Chapter 16: Home for Christmas

Johnny DiMera didn't like playing tennis on an indoor court, but two weeks before Christmas, there was nothing else for it. There was only the lightest dusting of snow outside, but it was far too cold and windy to practice.

After an hour of drills, running, and playing, his white shirt was soaked with sweat. He didn't care for the appearance of a white shirt after it had been soaked through, but he was mindful that the girls who were pretending not to watch him from the bleachers had a different opinion.

All of them were two or three years older than Johnny, which was excellent; most thirteen-year-old girls weren't sure yet that they wanted to give up their dolls for cootie-ridden boys. Johnny was tall for his age, and that worked in his favor with girls. So did the money. And the confidence. And the fact that he could whip anyone from the sixth years on down on a tennis court—even one that was inside.

He strolled by them on his way to the showers and smiled slowly. They giggled. "We'll talk about what's so funny when I'm done in the shower," he told them, and they giggled harder. He had no doubt that they would wait for him.

The locker room was quiet when he entered it. He had just kicked off his trainers when a sharp sound echoed off of tile and metal. Instinctively, he knew that noise. It was a deadbolt sliding into place.

"Who's there?" Johnny called.

Four men—all of them tall, strong, and fully grown— approached Johnny and surrounded him. Johnny stood perfectly still. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and decided that he was projecting just the right image of bored unconcern.

He knew what this was about, of course. The world was full of people who were jealous of Father. Father had always been concerned that Johnny might be kidnapped by a business rival or even by someone who was hard up and looking for some quick cash. That was why Father had pulled Johnny out of Eton after half a term—some crooked ISA agent who happened to be an alumnus had been snooping around, privy to information that Father had wanted kept private.

"Johnny DiMera?" the biggest, toughest-looking man asked.

"Santo d'Antoni," Johnny corrected smoothly. Probably they wouldn't buy his lie, but he had to waste as much time as possible. The longer it took these goons to wrestle him out of here, the more chance there was that they would be interrupted.

The man laughed. "Funny how those girls out there called you Johnny."

"They aren't the brightest girls in the school. They have other assets."

The second-biggest, second-toughest man handed the first a folded sheet of paper. When the leader unfolded it, Johnny saw that it was a photocopy of the "Faces Book" handed out to all students. Included was the photograph used for each student's ID card. Father had tried to keep Johnny's picture from appearing in the book, but the school had insisted that Johnny was a part of the school community and his professors and classmates should be able to identify him.

"Fine," said Johnny. "I'm Johnny DiMera. What can I do for you?"

"We have a message for you. It's from Allie Horton."

Johnny's heart leapt. The single hardest thing about being away at school—harder even than separation from Father—was separation from Allie. But Allie couldn't have sent four men to fetch him. Allie didn't know anyone beyond the walls of Father's townhouse. He and Allie hadn't even emailed since he'd left Eton (something about a problem with the internet connection at Father's house).

He took the offered square of blue paper. His heart gave a second jolt as soon as he touched it. The handwriting, the stickers, and the words were Allie's. He could feel her presence in all of them. Even if Allie had been forced to write the letter— but a strange sixth sense told him she hadn't— there was no question now of what Johnny would do. He had to go to Allie and assure himself that she was safe.

His eyes scanned over Allie's instructions a final time:

They won't hurt you, but they will do whatever they have to do to get you to come with them.

Right, then. No sense in letting the hired thugs muss his hair.

He pointed at the door. "Lead the way, then, gentlemen."

The men exchanged a slightly look of surprise, and Johnny was inwardly pleased. He had thrown four grown men off of their game, if only for a moment. Father would be proud.

The men didn't answer many of Johnny's questions as they hustled him off campus and onto a small jet parked on a landing strip. He gathered that they were going to America, to a town called Salem where Father had some business holdings.

The flight across the ocean seemed interminable, and by the time the jet touched down on the America's Atlantic coast to refuel, Johnny was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He'd gotten a good workout in just before the ambush, and the ambush had been more draining than ten hours of tennis. The four most boring thugs on the planet weren't doing anything but monitoring his every move. He gave in and let himself fall asleep before the second takeoff.

When he awoke, the jet was on the ground again and a soft hand was gently patting his face. He blinked sleepily. "Allie?"

"Yeah."

For a minute, he thought that he must have imagined the jet and the guards and even school. He was back home, and Allie had come into his bedroom to tell him that Father had sent out for pastries for breakfast.

It was a nice thought, but it didn't last. He was still strapped into the leather seat of the jet, with his head leaning on the window, through which he could see a dusty warehouse.

But Allie really was perched on the seat beside him, sitting on her knees and gazing at him intently. As far as Johnny could tell, they were alone, but he was too smart to believe that the guards weren't somewhere just out of sight.

His hands fumbled numbly with the seatbelt until Allie reached over and unfastened it for him. She offered him her hand to help him stumble into the aisle, and once he had, she wrapped her arms around him tightly. He returned the hug.

"I've missed you," he told her.

"Not like I've missed you," she said fervently. "Were they nice to you? They didn't hurt you?"

"You really sent them?"

Allie shrugged. "I didn't send them, but I knew they'd find you. They found me."

"Who are they?"

"They work for… I guess they work for my Uncle Philip. My dad—my mom—there's something you need to know before we go out there."

"I need to know everything before we go out there," he corrected. Knowledge was power, especially when you'd just been kidnapped, even if Allie was remarkably blasé about the whole kidnapping thing.

"Too much. It'd take days to tell you." Johnny started to challenge her assessment, but Allie ignored him. "My mom—did your father ever tell you about your mother?"

"She died when I was born. Then he married your mum. You know that."

Allie shook her head slowly. "No. My mom is your mom. We're twins, Johnny."

"No," Johnny said before he could think, but everything in him screamed that Allie was telling the truth. For one thing, Allie didn't lie. For another thing, the pull that he felt to Allie, that was absolutely unlike the pull he felt to every other girl his age but more intense in its way, suddenly made sense. And then there were the fuzzy memories of being a toddler in Allie's mother's arms. He knew he'd called her "Mummy."

Allie stared at the floor with her hair hiding her face. "I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she murmured.

"That's not what I meant!" Johnny corrected. "Of course you're my sister, you've always been my sister, but you can't tell me that Father would lie to me about that. Or to you? If you're his daughter—wait, you said that your dad—"

"Same mother. Different fathers."

"You mean like with dogs?" Johnny asked with disgust.

"That was sort of how I felt too," said Allie blithely, and Johnny was sure that she was omitting something. But she grabbed him by the hand and led him off the plane, past the thugs who stood with their arms crossed and to a door behind which a group of people were talking.

Johnny tightened his grip on Allie's hand until she squealed. "What?"

"Let's just listen for a moment," he whispered. "Do you know them?"

"Yes," she whispered back. "They're our family, we don't have to eavesdrop—"

"The woman. Who is she?"

"Aunt Belle. Mom's sister. She looks a lot like me, it's really weird."

"The man with her?"

"Shawn. Her husband."

"Holding the bag?"

"Will. Johnny, he's our brother, he's a doctor, probably he'll want to do a DNA test on you, but he'll just take your hair. That's what he did with me."

Johnny started to protest that there was no way that man was any relation to him, but bit his tongue. Allie wasn't going to want to hear it. These people were enemies of Father's, and they had brainwashed an impressionable girl into believing that they were her long-lost family. He was going to get himself out of here, and he was going to get Allie out of here, but he couldn't start by picking a fight.

"The last one?"

"He's my dad. Lucas Horton." Allie's eyes sparkled, and Johnny knew that his theory was correct. Father had hardly treated Allie as a poor relation, but Allie had always wanted some sort of fairy godmother to sweep in and carry her off. She had watched far too many Disney films as a small child. It probably hadn't been hard for these people to convince her that she belonged in some foreign land, far from Father. Then they had used her to lure Johnny.

Claiming that Allie and Johnny were twins, though, had been a stroke of genius by their captors. Johnny had almost believed it.

Allie started to say something more, but Johnny held his finger to his lips and leaned close to the door.

"…There's a warrant out for E.J.'s arrest, Jack knew someone who could speed that along, but they haven't found him. He's hiding somewhere. Same damn cat and mouse game his father played for all those years," the one called Shawn was saying.

"But you got the injunction? For custody?" asked Will.

"I think EJ disappearing made that easier." It was the woman, Belle, who answered. She turned to look at Will when she did, and Johnny saw that she did indeed strongly resemble Allie. Disgusting. This woman had actually been willing to get plastic surgery to emotionally manipulate a thirteen-year-old girl. "The judge kept talking about how being the mother's sister doesn't hold much weight when the mother has been out of the picture for so long—like Sami wanted it to be that way, or something!"

"Thank you so much for doing this—" Lucas started to say, but Belle cut him off.

"Sami is my sister and I love her. I know that if our positions were reversed she'd be fighting for Claire and Ty."

"Claire and Ty?" Johnny mouthed at Allie.

"Cousins," Allie whispered. "Claire's great. Tyler's quiet."

Someone inside must have noticed Allie's whisper, or else they had taken too long to arrive, because the door opened and Johnny and Allie were pulled inside.

Belle and Shawn and Will and Lucas all introduced themselves to Johnny, and, as Allie had predicted, Will demanded a lock of hair so that Johnny's DNA could be tested against Belle's. Johnny submitted; there was no use fighting, and he gave them credit for at least pretending to run a DNA test, though obviously it would be fixed to show that "Belle" was his "aunt" and could therefore have custody of him while the police hounded Father with false accusations.

Will took off for the hospital; the rest of them made their way to Belle's house. Allie told Johnny all kinds of stories in a hurried rush, and he did his best to keep the enormous cast of characters and slew of unlikely events straight.

Johnny should have expected Belle's house's size—obviously, these were people of means if they were going to take on Father—but he was impressed all the same. It was even bigger than the main building at school.

The long table was set with service for eight, and three teenagers appeared from nowhere. Belle summoned the only boy. "Tyler, take your cousin Johnny upstairs and show him his room. Back in ten minutes for dinner."

Johnny locked eyes with Tyler and immediately despised him. He had met boys like Tyler at school. They were born to money and power and had no idea what to do with it. They were obsequious and sycophantic, fearful and submissive, weak and easily controlled.

Johnny easily won the impromptu staring contest, and Tyler was looking anywhere but at Johnny when he mumbled "follow me."

The room was nice; all of the rooms in this place were nice, Johnny was sure. Tyler stood awkwardly as Johnny felt out the space, looking for cameras, recording devices, and escape routes. The only unusual thing was a line of textbooks on the desk.

"We'll be in the same grade at school, you, me, and Allie," Tyler explained. "I guess you aren't starting until after Christmas vacation, though."

"Brilliant," said Johnny with all the sarcasm he could muster.

"It's not a bad school. I guess it's hard starting not knowing anyone, but you know Allie and me."

Johnny scowled. "Like I want to know someone whose own parents gave him away before he was born."

Tyler blanched, instead of punching Johnny in the face like anyone with a scrap of self-respect would have done.

Johnny smirked. It was good that Allie had told him that bizarre detail of Tyler's background; now Tyler would always know who was boss, and they hadn't even been acquainted for five minutes.

Johnny walked ahead of Tyler back to the dining room, ringing a bell on a tacky Christmas wreath as he went.

He sat beside Allie at the table and waited for the butler to bring in the good food, while all of the adults told him how glad they were that he was there.

TBC