A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay, guys. I can honestly give you no better excuse other than I was being lazy. ;o) Only one chapter left after this – I can't believe it! :)

Thanks so much to rangermaid, Shojobaby, iluvjoe, and BlueEyes444 for reviewing chapter 11! Enjoy this one and please REVIEW! :D

Paradise Broken

Chapter Twelve

Paradise, Colorado

June 3, 2010

Marsuvees Black wasn't shut down for good. He was still very much alive and eager to make Johnny follow Samuel's example of dying slowly and painfully. He had cut Samuel's body down from the tree, leaving the noose around his neck.

Claude Bowers, Steve Smithers, and another man Johnny didn't know very well had jumped on Johnny and tied him up. A brand new noose was now around his neck, and they were ready to string him up.

Johnny felt tears slide down his cheeks and he knew that no matter how brave his front, he was terrified. But then again, he was following in Samuel's footsteps. He had stood up for what was right and now he was dying for it. He was a martyr, like Samuel.

The thought comforted him.

Just as Claude was about to pull Johnny into the air, something astounding happened. A bright, blinding flash of light enveloped the town and everything was gone. Johnny wasn't tied up anymore; instead, he was standing on a pure white surface surrounded by white everywhere else. Everything was light and the joy bubbled up inside of Johnny and he wanted to scream in pleasure.

He heard someone laughing and he saw a dark figure running from the horizon—he couldn't tell from what direction; it was impossible to get your bearing in this marvelous white place. His eyes lit up when he saw the fourteen-year-old boy running toward him, green eyes glistening with tears of happiness.

"Samuel!" Johnny yelled, embracing the boy he had only known for a few minutes.

Samuel smiled at him. "And then the light destroyed the darkness once and for all. The end."

Johnny began to weep uncontrollably. "What an amazing ending," he sobbed.

Samuel winked at him. "Joe wrote it," he said, then gave Johnny another hug. "Everything will be okay. I promise."

And then, as quickly as it had come, the beautiful white haven was gone. Johnny was tied hand and foot, a noose around his neck, and Samuel's mutilated body was dumped unceremoniously to the side.

Johnny was still crying. But he was crying for joy. He knew everything would be okay. How could it not? Samuel had said it would be.

Sally Drake felt like she was waking up from a deep sleep brimming with nightmares about a man named Marsuvees Black. She vaguely remembered the happenings of the past two days, but as if they were a distant memory, a foreign dream.

She remembered calling Fenton, then turning him away. She remembered going to the meeting and then watching them try to kill Fenton's sons and watching them kill that young boy and watching them tie up and get ready to lynch...

"Johnny!" she shriek, snapping out of her trance.

After the light had disappeared, Johnny noticed a change in everyone. The townspeople were beginning to glance around restlessly, eyes wide at the scene before them.

One wild cry rung above the murmuring. "Johnny!"

His mother was sobbing and running. She fell to her knees beside him and untied the ropes around wrists and ankles and slipped the noose from her son's neck. "I'm so sorry, son."

Steve Smithers glanced around and his eyes landed on Samuel's body. "Dear God, forgive us," he whispered, his eyes on the heavens. Then he spun on Black, wielding the bloody stake. "You."

Black grinned, stuck his hand into his pocket, and brought it out with more worm sludge on it. He licked his fingers one at a time, not looking intimidated in the least by the sudden turn of events.

"Me," he said calmly. "Or rather, you. I was just the mastermind behind all of this. Billy may have created me from the evil spun in his own sick heart, but he didn't realize that once he wrote me into existence that he would lose control of me. I'm Evil. You take one taste and you want more. Then I get control of you and you realize you don't control me anymore. You never have.

"You see, I didn't do this, folks. You stupid, sick, ugly, pathetic pukes killed this kid. I just gave you the nudge you needed."

Claude Bowers glared at Black. "You sick monster from hell!"

Black smirked. Steve ran at him with his stake. A gun fired.

All heads turned toward Fenton Hardy, his gun extended, finger curled around the trigger, the nose of the gun pointed to where Black had been standing just moments earlier. Frank, Joe, and David Abraham were behind him.

The problem was, Black wasn't standing anywhere anymore. Or lying anywhere. Or even sitting anywhere. All that was left of him was his black cowboy hat with tiny swirls of black smoke seeping from under the brim.

"Is he dead?" Johnny ventured.

"No," David Abraham said, his eyes drawn to the bloodied and beaten body of his son. "Just gone for now. You can never stomp out evil." He smiled wearily at Johnny, then Joe, then Frank. "But you can snuff it out for a while."

His eyes landed on his son once again and he fell to his knees next to his child and began to weep.

"My son, my son...that's my boy," he wailed. But there was another emotion mixed in with the grief: pride. His son had given his life to humble Joe. With Joe humbled to the place of a child, the youngest Hardy had written a passage that would rid Paradise of evil. For now.

Samuel had saved them all. He knew what was going to happen to him but he did it anyway.

Joe turned away, tears in his eyes.

Thank you, Samuel.

A/N: This was the second-to-last chapter, so just one more and the story will be over. *sigh* I can't believe it, this has been such fun! :) Please review this one and chapter thirteen, the finale, will be up soon! ;o)

~Emachinescat ^..^