an inch; I'm 5'8 while she stands at about 5'6 ½.

Pulling away, Rose looked at me and smiled. "How have you been doing?"

"Same as usual, you know," I said. "Nothing hasn't changed at all, but you know…mom and dad have been out more than usual in the past. Kind of glad they aren't around." But when my parents weren't on my back, watching my every move, I've been pretty good; staying down in the basement on my computer doing random stuff.

My sister looked around for a bit. "I really don't care if I get in trouble but I'm taking you out in the real world so you can see Chicago for once instead of seeing the house every day. It's something love to do for you, Mack." Rose smiled bigger and pulled me into another hug. "You have no idea how much I miss you."

"Same," I say and chuckled a bit, kissing Rose's temple.

Rose took me out for lunch at a place called a diner. Seeing am eating place like this got me curious on what else is out in the world I don't know about. The food I ate was marvelous, nothing like I have eaten before at home since I've been feed almost the same thing every day of Macaroni and Cheese. My sister ordered my food for me; chicken fingers as they were called. I didn't quite understand where the name came from but looking at how the baked chicken came out, they did look like fingers that were uneven in length. Tender and juicy, it tingled my tongue at each bite I took of them. For some reason, Rose watched me eat my food which I thought was very unusual. After I finished eating, she said to me: "I'm glad you're enjoying it."

Enjoy. Beyond my definition of "enjoyment" was different from how I think of it now. Staying at home was my "miserable" enjoyment while this was the real enjoyment. I have missed out on everything.

"Sometime when I can get away with it, I'm going to take you out to Massachusetts on the east where I live now, see something more than Chicago," Rose said. "I'm not as cruel as everyone else in our family." About a year ago, my sister admitted she hated the Lynn tradition of future families. She said she's going to be the very first to break it and have as many kids as she and her husband want. Just to pay it up for me, her unknown baby sister.

"What about dad?" I'm the only one in the family that our father laid a finger on us, not once has he hurt Rose or Ray in any way. Only me, so I shouldn't really bother about what would happen to my older sister.

"He's an ass, he can't do anything to me since I'm not in the house anymore. I'm an adult, I can take care of myself," Rose said. "Don't worry, Mackenzie. I'll stick up to anything just for you."

"Thanks," I said and took a sip of my drink that is called a milkshake that's made with milk and scoops of chocolate ice cream as I learn today. Another thing that was very delicious too. "But you think you can do it?" I joked a bit there with Rose, but I had the confidence in her to do anything just for me.

"Anytime, Mac…" My sister's sentence started to trail off when a group of guys probably a few years or so older than me, she watched them carefully as they settled to sit at the bar while Rose and I sat in a booth right across from us.

Taking a glance over at them, I was a bit confused on why they attracted my sister's attention like that. "Rose…?" Her attention snapped back to me, guilt all over her face. "Hi, what's up? Interested? Too bad, you're married."

My sister rolled her eyes at me and flicked a little crumb from her lunch at me on the table. I glared at her and wiped off the front of my shirt where I thought the crumb landed on. "Stop it, don't make a fool of ourselves right in front of them." Rose said, sipping her soda, trying to act herself when I think it's not the great time to do it. Well, I know really nothing about boys or relationship stuff like that.

For the next fifteen or so minutes, my sister and I didn't say any words to each other after what happened awhile ago. I started to fiddle with the straw from my milkshake and spun it in a circle in the glass cup, looking out the window clearly bored. I blocked out my hearing as I watched cars pass out on the street in Chicago. Closing my eyes slowly, I started to fall asleep as my mind was thinking of peace. But something caught my attention that I couldn't resist, but to hear again. I heard my sister speak for awhile, and then someone else started to talk. A man's voice as I recognized.

Who in the world is she talking to? I thought to myself. Better figure it out myself. Looking out of the corner of my eye, I looked over at Rose and some other person. A guy who looked like he could be Rose's age, but older maybe. "Hi." I said, waving towards the male. And in return, he waved back.

"Hey," he said, smiling a bit towards me.

"I'm sorry I didn't introduce you two in the first place when you sat over here, Matt," Rose said, giving me a dirty look when I spoke out. "This is Mackenzie, my cousin from here. She just lives on the other side of Chicago." My sister pointed to him. "Mack, this is Matt. We went to school together."

Cousin? "Hi," I said, kind of annoyed that Rose said that instead of sister. Even she was trying to keep this away from Matt too. He seems so harmless to know about the little family secret. But it got me to think that if Rose said 'sister', Matt would be asking a ton of questions like "Why haven't I seen her around the household when I came to visit years back?". I remember some of those times back in high school when he would come over to have study times with my sister, and that's pretty much all, nothing big.

"Nice to meet you, Mackenzie," Matt smiled a bit and held out his hand for me to shake. Without hesitation, I took his hand and shook it.

"Oh, everything is such a joy here, right?" Rose untangled mine and Matt's hands from each others. "Mackenzie, I need to talk to you real quick. Do you mind?" She didn't give me a chance to reply as out of nowhere, Rose grabbed a hold of both of my shoulders and shoved me away from the booth and into a corner where no one could hear us speak.

Fixing my Chicago Bears t-shirt I received as a Christmas gift a couple years back, I glared at my sister. "Is there something wrong?" I asked.

Rose nodded quickly and leaned in closer to me to the right side of my face. "You can already tell that Matt doesn't know anything about you and this whole family thing going on. He can't know any of this, at all. Okay?" She whispered into my ear. "Lie, please. You know…tell him information that is reasonable and nothing related to what happened in the past."

I nodded. This is going to take time for me to think about what to say about myself when I never went to school or college. Nothing personal I know about myself.

"You're going to stay here with Matt, for like ten minutes while I go run down an errand that is just right down the street," Rose said, taking me back to the booth where Matt patiently waited for the both of us. "Sorry for all of this, I'll be right back, okay?"

"Perfectly fine," Matt said.

Hesitant, I sat down back in my seat across from Matt. I looked outside the window again, watching my sister as she walked out of the diner towards her car, leaving me alone with a stranger that I never met.

"So…Mackenzie," Matt said. When he spoke out my name, it seemed like he hesitated and then stretched it out as if he was having a hard time remembering it. Soon enough, I'll get used to the fact that my sister will be introducing me to a lot of people. "What is life like for you?" he asked.

Let's just say wonderful despite the fact that I'm lying about this right now. It's fun being the one child in the family that your parents don't like at all, even though they took care of you for your whole entire life. It's great being the person who's a secret to everyone. Gee, I wonder how everything is going to turn out once someone finds out about my secret. "As normal people's lives are," I said. "You know…nothing really special." I still live with my parents…

"Interesting," Matt replied. I watched him mess with the straw from the milkshake I had finished off from earlier. "You know…you and Rose look a lot alike." When he pointed that out, my cheeks grew red. Not from embarrassment, but from fear. From this point, I was on the verge to just shout out "I'm her sister!" out loud, but I clamped my jaw completely shut from me doing that.

"Yeah, as cousins, we get that a lot," I said, laughing a bit nervously. I hoped that Matt didn't realize how nervous I was at the moment. "Rose and I was pretty-"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Startled, I looked out the window when I heard the noise. I didn't know what it was because I never heard a sound like that before in my life. My heart dropped pretty quickly after what I saw outside the window. Rose on the ground, her white shirt she wore was now stained crimson red.

Even Matt saw what happened too. Quickly, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me along with him behind the counter and into the back of the diner. Everyone else that was in the diner; the other men that entered with Matt came too.

I felt the hot tears stream down my cheeks, confused and hurt. "W-what's going on?" I managed to say before I broke down into sobs. "W-what about Rose?"

"Shh!" Matt covered my mouth with his hands as numerous footsteps were heard outside. I could hear men speaking above each other each time when one of them begins talking.

"Where's the younger girl?" One of them boomed. "Where is the sister?"

Where is the sister? Of course, they were looking for me. But how in the world do they know me when I had no clue on what's going on? Why was my sister shot? Was Rose involved with them in some way or what? Whatever it was, I'm scared as I should be.

And I know now that the reason Rose was shot, was because of me. But no one knows about me...I don't get it. It doesn't go through my mind to understand the meaning of the shooting and why I'm wanted now.

I'm the reason why my sister was shot...my fault. Guilt.