Hi, it's Becky here. I decided to do a really quick update, because we're off school because of snow. This chapter explains what the mission is about, not much adventure here. Although, it does bring a little surprise in...

Disclaimer ; I don't own the Alpha Force series, characters, but I do claim the rights on this fic, Mr Joes, and most of the Browns.

Chapter Two

Amber

Hi, I'm Amber Middleton. Yeah, yeah. I'm just an average girl. Hah! Caught you! No way am I just an average girl. I'm the daughter of millionaires. Well, I was. But I still get the money, so that still makes me rich. But I'm also a butt kicking, save the world miracle rich girl.

Fine. You want to know the real reason that I'm blabbing on. It's not because I'm stupid, or snobby. I grew out of snobvill years ago. It's because…well, my friends don't know this (obviously, Paulo would never live it down) but I'm scared. I mean, my totally awesome completely best friend ever didn't get to work. I mean, my boss assured us that he was fine but I can't help but feel scared. If something happened to him…

"Hey, Amber, are you alright?" Alex asked, looking in concern at me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied. But the others could see right through me.

"No, your not," Paulo emphasised on the words. "Your scared. I can tell. Is it because Hex isn't here?"

Instantly, I felt a blush flush across my face and I struggled to keep it under control. "No!" I protested. "I'm fine. Hex can take care of himself."

Li was looking triumphant. "The blush speaks for itself, Amber. You like Hex." The last sentence had became almost like a taunt. She started singing ,"Hex and Amber, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Alright, that did it. As my blush became wider, I couldn't help but singing, "Li and Paulo, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G." Well, it was war now.

Li and Paulo flushed dark red, and I grinned at Alex. Victory.

A guy picked us up. We didn't ask for his name, we just sat there in silence. After all, we were professionals at work now, not a bunch of kids. We could joke all we wanted later. But now we had to focus on our job.

The car stopped, and we all exited. A man was waiting for us where we stopped. We all shook his hand, and he led us inside. He took us to a conference room.

"I am Mr Joes, and I am working on you're case," he indicated for us to sit down.

"Excuse me, sir, but what is the case?" Alex asked politely.

He brought up a slide show to a monitor. "The pictures that I show you are of the victims. Each one of them have been killed. Only two in this entire family remain."

The first picture came. It was of an elderly man. Beneath the photo were the words ' Johnny Brown' and a couple of years. Then came his wife, 'Elizabeth Brown'. Somehow, they looked kind of familiar. A couple more elders passed, then they're were some adults, maybe about 4o years old. Two in particular caught my eye, but I don't know why. One was a woman named 'Emilia Brown', and another 'James Brown'. But after we'd went through about 15 adults, along came some children. It looked so sick, just to know that every single one of them had been killed.

We went through at least 30 children. It seemed to be a rather big family.

"Did one person kill them all?" Paulo asked, sounding a little shocked.

"Yes," Sighed Mr Joes. "We know who, we just can't track him down…I still have one last photo to show you. I know for a fact you will all recognise one of them. It's a set of triplets."

I looked at the others, blank. They all had the same expression as I did. We didn't know any triplets. Not any that would be completely recognisable, and that we all knew.

But when the picture came up we all gasped. It was two boys and a girl. They were arm in arm, all grinning. The two boys were identical, and the only difference of the girl was her longer hair and gender.

He was right. We all knew one of them. But we didn't know that this person was a triplet. Beneath the photo was a few words. 'Carlos Brown, still alive. Mandy Brown, died from the blow of a gun.'

But they weren't the ones we were interested in. The last one was, 'Melvin Brown, in hospital with 5 gunshots.'

"Hex…" I whispered, tears running down my cheeks. "What does it mean by '5 gunshots?" I was talking quickly now, my breathing faster.

"Exactly that," Mr Joes looked at us all. "Hex is in hospital with 5 gunshot wounds. They say he'll make a full recovery," he added quickly. "It was nothing too serious."

Li came and put an arm around my shoulder. "Who did this one to them?"

He pointed to the photo. "Carlos Brown killed everyone in his family except his triplet brother. He made sure he shot his brother where it wouldn't kill him. He wanted him to suffer for some reason. It was all over a family feud. Something about inheritance money."

It all made sense. Over money. I thought of poor Hex, in the hospital. I wanted to see him so badly, just to tell him that it would all be alright, and that we were here for him. Well, something along those lines, anyway.

Almost as if Mr Joes had read my mind, he told us, "I need you to find out what happened. I need a full done statement from Hex. And he could do with some desperate cheering up - he isn't eating, isn't speaking, isn't telling us when he's in the most pain you could imagine…Can any of you drive?"

We all looked to Paulo, and then we remembered his wound. So it was up to Alex.

You can guess where it went from there. Alex may be an expert in survival skills, and whatnot, but he could not drive…

And yet, even as we nearly crashed, my thoughts were with Hex…

Did you guess what was going to happen? PS - Sorry about the all bold in the last chapter. It won't let me fix it for some reason.

I discovered I was being really mean to Hex and changed the gunshot number.