Joe got about halfway home when his knee started to act up. And, as was his luck, it was the one section of road that was desolate and lined with brush on both sides of the road.  

Ah man, he said to himself, not now.  

Hearing a car coming up behind him, Joe glanced over his shoulder, absently hoping it would be someone he knew, as he was starting to really limp now.  

One of the few noticeable reminders of William, the bum knee usually only acted up in damp weather, or when he was tired.  And although he’d gone longer distances before, right now he was tired – it had been a long day.  

And he didn’t have his good walking sneakers on….  

As the car slowed down and Joe saw who it was, he groaned.  Peter Bristol, Todd Russell and Ramon Thierry….Okay, he did know these guys, but he really didn’t want them to stop anywhere near him.  

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Peter sneered from an open window as the car pulled up beside Joe, “If it isn’t baby Hardy – aw, does the baby have an owie?”  

“Ha, ha,” Joe scowled, limping away from them, “you guys are too funny. Don’t quit your day job, okay?”  

“Where’s your babysitter?” Todd called out from the backseat. “Or is Frankie actually letting his little puppy take a walk all by himself?”  

Ignore them…ignore them, Joe kept chanting over and over again, as he continued walking, but these guys just made it so hard!  

He heard the sound of a car door slamming, and knew Peter, at least, had gotten out and was moving towards him. Glancing over his shoulder, Joe picked up his pace – three against one were not good odds, even if his knee wasn’t acting up.  

“Oh yeah, he gotcha from a pound, didn’t he? Or was it a cabbage patch? Come on, Joey, show us your papers….Don’t you adopted kids have to carry them everywhere with you – like a license to be around real families—?”  

Peter never got a chance to finish what he was going to say before Joe lost it and took a swing at the bigger boy, connecting solidly with his jaw, knocking him to the ground.  

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Joe seethed, too angry to care about Ramon and Todd getting out of the car and hurrying towards their friend.  

Recovering, Peter glared up at Joe even as he yelled at his friends, “GET HIM!”  

As the other two boys advanced towards him, the severity of his situation hit home, and the younger boy made a quick decision – he was going off road.  That was his only chance. He might be able to lose them in the brush that lined this lonely spot of the road….

* * *

With each passing moment, Frank was growing more and more worried.  

The last two years had been difficult on everyone as they tried to repair the damage William had done. It was more than just physical healing and, although, Joe had received some counseling, as far as Frank was concerned, it wasn’t enough.  

As long as William was still a threat – it would never be enough.  

And as he combed the bus route looking for any sign of his brother, Frank kicked himself for not just giving his brother the van.  

He could have taken the bus home himself.

* * *

Joe hurried through the underbrush as fast as his knee would allow, skidding and sliding as he went. Behind him, he could hear the other boys still chasing him, and it sent fresh adrenaline through his exhausted body.  

He really had no intention of letting them catch him…that was not even an alternative.  

And then he slipped once again, but was unable to regain his balance this time and tumbled, head over heels down an embankment before coming to a stop at the bottom, face down.  

“Where’d he go?”  

“This way!”  

Joe lay stunned and quiet as he heard the sound of the boys racing across the top of the embankment. They hadn’t seen his fall, and lost him in the darkness and brush.  

He stayed that way for a long time, until the only sounds he heard were the slight rustling of the leaves in the growing November gale. And then, after a quick check to make sure nothing was broken or hurt more than it should, the teen slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position with a groan.  

“Just great,” he muttered as he carefully got up and started to try and wipe the dirt off his clothes, “Just great.”  

He knew his family would be worried about him, but there was nothing he could do about that. He was going to be late – that was all there was to it.  

Groaning slightly as he carefully picked his way back up the embankment, and then moved towards the road, Joe found his backpack – which had come off during his fall – and limped out of the underbrush.  

He peered around cautiously, saw no signs of Ramon’s car, and then continued on his walk home.  

“Frank – now would be a good time for you to come along,” he said out loud as he looked at his watch and figured his brother was out of detention.  “Any time now, big brother, any time now.”

* * *

Fenton Hardy sighed as he drove back towards the house.  

Frank was following the bus route while he was checking out the way he had hoped Joe would have taken, if he was walking home…which the detective hoped his son was not doing.  

It was a long walk normally, but in the fall, with early darkness at the end of each day, it was not a particularly safe walk, either.  

Frowning, he wondered why Joe just hadn’t called home for a ride if, for some reason, he couldn’t take the bus.  

It probably just didn’t occur to him, Fenton thought, thinking of the blond haired teenager.  He probably thought I was working, and didn’t want to have his mom come out to pick him up.  

He sometimes wished his son didn’t put other people ahead of himself all the time – but that was who Joe was, and even William hadn’t been able to change that.  

Thinking about William put a grimness on Fenton’s face. He shook his head, unable to understand how he could have acted the way he had two years ago…  

He had been oblivious to what William had done to his sons, and then let him escape when he stopped Biff.  

That was what he lived with every day.  

That, and the knowledge that William had abused Joe on an almost daily basis, in his own house, right under his very nose.  

In fact, he and Laura had actually thought that it was Joe who was being the problem – never in his wildest dreams did he think anything like this could happen in his family!  

And I call myself an investigator; Fenton chastised, but while I was helping out strangers, my own son needed the most help of all…and I never even saw it!  I was too quick to blame it on anything other than what I should have seen right away.  

The more Fenton and Laura had thought about things, as they watched their sons slowly recuperate, the more they realized that they had been so blinded by William’s likeness to Joe, that they had ignored all the warning signs that Joe had been sending – and they never heard anything he was trying to tell them.  

What they had thought, was something they could never forgive themselves for. And they saw the damage every day, although Joe tried to hide it.  

William still lurked as a monster – a shadow cast over normally vibrant blue eyes - and it was a monster Fenton could have slain… but didn’t.  

So instead, the twin hung over the family like a sentence, and every time Joe was late, they had to worry that William had come back.  

Come back to finish what he started.  

Fenton wasn’t stupid. Once he had gotten over the shock and truly saw what had been going on – the realization had been staggering.   

William wanted to kill his brother, and the detective had no doubts that the twin would be back some day, to try and finish what he started.  

And so as he drove along a barren stretch of road, he saw something that sent his heart soaring with boundless relief – it was Joe!  

Limping and looking a little worse for wear, but still a sight for sore eyes!