Chapter 1

Surprise on the Unsurprised

Every year for Elliot's birthday, their parents threw him a surprise party. It was never a true surprise, because Elliot knew there would be one around his birthday, but the day they had the party on always changed, so in that aspect it truly was a surprise. That year, it turned out they were having the party the week after his birthday, on the second weekend of January.

Alex was out with her parents getting the finishing touches while Zack and Nathan entertained and kept watch for the guests, which really only consisted of April and Robyn. Marcus was out with Elliot, something about helping Marcus with buying presents for some girl he made up as a girlfriend just to give him an excuse to keep Elliot out of the house with me all day.

"Alrighty then," Ava O'Neil, Alex's mother said. "We just have to get the cake."

Alex had Elliot's wrapped present in her arms. They had gotten him a set of antique swords (which were extremely over priced, if anybody asked Alex) that Elliot had had his eyes on for several months. Alex's father, Adam, was walking beside her with the balloons, making him look slightly ridiculous. He was a grown man with balloons bouncing in his hands. She couldn't help but giggle every time she looked at him, which would annoy him even more.

"Cool," Alex said. "Chocolate with strawberry icing?" she asked.

"Of course, that's his favorite," her mother said.

"I could've just made one, you know," Alex told her. "It would have been a lot cheaper."

"A lot cheaper," Adam grumbled.

"Yes, but this is his favorite bakery," Ava said.

"Well, he has expensive taste," Alex muttered, glancing down at the swords. "I bet I could have made one that tasted better anyways."

"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Adam said. "You have a knack for baking."

"She gets that from me," Ava said.

"And my fight abilities," Adam said.

"But my fluidity and grace," Ava added.

"Are you arguing about what I got from each of you is better?" Alex asked. "Because that's kind of sad. And weird. Not to mention kind of dumb."

Ava rolled her blue eyes at the girl. "I believe our daughter just called us dumb," Ava pretended to gasp.

"Grounded," her father teased.

"What?" Alex asked. "Oh, come on! You have to admit that was pointless."

"She has a point, dear," Ava said. "Plus, it is Elliot's birthday. We can't ground her on Ellie's party."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Isn't the bakery this way?" he asked, pointing down one of the side streets.

"Yes Dear," her mother said.

The three turned down the street and made their way to the small, not very well known baker that had Elliot's favorite dessert. Alex shifted the swords in her hand slightly, putting them into a more comfortable position. However, she nearly dropped them when suddenly her stomach dropped, warning her that something was wrong. The girl froze in place, turning her head to look around her for any danger.

"Alex?" Adam asked, noticing the girl's sudden hault.

"Sweetheart?" her mother asked. "Is something wrong? You've gone pale." Her mother moved to her, placing her hands on her face to check her temperature. "You don't feel warm at all."

"Something bad's gonna happen," she told them.

"What do you mean?" Adam asked, stepping in front of her. He bent down slightly to look in her eyes. "What is it, Alex?"

"I've got a bad feeling," she told him, her voice sounding extremely concerned.

Her father studied her with his equally as green eyes for a moment before nodding his head. "All right," he said. "Let's go home."

"But what about the cake?" her mother asked. "Nothing's going to happen. Adam, she probably just hungry. You know how the kids get when they're starving."

Alex shook her head. "No, it's not like that at all," she said. "I've got a really bad feeling."

"Nonsense," her mother insisted. "Come on. Let's go. The sooner we move, the sooner we get home for the party. Veet, veet. We're in a hurry now."

Ava turned round, only to be stopped from walking as three very tall gangsters stood in the middle of the sidewalk. Alex gulped, her stomach dropping even more. The three gangsters had the same Purple Dragon tattooed on their arms, indicating they were from the Purple Dragons.

"We need to leave, now," Adam said, pulling his wife back.

The three turned around and started to make their way down the street in which they came, but at the end of the block were several more Purple Dragon's, leaning against the side of the building, as if waiting for them.

"Turn right," her father muttered to them.

They turned down a little side alley in hopes of getting away from the gangsters, but the alley ended at a dead end, of course. Alex gulped, turning around to see several of the gangers following them. The rest stood at the other end of the alley, making sure nobody escaped.

"Well, look what we have here," the tallest of them all muttered, with a crooked toothed smile. His hair was bleech blonde, obviously not natural, and under his right eye was a quarter sized birthmark that stuck out against his pale skin, matching his brown eyes, "A couple of people our boss has been meaning to take care of."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Adam said. "I dont' know this boss you speak of. My family and I are just passing through. That's all."

"No, no," the guys said. "I'm pretty sure you're who he's looking for. A bunch of red heads that think they're better than everybody else. You stick your nose in business that doesn't concern you."

"We mind our own," Adam said.

He's talking about Elliot, Alex thought, glancing at two guy that moved to her left. She vaguely recognized them from the Foot Institute. One with a bandana and the other with a mohawk, both with pocket knives pulled. They work for Oroku Saki. He wants to take us out to get to Elliot and to get to TCRI.

"That's the thing," the guy said. "You don't. That's why the boss is pissed. So we're going to take care of it for him. Permanently."

"Alex," her father muttered to her. "Give me the swords.

Alex nodded her head and tossed the bundle to him. Everything moved extremely quickly after that. Bandana went to slash Alex, high to low, but she stepped backwards. Next was left to right. Alex just kept moving to the side. Banda went to kick her, but she blocked it with her own leg. She then grabbed the hand with the knife. Mohawk was making his way over to Alex and went to slash her, high to low, but Alex used her leg to kick him in the stomach, sending him backwards.

Alex then twisted Bandana's hand and shoved him up against the brick wall, face first. Once she knew he felt the pain in his head from the impact, she twisted his arm again and flipped him onto the ground, causing him to drop the knife. Before she could do anything else to him, Mohawk got back up and slashed high.

The redhead ducked and quickly had to step back from a chest swipe. He went to do another high to low, but Alex grabbed his hand with both of her's and twisted it until she was behind him, his arm pulled backwards with the threat of dislocation. Because of the position Mohawk was forced into, he noticed the discarded knife on the ground. He kicked it over to Bandana, which resulted in an annoyed Alex. She straightened Mohawk back up and kicked him in the face, sending him to the ground.

Bandana got back up with his knife and made a quick stab towards the girl with his right hand. Alex used her left hand to redirect his with his own momentum by hitting his hand with her hand. Bandana recovered quickly and slashed high. Alex ducked easily. He went to stab once more, but this time instead of just redirecting him, Alex grabbed onto his hand, pulled him around in a 180 before pulling his very closely and ducking. When she ducked, Bandana kept going, trimming over the guys. He was flipped over onto his back.

Mohawk charged the girl. She moved to the left, back, then left again before getting kicked in the stomach. She was forced back several steps.

This gave Alex and both the two thugs time to regroup. The two thugs were annoyed with the interference and angered because they were getting shown up by a teenage girl. Alex was just annoyed that when the guy kicked her, he left a muddy footprint on the her stomach.

Both men moved quickly and slashed at the same time. Alex stepped back, dodging. Mohawk went to kick her, but she blocked with her arm. He went to stab, but she redirected him, pushing him to the side giving her just enough time to deal with Bandana, who had tried to attack her from behind. She kicked her foot out, hitting him in the stomach.

Mohawk was ready to attack again by that point. She blocked two of his kicks with her own legs, and then jumped up, roundhouse kicking him in the head. She followed through with the momentum that her roundhouse gave her and lowered herself to the ground, spinning out to swipe the man's feet out from under him. He dropped the knife when he went down.

Alex was about to kick the knife up when Bandana got up and attacked. After two failed stabs, she grabbed his arm, twisted his behind his back, taking the knife out of his hand and pressed it against his neck. In the corner of her eye she could see Mohawk starting to get up with his knife, but Alex forced Bandana on the ground with the knife pressed to his neck. Alex pinched a pressure point in his neck, knocking him out, this left her free to point the knife at the other thug.

A loud gunshot echoed through the alley. Alex's head snapped to the side, just in time to see her mother fall to the ground.

"MOM!" she screamed right as her father yelled, "AVA!"

Alex was at her mother's side in an instant, pressing her hand to her mother's gushing stomach. Oh God. Oh God, Alex thought. It's not stopping. Why isn't it stopping? Her mother gasped, staring up at nothing in particular as blood dripped out of her mouth.

"Mom?" Alex asked, hands shaking, dripping in her mother's blood. She took her coat off and pressed it to her mother's wound in an attent to top it better. "M-Mom? Stay with me. You're okay. Just stay with me." By that point Alex herself was having a hard time breathing, but for a different reason.

"I-I-It's o-okay, B-B-Babygirl," she managed to get out, a small smile on her face as she took her last gasp.

"Mom? No, Mom?" Her mother's eyes remained unmoving, staring up at the black sky. No, no, no, no, no, no. She chest was still and there were no shallow gasps. There wasn't anything. "Mom! Wake up! Mom!"

"Alex, lookout!"

Adam moved in front of Alex. Another gunshot went off, and Alex could hear her father grunt, before a sharp pain shot through her side. She glanced down to see a small tear in her shirt, and a little blood dripping out of the graze at her side. It burned, but she ignored it a she looked back up to see her father fall to his knees three feet from where she sat with her dead mother.

"DAD!" she screamed, lunging towards him, but stopped when the same guy who had been talking to her father pointed the gun at her.

He smirked down at her, turning his head to the side slightly as he laugh. Alex studied him intensely, making sure to memorize everything about him. She needed to know what the man that killed her family looked like in order to get back at him. That was, if she lived. "Son of a bitch," she growled shakily. "What the hell did we do to you?"

"Doesn't matter what you did," he answered. "Just following orders. No hard feelings." He motioned for his mean to leave, which they did promptly. "Give the Guardian a message, would you?" he asked, putting the gun away. "Back down or the rest will be next. Got that?"

"Go to hell," was her response.

Alex lunged forward, but since she was in such a state of rage, she wasn't thinking straight, which affected her fighting. The girl ended up getting punched in the eye, as well as hit with the butt of the gun, knocking her dazedly to the ground as the group left.

The group was gone and Alex went to her father. She moved as quickly as she could, pressing her hand to her father's stomach, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. She pressed down hard, causing her father to groan in pain. Alex called out for help, hoping someone would hear and help, though she feared the bystander effect would come into play.

"Come on, Dad," Alex she begged. "Don't leave me. You've gotta hang in there. Someone'll be here to help soon, I promise. J-Just hold on another minute."

"Alex," her father managed to say. "Listen to me."

"I'm listening," she said, moving in closer. "Go on."

"I love you," he told her. "I haven't told you that nearly enough."

"You tell me enough," she told him. "I know you love me, Dad. I know. I love you too. And so do the boys. That's why you have to hang on. We need you, Dad."

"I-I-I-I," he gasped. "Do-Don't think I can, Alex."

"No, come on, Dad," she pressed, biting her lip to prevent herself from crying. "You're a fighter. You're stronger than that. You've gotta hang in there."

"I-I'm sorry, A-"

"No, Dad!" she yelled, as her father stopped talking, his chest unmoving. "No, come on, Dad. Open your eyes." She shook her head, desperately in need of help. "Someone! HELP!" she screamed. "Somebody help! Please!"

The alley was taped off as a crime scene. There were dozens of officers standing guard, making sure no unauthorized personnel got in. There were forensic scientists over by where the two covered bodies laid under white and red stained sheets.

Alex was sitting off to the side, blood stained arms wrapped around herself. She was sitting on the metal steps of a back exit to one of the buildings connected to the alley, staring off at the wall as she saw the face of the man that killed her parents in her mind, smirking at her.

Alex glanced over at the line of officers as two men in suits stepped under the tape and walked to an officer, the first on scene, next to the bodies of her parents.

"Detective Longer," the officer greeted the African American man. "Detective Blake."

"What do we have?" Longer asked the officer.

"Male and female, both in their forties," he said. "Single gunshot each. Their daughter," he said pointing to Alex over on the side, "saw the whole thing. She hasn't spoken to anybody yet. Tried to get her statement, but all she'd do is stare at me. Kind of creeped me out."

"I'll talk to her," Blake told his partner. He walked over and stopped just short of the girl, glancing back at his partner and the bodies before addressing the girl, looking into her sharp green eyes. "Hey," he said. "I'm John. Detective John Blake. What's your name?"

Alex just stared into his brown eyes, shaking from the cold. Seeing as she had used her coat to try and stop her mother's bleeding, she was left in her black tee-shirt and jeans. It was night and January, meaning the temperature was in the single digits or lower, depending on the wind chill.

"That's okay," he told her softly. "You don't have to talk." He glanced back at his partner, who was talking to the forensic scientists to see what information they could give him.

Alex looked at the man again. He was tall with extremely warm brown eyes and dark brown hair cut rather short. He dressed himself in a black coat and pants, while he wore a dark blue shirt and no tie, which meant he wasn't too into dressing up, she assumed. He seemed nice, she found. And he spoke softly, as if he understood what she was going through. The officer that was first on the scene had pushed her, demanding answers and her statement. He had been cold and pushy, unconcerned about how Alex was.

"Alex," she muttered softly, barely audible. Blake looked back at the girl and she shivered. "M-My name's Alex O'Neil, Sir."

Blake bent down in front of her, making them eye level since she was on the steps. "Can you tell me what happened, Alex?" he asked calmly.

Alex sighed and shivered, breathing quickly as the man's face appeared in her mind once more. She raised her blood stained hands through her hair, gripping the strands tightly, pulling to try and cause slight pain to try and focus and calm herself. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe and tell him what happened. Just tell him. Tell him they killed them. They kill- Oh God, they're dead!

Blake moved to the space next to her and sat down. He took his coat off and draped it over her shoulders, rubbing his hands up her arms to try and warm her up. "When I was your age," he said, "a drunk driver hit our car. Killed my parents."

Alex glanced up at him, her hands falling out of her hair and inside the jacket, wrapping around herself. His brown eyes were soft, telling her he was speaking nothing but truth to her. He was telling her he knew what she was going through. That he knew how she felt.

"I know how you feel right now," he told her. "And I promise you, no matter how dark and scary the world may seem right now, there will be light. It will get better, Alex."

"We were just picking up a cake," she told him. "I-it's my brother's surprise party tonight. We got stopped by some Purple Dragons. We fought and the main guy pulled a gun. Shot my mom. Then my dad."

"Can you tell me how many of them there were?" he asked.

"There were about nine of them in total," she answered, staring down at her hands.

"Would you be able to give their descriptions to a sketch artist?" Blake asked.

"Yeah, it's the least I can do," she answered instantly. "I-I should have done something. Something more. I-I mean, I can. I-I'm perfectly capable of doing it."

"You can't blame yourself for this," Blake insisted. "You don't know any of that for certain."

But I do, Alex thought, shaking her head. She was feeling extremely light headed. I can fight. I can protect, but I just, why didn't…

"Did you try calling your family?" Detective Blake asked.

Alex shook her head. She placed a hand to her head, rubbing her temple in order to try and make the feeling go away. "I don't have my phone on me. It's at home charging. An-and my parents…" Alex glanced over before her face contorted and she bit her lip, looking away.

"Why don't you come with me to the car? It'll be warmer in there and you can borrow my phone. How does that sound?"

Alex nodded her head and moved to stand up, but her knees gave out from under her. Blake saw what was happening and reacted quickly, grabbing the girl, but hitting the graze on her side in doing so. Alex groaned and tried to move away from his hold, just to get him to stop touching her wound. Blake eased her back to the ground gently.

"Alex? Look at me," he said. "What's wrong? Did you get hurt?"

Alex slowly nodded her head. "S-side," she muttered.

Blake lifted the side of the coat before glancing up at Alex to silently ask her if it was okay for him to take a look. Once he got his nod, he lifted the bottom of her shirt just enough to see the graze on her side, which had stopped bleeding only due to the cold. However, she had lost a good deal of blood because of it, which was why she was so dizzy.

"Okay, we're going to need to get that taken care of," Blake told her. He turned and looked over his shoulder to his partner and yelled, "Longer, we need a bus here forthwith!"

Alex hated hospitals. She didn't like doctors. She didn't like medicine. She didn't like the smell or the lighting or how noisy they were. She hated everything about them, but what else could she do when she had been shot? Detective Blake wouldn't take no for an answer. And when her brothers found out she didn't go to the hospital after being shot? They would probably have put her in there themselves from the beating.

The girl was sitting in the emergency room, having just gotten patched up. They had gotten her all situated in a private room and some of the nurses gave her an extra set of scrubs to change into so that her clothes could be taken in as evidence, and let her stay in there, seeing as she was going to have to speak to more policemen. They decided it would be best for her to give her statement there, as well as the descriptions for the sketch artists.

"...And I just need you to sign here," Blake told her, showing her where to sign on her statement. "There, now that's all taken care off. All that's left to do is wait for the sketch artist."

Alex didn't answer. She just sat on the bed with her legs crossed, her elbows resting on her knees. She glared at the white sheets, not really paying much attention to what Detective Blake was saying.

"Alex?" he asked, trying to get the girl's attention. "Are you all right? Do you need me to go get the nurse? You could probably take that pain medication now."

The redhead shook her head. "I don't want it," she told him. "I can deal."

"It'll help you relax though," he told her. "Maybe get some sleep."

"Don't want it," she stated again.

"Okay," Blake said with a sigh. "You know, you can talk to me about all this, if you'd like. I know what you're going through." He was met with silence. "I'll get these guys, Alex. I promise."

It's not the thugs I'm concerned with, she thought. I want the Oroku Saki. "Let's hope you do," she muttered, glancing up at his with cold green eyes that once were always so warm and vibrant. "Because if you don't, I will. And if I don't, Elliot will. And nobody gets away from Elliot."