CHAPTER 192

Later that evening, Marcos sat at home at the kitchen table, staring a hole into the gun that was resting on the table. He was trying to gather the courage to do what he was about to do. Trying to gather the guts to do what he knew needed to be done, for the safety of everyone he loved, for the lives that would be at risk if he didn't do this.

Marcos was preparing to take a life. There was no other way to put it. No way to belittle the haunting, terrifying statement. This wasn't some spur of the moment, anger-driven, emotional reaction. As he sat in his chair, his eyes locking onto the handgun and refusing to pull away, he felt the blood in veins icy calm. This was a completely rational decision, made by someone who was trying to protect the people he loved. That didn't make it any easier though. If anything, it made it so much harder. He was plotting to end the life of the man who had given him his, the man who had given him everything. He couldn't excuse it as an emotional retaliation. What he was about to do rested wholly on his conscience. His morality and his sanity could well die that night, as well as any dreams to have a normal future, but at this point Marcos couldn't even bring himself to care. He was ready to do this. He was ready to murder.

But to do that, he needed to find his dad first. He had absolutely no leads about where the man could be, the only information he had being the perplexing words his father had uttered to him the night before during their reunion. As Marcos closed his eyes, he could hear them being repeated over and over in his head, and he was trying to wrap his head around what exactly they meant. Marcos had never been the brightest student - a few too many hits to the head had seen to that - and this felt like he was in class, trying to solve a riddle or a puzzle but just finding himself a step too far.

He debated calling Sarah for help, but decided not to. He wanted to distance her as much as he could from all this. This was going to be him, and only him. It had started with just him and his father, and it was going to end that way.

"Come on, son! You really haven't figured it out yet?" A loud, chuckling voice caused Marcos eyes to snap open and his head to shoot up. He found himself once again face to face with his father, just like he had been the night before. But this time… it felt different. His father was there, but wasn't actually there. This was just a figment of his imagination; Marcos knew that for sure as he had made sure to lock and bolt every entrance and exit to his house except the front door, which he knew his father hadn't walked through.

That didn't change the fact that Marcos instinctively grabbed the handgun from the table, aiming it at the man.

"What are you going to do? Shoot me? I'm not actually here, dumbass!" His father laughed uproariously at him, but was cut off when a loud BANG filled the room. This time, Marcos shooting the gun hadn't just been part of a nightmare. He really did it, releasing a bullet into the chest of the man opposite him.

However, it didn't penetrate him like it would've if he was actually standing there. Instead, his father vanished into nothingness a split second before the bullet reached him, disappearing from sight and causing the bullet to embed itself harmlessly in the wall. Marcos let out a small sigh of relief, but little did he realize that it was far from over.

"I can't believe you haven't figured it out!" The euphoric voice chuckled at him from behind him, Marcos spinning around to face him, seeing the man had returned. "I mean, I made it SO obvious for you! Practically put it on a silver platter!"

BANG!

Another gunshot, another teleportation on behalf of the older Oliveira man. But just like last time, he couldn't stay away for too long, and Marcos now found the man leaning against the kitchen counter, his sadistic grin not at all faded from his face.

"Ooh… so angry! Now I'm starting to see the family resemblance between us!" His father laughed. "But it disappears the moment you open your mouth and you lower the I.Q of the entire room as you speak. That's where I can't help think to myself… there's no way we're actually related, right?!"

BANG!

Wanting to get the voice out of the back of his head, Marcos didn't hesitate to fire the gun for a third time, but his father simply refused to leave.

"Come on, Marcos! I'm just having fun! No need to be a bitch about it!" Marcos' father remarked. "Besides… I'm trying to help you. The answer is staring you in the face, and I'm trying to help you get to it."

"Tell me then. Tell me where you are. Tell me how to find you." Marcos snapped at him. His father chuckled and shrugged.

"I'm just a figment of your imagination, remember? Just a piece of your subconscious mind. I can only tell you the answer if you've managed to get there yourself." His father told him. "But think about what I said. Think carefully about my words."

"The power of friendship." Marcos murmured to himself, echoing the words that his father had said to him the night before. His father grinned and nodded.

"Yes… exactly. Think about that. Think carefully. What does that even mean? Did I have that many friends before I got locked up?"

"No. You didn't. You were an anti-social, aggressive piece of shit." Marcos muttered. "So that means…"

"Seriously, Marcos?! God, how stupid are you! The answer's right in front of you!" His father exclaimed. That's when Marcos finally made his first connection, between two of the things that his father had said to him.

"The power of friendship… finding friends in the unlikeliest of places…" Marcos recalled. "Whoever's helping you, whoever helped you get out of jail, you met them while you were in prison, didn't you?"

His father clapped obnoxiously at him.

"Very good, son! I do think that some of the stray cats in our old neighborhood could have come to that conclusion before you did, but you got there eventually! Very good!" Felipe drawled. "Now… keep going. You know I met whoever's helping me while I was in prison. But who could it be? That's the question."

"I don't know. Who is it?" Marcos asked. His father sighed.

"Think! Marcos! Think!" The man shouted, his anger rising now as Marcos' own frustration rose, still stumped by the puzzle. "You fucking retarded son of a…"

CRASH!

Marcos was sick and tired of hearing his father's voice, but rather than shooting his father again, Marcos grabbed the first thing he could and threw it at his father with all of his might. It happened to be one of the kitchen chairs, and he flung it at his father like a chimp hurling feces, his father disappearing once again before the blow could land, and the chair crashing against the back wall, smashing to smithereens.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! Getting frustrated, are we?" His father commented in a sing-song tone. "Starting to see that temper come out, huh? Well I'll tell you something, Marcos. You sure as hell didn't get that from your mom. That was all me. Because like it or not, you and I are the same."

CRASH!

"SHUT UP!" Marcos bellowed at him, picking up another chair and sending it crashing towards the man's head for the second time. Marcos was absolutely trashing his apartment at this point, splinters and pieces of the chairs lying everywhere, 3 bullet holes buried deep within his walls.

"Son…" Marcos' father tutted. "You know what they say… don't bite the hand that feeds you. I'm trying to help you here. If you ever want to find me, you're going to have to calm down and listen. You know now that the person who's helping me is someone I met in prison. But what else do you know about them?"

"Uh… uh… well, they must have money, right? Money or resources. Because you don't have either, and how else would they have possibly managed to help you get out of jail." Marcos slowly made that connection, his father's smile widening even more.

"Good… now we're getting somewhere." His father nodded. "So I needed someone to help pay to grease some wheels and get me released from jail. But would I be able to possibly give them in return? You and I both know that I have no money, no friends, nothing much to give. So what could their incentive be to help me?"

Marcos knew it had something to do with the last clue his father had given him - 'a common interest' was what he had told his son was the reason they had become friends. But what did that even mean? What was the common interest that united the two of them so greatly that the affluent mystery man had agreed to help get his father out of jail.

"Think, Marcos, think." His father purred. Marcos couldn't take it. He couldn't take not knowing. He found himself in the midst of a massive temper tantrum, completely trashing his place as he threw anything and everything he could get his hands on at his father. Chairs; cutlery; books; bags; even an entire table he threw at his father, but each time the man disappeared before he could get hit. He was wrecking everything in sight in his fury.

Unless all of a sudden, nearly 10 minutes later, something changed. With not much left to throw, Marcos grabbed the nearest object he could find and hurled it at his father with all of his might. However, rather than another familiar sounding crash as the thing phased through the man and smashed to the ground in pieces, this time the object actually connected with the man's head with a satisfying THUD!

This caused Marcos to stop in his tracks immediately. Something had changed. Rather than disappearing before he could get hit, his father had taken the full impact of the blow as if he was actually there, falling to the ground in a heap, with the object falling beside him. Marcos' eyes widened as he stumbled over to his father on the other side of the room and for the first time, looked closely at what he had thrown at him.

It was his second place trophy from the Sekai Taikai. Marcos hadn't even graced the trophy with a look since he had received it, the object representing the massive failure he had done in Japan, but now that he was looking at it, for the first time, pieces of the puzzle all begun to come together.

His father noticed the realization that was slowly beginning to grace his face.

"Ooh, getting close, aren't we?"

All of a sudden, it all clicked in an instant. The mystery person was someone with a lot of cash to burn and a lot of resources in the Valley. He was someone who had been behind bars at some point between February and June. And the link… the link that tied his father with that man… it was him. He was the link. The common interest was loathing that they both had for him and what he represented was reason enough for the man to help Marcos' father to get out of jail. And there was only one man who fit that bill, a man who only entered Marcos' mind as he looked down at the second place trophy.

"It's Silver…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It was Silver! It had to be him! That was it! The rich, affluent man with the burning desire for revenge on him… nobody fit the bill better than Silver. Marcos knew for a fact that he was, and sure enough, his father disappeared from the room for the final time, representing the fact that every fiber of his being knew that he was right.

This was worse than Marcos could have possibly imagined. He had thought, he had hoped, that this was between just him and his father. That whatever happened, this feud would be strictly between the two of them. Now that he knew Silver was involved though, he realized that not only his life was at risk, but the lives of the people he cared about were too. Sarah, Kreese, Shawn, Kenny… all of them would surely be at risk during whatever happened next.

Marcos raced for his phone, wanting to meet with Kreese and Sarah to let them know this latest development, but as he turned on his phone for the first time, he was met with another surprise. He had missed a call from Sarah. Several of them actually. He must not have heard them during his rageful frenzy, and so he was now left with 3 voicemails from her too. That was weird, Marcos thought. Sarah rarely ever left voicemails. Whatever she had to say, it must have been pretty urgent, so Marcos raised the phone to his ear and began to listen…

"Marcos, I've figured it out! I've figured it all out!" Marcos listened to his girlfriend say into the phone, her voice trembling slightly. "It's Silver! He's the mastermind to this whole thing! He's the one who managed to get your dad out of jail, but it's not just that. I was just at his house to confront him and I also saw Sensei Kim there. I think he's planning something massive. He's banded all of our enemies against us and he's preparing for a strike. And it's not just us too. There were a whole bunch of people at his place that I didn't even recognize, other enemies I presume. Then when I interrogated Silver about what he was doing to you with your dad, he said that we don't know the half of what he's planning. He said that he's getting his revenge on the entire Valley. So I'm guessing that means Miyagi-Do are involved in this somehow too. Anyways, call me back when you get this. I'm on the way to your place anyway. Love you, bye."

Marcos' phone almost slipped out of his hands when he heard that Sarah had ventured to Silver's place all alone, but he managed to listen to the entire first voicemail. His hands shaking slightly, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong, he played the second voicemail and sure enough, he was absolutely right.

"Hey, Marcos. I don't mean to worry you or anything but uh… I think someone's following me." Sarah said. Marcos' eyes widened in alarm. "I'm on my way back to your place and it seems like the same person has been behind me for a while. He's like 50 meters back but he's been behind me for a while now. I'll keep you updated."

She had indeed kept him updated, with a final voicemail that Marcos didn't hesitate to play, his panic rising now. The message had been recorded 2 minutes ago, and Marcos hadn't received anything after that point, so he NEEDED to hear what this one said.

"Shit! He's definitely following me!" Sarah shouted, her voice clearly out of breath and her footsteps audibly heavy. She was running, sprinting. "I'm trying to get to the main road but I can't find it! It's so dark out! I can't see his face either! Shit, he's getting closer and closer! HELP! HELP! HE…"

Suddenly, Sarah's voice was cut off by the sound of a loud scuffle. Marcos could only listen over the phone as Sarah and the follower had a scuffle, stressing and yelling into the phone himself, though it was a voicemail so she obviously couldn't hear him.

A minute later, with the voicemail still recording, everything went silent. Any signs of a scuffle disappeared, leaving Marcos desperate to know whether she had managed to get away or not. He was about to get his answer, as another voice greeted his ear, another very familiar one.

"Sorry. Sarah's not here right now." Marcos heard his dad's unmistakable voice purr into the phone, before promptly hanging up.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

He had Sarah. Marcos' entire body froze, his phone slipping from his hand and smashing against the ground as he realized. His dad, Silver and whoever else was involved in the psychotic plot Sarah had managed to uncover had taken Sarah into their custody, to do God knows how much harm to her.

For a moment, Marcos couldn't bring himself to calm down enough to even move an inch. He felt like he was frozen in a block of ice, his brain refusing to work and his body refusing to comply, trapped completely immobile in the middle of his living room. A few tears slipped down his face as he realized the most recent development of the situation. Sarah was innocent. Dragged into this feud between him and his father, and it was completely his fault. If something happened to her now, the blood would equally be on his hands. He needed to get her back and put an end to his father. Now more than ever.

However, before he could, he was pulled out of his train of thoughts by the sound of a loud banging on his front door.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!