Prologue

Most teens have pretty normal lives… go to school, come home, and live. My life used to be normal. I had a dad, friends, and a home. When I was four, my mom had died in a car accident, so it was just my dad and me. Yeah, I used to have a normal life, now it is anything but. I'm Alyson Byrnes, and I used to be normal…

Chapter 1

"Are you coming?", a voice said behind me. I whirled to look a tall boy in the face. He was thin, had brown hair and an easy smile; he was also my best friend, Shawn. We had known each other since we were three, and I had seen him in the playground with his mom. He wasn't the cutest guy in Ashworth High, but then again, what could I say? With my straight brown hair, green eyes, and 5 foot nothing height, I wasn't exactly going to make prom queen either.

"Hey, Earth to Ali!", Shawn almost hit me with his hand. "Time to go to Mrs. Morgan's class." he sighed. Mentally, I sighed too. Mrs. Morgan was the most boring teacher in the history of this school, which is darned hard to do. Even her subject, Calculus, was boring. "All right, let's go through the math class that never ends and get some lunch."

Wouldn't you know it, but while Mrs. Morgan was going on about some math thing that I knew I probably wouldn't need to know for the rest of my life, and the rest of the class was asleep, my phone vibrated. Normally only two people texted me in school. Shawn was one, and dad was the other. I looked over to Shawn and saw that he was drawing idly in his notebook, so it must have been dad.

Carl Byrnes was a dad who didn't care that I had a phone, as long as I didn't do anything stupid. He was the kind of dad who was cool, until you got into trouble, when he would be so disappointed, you think you'd rather die. I loved him anyway. While my teacher was writing out an equation, I looked at my phone. His message was short. "We need to have a talk." That meant one of two things, I had done something bad, or he had something to do for work. Seeing as I hadn't done anything wrong, except for the room of eternal messiness, and my grades were A's and B's, that meant that work had some meeting or something. You see, dad was a manager for a big company that sold computers, so he had a lot of meetings.

"What is this?"I gagged. "I think it's supposed to be food," Shawn said nonchalantly. Like most school food, Ashworth's was disgusting. It looked like slop that even pigs wouldn't touch. "So, how'd you do on the English test?" Shawn tried to say. It sounded more like, "O, oud oo fo n thwa engwisch tes?" He was always talking with his mouth full. "Really, you can't talk after you swallow?". He shrugged and gave me a look that said he really didn't care. " We're stuck here and you think I care about being all prince-like?" I said nothing. Boys can be real pigs.

"So what are you doing after school?" I asked Shawn. "I have another long soccer practice." Shawn had to be in 50 different clubs and teams, he spent so much time away from home, that his mom often complained that she only saw him a few times a day. "You?" he asked, as if he didn't know. "Same as usual, go home and say hi to dad, eat and get on the computer. But dad did say he wanted to 'talk'." He grinned, "What did you do now?" Ich. "I didn't do anything. It's probably another meeting for work." He gave me a sympathetic grin, then added, "Well, we only have one class after this and its computer applications a.k.a typing random things and tell the teacher that you worked sooo hard on it." He had me there. "Tell you what, if Mr. Johnson lets us sit there and do nothing, you get to come to my house after school and help me with that science that is still not anything remotely close to English in my mind," I bargained. "Deal."

The moment the bell rang, old Mr. Johnson got up to the front of the class and announced, "Since today is the Friday before fall break, I'm not even going to try to teach you, since none of you will pay attention anyway." He walked back to his seat as I gave Shawn a smug look. Mr., Johnson didn't care what we did; so long as we did the work he gave us. Shawn stuck his tongue out at me and I rolled my eyes and checked my e-mail. By the end of class I had played 12 games of solitaire and not won a single one.

As Shawn and I walked home, he skips soccer practice almost once a week, but he's still too good for them to kick him off, I thought about what I would do for Fall Break. It was October and too cold for anything fun, so I'd probably stay home or else go to the movies. Shawn walked silently besides me and he seemed lost in thoughts. "I know that you probably think I'm stupid, but I think we should stay inside for the rest of the day," he stated suddenly. "Sure," I gave him a questioning look. "I just have a feeling," he answered my unspoken question. "Fine, whatever."

When we got to my house, I looked at it happily. My home wasn't much, a two bed, two bath, one floor house that was grey. It wasn't the fanciest house, but it was home. I opened the door and called out," Dad, I'm home, and Shawn came too, he's going to help me with science." There was no reply. Dad always got home before I did…"Dad?" There was still no answer. Shawn and I shared a glance and split up to look around the house. Dad wasn't there. When I called his work, Lesley, his receptionist, said that he had left the same time he always did. I called his cell. His voice mail picked up and I left a message. I knew though, I knew deep down that my father was gone…

Chapter 2

After crying my eyes out to my dog, Mumu (don't mock the name, it was my mom's idea), for an hour while Shawn sat there looking awkward, I told myself to stop crying. Crying wouldn't help anybody. If I was going to get anything done I'd have to do something.

"You could stay with mom and me 'til we find out what we are going to do," Shawn interrupted my musing. "I see two problems with that," I amended, "One: What do we say to your mom? And two: what is this 'we' you're talking about?, I'm the one with the missing parent." I mean, here was Shawn, who couldn't even stand up to his mother, and he wanted to play hero. "Well, we tell mom that you want to stay with us for awhile to work on science, and second, I'm your best friend, what am I supposed to do, stay home?"

"Fine we'll go to your house, but we have to figure something to do about my dad that doesn't involve breaking the law, like calling the cops, that'd be good," I figured. Shawn frowned and pointed out, " We can't call the cops until he's been gone for 24 hours but you need to stay somewhere, so we are both going to lie to my mom until we figure out the best option." "Fine, you win, let's go see your mom."

Shawn lived in a tiny apartment on the second floor of his complex. When we knocked, his mom answered. Like him, she was tall, with brown hair, but unlike Shawn, who had brow eyes, she had sky blue eyes. Before she could utter a welcome, Shawn's cat, Lois, meowed up to me. "Hey mom, Ali is going to stay for the weekend, her dad didn't have any objections." Yeah, I thought, because he wasn't there to have a say. Before I could get too, depressed, Mrs. Parks said, "Well, if it's ok with Carl, come on in Ali, we're having spaghetti." Mrs. Parks a.k.a. Angela had been my replacement mother since I was four, and I had been the daughter that she never had. As I entered her apartment, Lois rubbed my leg and I bent down to pet the cream cat absent mindedly before walking into the kitchen. "It smells wonderful, Angela," I said as Shawn walked up behind me with the bag I had packed. "Come on lets go unpack your stuff in the spare bed room."

To say that Angela could cook was an understatement. After a life of microwave meals, the spaghetti tasted like heaven and I ate my food almost as fast as Shawn. He still didn't seem to know how to talk after he chewed his food. His mother pointed this out many times as he told her about the school day.

There were knocks on my door. "Come in," I called. Shawn entered my room and closed the door softly. I set the book I had been reading down. "Hey, what's up?" I asked. "Nothing much, I just wanted to talk," he replied. "Sure." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I just wanted to say that if your dad doesn't show up tomorrow, we have other options, besides calling the police." "And, tell me why we can't call the cops, again?" I questioned. "Look, I'm in a … club with people who have connections to the FBI we can talk to them." I stared at him. "Since when do you have so many connections that know the feds?" He shrugged and gave me a look that asked why I really cared. Now that I thought about it, I didn't really didn't care that much. "The FBI is better than city cops." I sighed. "I know that you're under a lot of stress, but I think we will both feel better if we have a plan." He nudged. "You know, you can be a real pain in the butt when you want to be." He gave me a patient look, waiting, asking. "Fine we can talk to your friends the day after tomorrow." Shawn made a relieved sound and got up from where he had been sitting. "We also need to call someone to feed your dog tomorrow." For some odd reason Shawn hated dogs, maybe he was afraid of the 15 pound beagle that gave him puppy dog eyes. "My neighbor can do it; she has a key." I decided out loud. "Night, Ali." "Good night, Shawn."

Chapter 3

I woke up three times that night because of nightmares with my dad suddenly doing a disappearing act. I finally decided to get up at 7 a.m. Shawn was still asleep in his room( judging from the continuing snores.) I figured that if his own snoring didn't wake him up, me taking a shower wouldn't do any harm. Knowing him, the only things that could get him up this early were food, or a natural disaster.

The relaxing warm water helped me calm down. By the time the worries and nightmares were gone out of my head, the water had turned cold. Fresh clothes and good food were on my mind. Happily for me, both were easily available.

The sight that my eyes saw, made my stomach get jealous. There was enough food in that kitchen to feed an army. Shawn made up about 75% of an army's stomach, so we were covered. " Good morning, Ali, it's nice to see you up." If there was one thing that I could depend on with consistency, it was Angela's cheerfulness. "Morning, Angela, morning Shawn." I said. Shawn grumbled something that sounded like a reply. It is easy to say that he was not a morning person. "So how is your dad doing?" she asked. Guilt washed over me, both at lying to her, and me sitting here eating a nice breakfast while my dad was who knows where. "He's having some trouble at work, but it'll work out," I replied, going around the subject. "Well I hope it works out all right," she murmured. I hope so too, I thought. Shawn gave me a sympathetic glance as he looked up from his plate. I may have felt hungry before, but half of my food went to the cat. At least he has nothing to worry about, I thought.

I called my neighbor, who readily agreed to feed Mumu. Said neighbor was a dog lover and owned two dogs herself. After that, I made a phone call to my house, just hoping that my dad would magically pick up. The answering machine picked up. I called his office. Again nobody picked up. His cell phone was off as well. Shawn came up behind me and said, " Don't worry we will find him." "Not if you give me a heart attack first," I snapped, "Warn me next time!" "Pay better attention," and he threw a pillow at me. I laughed and for the first time in so many hours I relaxed.

After sitting around for an hour, trying not to go crazy, I decided to actually find something to keep me busy. " Do you know how to defend yourself?" Shawn asked from the couch. "Not really, but I could probably beat your butt any day, why?" He stood up, "If your father was, taken, then you need to know how to fight, and you couldn't beat a 90 year old lady with her hands tied behind her back." He hinted. I called him on his bluff, " Anywhere and anytime, your choice," I replied smugly. " Fine, now, the gym next to the pool area.

The apartment complex that Shawn lived in was surprisingly high classed. They had a pool, a gym, and a tennis court. The gym was a small building that smelled like sweat. Anyway, it was a place that I wouldn't go to often. After changing into gym clothes, we met at the mats. He grinned at me, probably all smug that he was going to beat a girl that was smaller and weaker than him. I looked him over: he was thin not the overly muscular type, he could probably still have a good punch anyway. I squared my shoulders and stepped onto the mat…

Chapter 4

I'd like to say that I wooped his butt. I can't honestly say that. What I can say is that he was fast. He struck like a cobra, striking and then moving back out of range. I was nearly as fast, but I didn't train for hours a day like he did in a gazillion sports. After his first blow, my mind finally caught up. He may have been softening his blows, but I knew that he was way out of my league. Happily, I got in a whole two blows before he had me pinned. Shawn chuckled and whispered in my ear, "Never under estimate your opponent." He pulled me to my feet to make sure I wasn't hurt. That made me upset. He may have beaten me, but he didn't have to mock me.

"You are small and fast; use that to your advantage, I'm bigger than you, so I move slower than you should. You came at me trying to use strength, you can't do that. Get under my guard." What I felt like doing was kicking him where it hurts, unfortunately, for me it hurt to move. I limped over to the bench to try and preserve some of my dignity. The bad thing was that he wasn't done torturing me yet.

"Again," he ordered. "What, but you already won!" Shawn sighed. "I won the battle, but not the war. This time use your size to your advantage and don't give up so easily." Maybe it was the fact that he had already pulverized me and he wanted to do it again that gave me anger, which gave me strength. I growled a bad word in the back of my throat that I would probably be grounded for, back in the time that I had someone to censor my language.

This time the fight lasted longer and it got dirtier. After hitting me in the chest, my foot, somehow, found its way below his belt. Oh, well. I landed more blows by jabbing in and weaving from one place to another. My blows were softer, but faster. Eventually I got tired and he won. Happily, I wasn't the only one out of breath or without bruises.

I took another shower at the apartment. Angela had work on Saturdays, so we had the house to ourselves. I grabbed a microwave pizza while Shawn grabbed a bunch of food from the fridge. We ate in silence, and the whole apartment was silent. After that, we settled down on the old, but surprisingly comfortable, couch to watch some television. I didn't last five minutes. I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Shawn wasn't on the couch. I was confused until I heard him in the kitchen. The clock on the wall said that it was a quarter 'til 6. My stomach told me it was dinner time. When I came into the kitchen, Shawn had made chicken. I didn't know he could cook, but then again I didn't know he could fight either. The chicken was awesome to say the least. I snarfed it down like a starving dog. Shawn ate faster than I did, but not by much. After the workout this girl needed food and I needed it fast. He looked up from his food and said, "You wash and I'll dry, mom won't be home until nine." At least my house had a dishwasher.

While we were doing the dishes, he popped a surprise on me: " I called my friends while you were napping, they say they want to meet you and to talk to them about what to do about your dad." I almost dropped the dish I was washing, "When are we going to see them?" I asked. "Tomorrow."

Chapter 5

The first thing I did after being woken up by a cat sitting on my face, was drag my tired bones out of my warm, yet borrowed bed, and got my butt into the shower. For the first time I remembered my poor dog. I had left her with someone to feed her, and she had a doggy door, but I still decided to ask Shawn to drop by my house so that we could check on her. By the time I got all of my thoughts in order, the water had turned cold.

I got out and threw on a T-shirt and some jeans, and then I followed the smell of food to the kitchen.