It had been a week and no sign of Mr. Muscles aka Fritz. I thought that maybe Marcus had found out I was with Blade and sent out his bodyguard for surveillance. It seemed logical … at least until today. We were let out of school early due to a major storm warning. Flash floods were being reported all throughout the city. I knew Blade and Shen wouldn't need me today, not to mention the House of Cthong didn't have anything planned as of late. So I took the bus and headed home.
When I got there a fancy car was parked outside. I knew it didn't belong to me foster parents or my social worker, so seeing it left me a little confused.
"Alyssa," my foster dad, Samuel, said as I entered the house.
"Sam, I told you to call me Lissa. Alyssa is what Ms. Davidson called me." Ms. Davidson is my social worker.
"Fine, Lissa, I would like you to meet a work associate of mine, Marcus Van Sciver."
"Pleased to meet you," I said in a low but polite tone, my voice only slightly indicating my displeasure.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance Alyssa," he said nodding his head towards me in greeting.
"I'm heading upstairs," I told Sam, giving one last glance towards Marcus before running upstairs to my room. As I shut the door, I emptied out my book bag full of school supplies and replaced it with a couple changes of clothes and all of my cash that I had saved up. Grabbing my Mac and my Ipod, packing them as well, I went back downstairs and entered the kitchen, telling my foster mom Amanda that I was going to my friend's Sara's house before quickly leaving through the kitchen door and running around the side of the house.
Hopping on my skateboard I heading off in the pouring rain towards Blade's. Punching in the code and entering the hangout, I ran down the stairs and threw my bag on one of the bunks located near the training room. Heading into the shower, I stripped off my wet clothes and stepped under the scalding spray. The hot water turned my skin red, making me focus on nothing but the heat. As I stepped out of the shower a few minutes later, I changed into a tank top and sweatpants before wrapping my hands and going after the punching bag.
After about 30 minutes of working myself into a sweat I took a break. Grabbing a small towel and patting my face dry I said, "What do you want Blade?"
Walking from the corner, where he had been standing for 10 minutes, over to her he said, "What are you doing here?"
"School's out," I said causally.
"So why aren't you at your foster home?"
I shrugged. Shen poked his head in. "Here for a sleepover kiddo?"
"I guess…"
Blade looked at my bag, "Too much for an overnight visit."
"How about a permanent visit?" I replied, my voice coming out in a whisper.
Shen came over, looked at me and asked, "Okay what's going on?"
"Ya know how I acted kind of weird when I saw the photo of Fritz last week? Well I think he was following me." I could tell Blade was getting upset, so I hurried to finish what I was saying. "I didn't see him again so I thought he was doing surveillance. But today when I got home from school, my dad's business associate was there."
Shen looked confused. "So your foster dad brought home a friend from work. What's the big deal?"
"It was him wasn't it Alyssa?"
I nodded.
"Who?" Shen asked. "Fritz?"
"No," I said. "It was-
"Marcus Van Sciver." Blade said, finishing my sentence.
"The look he gave me…it was like he was warning me. He knows where I live Blade. He had Fritz follow me and now he was at my house." I said, my voice usually calm and collected was now shaky and bordering on hysterical.
"Shen," Blade turned to him and said, "Set up surveillance on Alyssa and her foster parents."
Shen nodded, "You got it."
I sat down on the bed next to me bag, knowing that Blade and Shen would get to the bottom of this and find out just what Marcus was planning.