“I did mention don’t move, didn’t I?” the FBI agent spoke very softly, as though her voice might be responsible for setting off the explosive.  Deanna was almost as motionless as Fenton, though she knelt low to the ground.  “Don’t twitch, don’t fidget, don’t squirm and don’t do anything that causes you to move that leg.  Kapish?”

            Fenton made a face at her, since that seemed to be the only part of his body she had no objection to him moving.  He lifted one hand carefully, to wipe the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, but, otherwise, he stood very, very still.  He still felt the pressure of the wire against his ankle and willed himself to stillness.  It might go off in a few minutes but he had a son to find – he wasn’t going to do anything foolish.  He watched the blonde-haired agent as she crouched on the floor nearby, her fingers probing the device very capable of taking their lives with a single click.

            “Stay put, Audrey,” Deanna’s head didn’t turn but Fenton caught a shadow of a person standing further down the hall.  “Call the bomb squad and check the hall for more triggers.  You know what to look for.”

            Agent Simpson said nothing but she did leave again.  Fenton saw her go and her footsteps clip-clopped down the passageway.  Fenton resisted the urge to twitch – he really wanted to move – or run, he wasn’t sure which urge was stronger.

            “Deanna,” he looked over at the agent who wore a fixed look of concentration on her face.  “I really think you should all get out of here.  How much time is left on the timer?”

            Deanna didn’t say anything.  She reached into a pocket for something that Fenton couldn’t see and he frowned at her.  Was the woman planning on ignoring him? 

            “Agent Merrill,” he prompted again.

            “Mr. Hardy,” Deanna looked up at him, glaring.  “That would be classified information.”

            She grunted once and pulled on something.  “Very need to know.  Alpha clearance at least.  You don’t have it.”

            Fenton returned the glare – he didn’t mind glaring at women, if they weren’t his wife – and he would have crossed his arms belligerently if he hadn’t been afraid that even that would cause him to move his leg too much.  No, it was much better to just stand here and wait – and hope that he didn’t get blasted into a billion small bits.

            “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t agree, Agent Merrill,” he tried again what seemed like an eternity later.  It had probably been all of thirty seconds.  He flexed his hands to distract himself.  “I believe I have a very good reason for needing to know.  I just wanted to know how long I have left to live.”

            “Depends on what your natural life expectancy is,” Deanna smiled up at him.  “You look healthy enough, so I suspect, barring unforeseen circumstances, such as getting shot, run over by a car or illness, you’ll live another fifty or so years.”

            Fenton made a face at her and turned away with just his head.  It was nice to hear such confidence in her voice, even if it seemed just a tad unrealistic.  Fenton frowned again.  His ankle itched and he resisted the urge to reach down and scratch it.  (No, he reminded himself – stand here and stand still, Hardy, or you may as well finish it right now.  You won’t do Joe any good if you die here.)

            Suddenly, the tension against Fenton’s ankle eased and the single wire unfurled and sproinged on the hinge to which it was attached.  Fenton nearly sank to his knees but, instead, stepped out into the hall.  Deanna still knelt beside the explosive and she snicked one more wire with the multiple tool she held in her left hand.

            “That’s that, then,” Deanna said in a satisfied tone.  She folded the odd-looking little multi-tool and slid it into the pocket of her jacket, then brushed her hands together.  “It’s disarmed, the bomb squad can cart it out of here when they arrive.  We’re going to have to be very careful for the rest of our search.”

            Fenton agreed as he reached down to scratch his ankle and he motioned Deanna down the corridor.  Deanna preceded him but the search went much more slowly as they checked for more explosives.

            It was all well more grinding than Fenton wished it would be and he chaffed at the slowness.  He wanted to speed through here, checking every room, as fast as he could, until he could drag his son out and nail the bastard who took him.  This tedious slowness, caused by their having to check every entryway and room for more explosives, took forever.

            “For all it’s seeming cleverness, that bomb was about as sophisticated as a wristwatch,” Deanna said in passing as they entered a room that Fenton remembered only too well.  He had resisted coming here before – in fact, he hadn’t wanted to ever come to this room again. 

            He stopped in the doorway and stared inside as Deanna poked about, looking underneath the bed, checking behind a couch, looking not only for Joe but trap doors and things like explosive devices or weapons.  Fenton found he couldn’t step into the room.  It was almost as though he was being held as captive as he had been by the bomb earlier.  His dark eyes flitted over to Deanna’s back.  He blinked and fought back the memory – he didn’t want to remember. 

 

 

            “I’m sorry, Laura, Fenton,” Doctor Steinman’s voice broke through the shock that both Fenton and Laura felt.  “I’m so sorry.  I wish the prognosis was better but… Frank has leukemia.  It’s going to require massive radiation and chemotherapy treatments.”

            Leukemia.  Every parent’s worst nightmare.  His son was eleven-years-old and he was going to have to tell him that he might die soon.  All he could think of in that moment was that he wanted his family together.  If he didn’t get them all together now, he might not ever have them all together again.  His mind went into shutdown mode except for that one desire.  He didn’t even hear the rest of what the doctor said, something about bone marrow transplants and needing to test Laura, Fenton and the twins.  That didn’t even become a conscious memory until later.  He was driven by a need so strong it was as if God was telling him to get his kids together now.

            He went and got Mandy from the housekeeper and they drove to Connecticut posthaste.  He barely saw the road and he thought he was going to get into a wreck when Mandy started screaming that they had to get Joe right away.  He thought, at first, that she was mistaking things, that she’d felt some of her parents’ anxiety about Frank but as soon as they got to the mansion, he knew. 

            The screaming caused him to run up the stairs faster than he’d ever taken a flight of stairs in his life.  Running more by instinct than sense-of-direction, Fenton Hardy raced down the hallway and into the room where he heard his son screaming.  He knew it was Joe.  Every father in the world, whether they were aware of it or not, knew the sound of their own child screaming in agony and fear and Fenton Hardy was no exception.  He knew that was Joe’s scream.  He didn’t know what Joe was screaming about; all he cared about was that someone was hurting him.

            Fenton raced into the room with the half-open door and his blood drained out of his face, then filled all too rapidly when he saw it.  His brother-in-law lying half-over his ten-year-old son.  Joe was struggling and screaming, begging his uncle to stop hurting him but Derak, in the way of madmen, was oblivious to everything but his own want and desires.  Fenton was vaguely aware that they weren’t alone, that Andrew was sitting huddled up to one side on the couch, but it was Joe that Fenton’s eyes were for.

            Fenton dragged Derak off of his son and cold-cocked him, hitting the man far harder than he remembered hitting anyone ever.  He would have pummeled the man to death with his fists, if Laura hadn’t run into the room when she did.  She screamed at him to stop as she ran over to their son and took him into her arms.  She grabbed a blanket off of the bed and wrapped Joe up in it as Fenton stared down at his brother-in-law, his hands balled into fists.

            Fenton didn’t remember calling the police.  He didn’t remember telling them where to come or how to get there; Laura told him later that he’d done that.  He didn’t remember when Frank first came into the room, either.  He just remembered that, suddenly, he had pulled his oldest son into his arms and hugged him, afraid that the demon would get to him as well.  It had, in another way.  Leukemia.  His oldest son had leukemia and his youngest son…

 

            “Fenton?”

            Fenton came out of the memory and stared over at Deanna, who stood right beside him, concerned, one hand touching his shoulder.  He blinked again and swallowed, his mouth completely dry.  Even now, nine, almost ten years later, he could still be powerfully affected by what had happened that day.

            And it was happening all over again.  Ten years of hell came out of that one moment with Joe and now they would have to rebuild again, just as they had then.  He felt a powerful urge to throttle something but kept it to himself. 

            “I’m all right,” he said in a husky voice.  “It just… took me by surprise.”

            Deanna stared at him for a moment but Fenton knew he didn’t have to say anything else about it.  She knew.  She knew very well. 

            “Let’s get out of this room,” she suggested gently.  “We can take the rooms along the front.  One of the other teams will finish this hall.”

            She took his arm and led him away from the room and he took several deep breaths to calm and steady himself. 

            Damn Derak, he thought grimly.  Damn him for being a sadistic, cold, uncaring bastard who doesn’t mind hurting children.  Damn him!  He had no right to hurt my son!  No right!  And he has no right to do it now.  He is not getting away with this.

            Fenton followed Deanna grimly to the front hall; he felt the tension easing slightly but the feeling that had come over him when he had seen that room was still there.  He was angry, perhaps more angry than he had been in years.  He always felt a sense of outrage over a lack of justice, he always felt mild anger for the sake of the victims of the cases he solved but this time… he was afraid the anger was going to tear him apart.  He couldn’t let that man keep his son.  Couldn’t let him do anything more to Joe.

            If only they could find him!

            They continued checking the rooms along the front hall, though both Fenton and Deanna knew by that point that there was no chance they were going to find Joe here.  Fenton had been fairly sure of it back when he’d been trying not to flinch – he’d known it for sure when he’d looked into that bedroom.  Granted, there could be a thousand places here, still, to hide Joe but Fenton knew.  Wherever his brother-in-law had brought Joe, it wasn’t here.  There was no one here.

            Fenton sighed as they checked the last of the rooms along the front hall and turned again to go back to the stairs to go down to the front entrance.  He paused by one of the windows to wait for Deanna, who believed in doing a very thorough job.  He blinked as the sun hit his eyes and wondered how long it had been out.  He looked down toward the car where they had left Frank and Fenton froze as his blood went instantly cold.

            Frank stood outside of the car and he wasn’t alone.  Derak had one of Frank’s arms in an iron-hard grip.  Fenton shivered once and before his mind registered what he was doing, he was racing down the hall to the stairs.

            Not another son, he thought.  You are not getting another of my sons!

 

*********

 

            As he stood on the sidewalk, waiting for his girlfriend to come back from her errand at the neighbor’s house, Connor batted at a fly that hadn’t realized that it was fall and it should probably go away now.  Oh, sure, as a scientist, he had the vague idea that flies come around about anytime that they wanted to but he wasn’t into insects – of any kind.  He liked working with chemical reactions.  He toyed, once, with the idea of being a doctor but he had decided his freshman year that what he really liked was research.  And he liked chemistry.

            Two of his football friends were tossing a football around between themselves and the other two were talking about the Hardy’s house – or what was left of it.  Just looking at it depressed Connor so he kept his attention on the gate leading back into this gargantuan house across from the Hardy’s.  The popular theory among his friends was that no one could have lived through a blast like that and that Connor was lucky to be in one piece, not a million of them.  Connor didn’t bother to tell them that there wouldn’t have been pieces left and if there were, the particles would be so minute no one would have noticed.  What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

            Connor gave a start when he heard a screaming coming from inside of the fence and, his heart pounding, he realized that it was Mandy.  He threw the gate open and raced into the yard, his eyes for the girl who stood outraged on the steps of the large house.  She pounded on the door with both fists, and then jammed her finger on the doorbell.  The bong bonging within continued on for sometime, but nobody bothered to answer the door.  Mandy, blue eyes flashing angrily, pounded on the door some more, until Connor reached out and took one of her hands and turned her around.

            “Mandy, what is it?” he demanded.

            “Someone,” she said, seething, the anger flashing hotly from her eyes, “Cut my hair!  And I’m not going to let them get away with it!  That’s what!”

            She yanked her hand free of Connor’s and beat on the door some more, intent on getting whoever was within to acknowledge her presence.  Mandy was not the type to let sleeping dogs lie when her ire was raised.  In fact, Connor knew for a fact she had a lot hotter temper than either of her brothers, though sometimes it was a close-run between she and Joe.

            Connor reached out and took both of her hands into his own and turned her gently back toward him and saw that tears were streaking down Mandy’s cheeks.  He held her gently, not wanting to hurt her anymore than she’d already been hurt but he was intent on keeping her from hurting herself.  Mandy was a strong girl, nowhere near as strong as Connor but strong enough to make him have to hold her hands more tightly than he wanted.  She stubbornly continued to struggle but Connor gently pulled her down the sidewalk and toward the gate.

            “Let me go!” Mandy demanded as she struggled against him.  “Let me go!”

            “Not until you calm down and not until you stop to think, Mandy,” Connor told her in a still gentle voice, his calm belied by the fact that he was almost as angry as she was.  Nobody but nobody attacked his girlfriend and got away with it.  He wasn’t feel any particular sense of machismo, either, just a serious case of outrage.  He wasn’t going to do anything about his own feelings, however, until Mandy had her temper under control.  Dangerous as that could be, he wasn’t about to let it get out of control. 

            Another tear streaked down Mandy’s cheek as she tried, again, to pull away from Connor.  He was ready for it, though, and he tightened his grip just enough so that she couldn’t.

            “I hate you!” she screamed.  “Let me go!”

            Connor stared patiently at her but sighed.

            “Mandy, think!” he said.  “What’s more important to you? Your hair?  Or your brother?”

            Mandy glared at him and struggled some more but finally she subsided and spoke in a very, very quiet voice.  “Joe.  Joe is more important.”

            Connor smiled and gently flicked her hair back out of her face.  She leaned forward and buried her face in his chest and started sobbing while he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.  He hated it when she cried; he hated it when anyone cried.  He held her, though, because he knew that was what she needed.  He wasn’t about to let her go yet; he had more sense than that, but he was going to hold her until she had cried herself out and gotten her emotions under control again.

            And then he was going to go knock someone’s teeth in.

            Mandy looked up at him again a few minutes later and touched his cheek with her freed hands.  They both sighed together and he hugged her again and kissed her, then released her and held her hand.  She wasn’t going to do anything stupid now. 

            “I’m sorry,” she apologized meekly.  “I don’t hate you.”

            “I know,” Connor smiled.  “It’s all right Mandy.  This on top of everything else that happened, well… I don’t blame you.  I just thought I’d better step in before you hurt yourself.”

            She looked down at her hands – there was bruising on the sides of them where she had pounded them against the door and she sighed.

            “Ow,” she offered. 

            “Silly girl,” he chided her gently.  “We’d better check this place out, don’t you think?  There has to be a reason they did that to you…”

            “Yeah,” she agreed.  “Totally.”

            “We both agree it wasn’t a practical joke, right?” he asked her.

            “Totally,” Mandy repeated.  “This was no practical joke.  It was a malicious attack and when I get my hands on that bozo…”

            Connor brought that up short by kissing her and he finally released her when she stopped squirming.

            “I’m sorry,” she said again.  “I just… I don’t have any control when it comes to Joe.”

            “Let’s go do some sleuthing,” Connor joked.  “We’ll show those brothers of yours how it’s really done.”

            Just as he hoped, a hint of challenge came into Mandy’s expression and he grinned at her.  Yep.  While she never professed to be a great lover of mysteries, when it came to competition with the older brothers, Mandy was just as prone to challenge as any of the Hardys.  Connor thought it made the lot of them rather predictable – but he knew they weren’t.  Predictability just wasn’t in the Hardy make-up.

            “Let’s go case the joint,” she joked.  “Call the boys.”

            The boys didn’t have to be called; they came all too readily to help their quarterback and his girlfriend with, as Mandy put it, casing the joint.  They had been standing nearby, in case they needed to tackle, pommel or otherwise abuse whoever had hurt Mandy.  The football was gone again and Mandy chuckled as she saw them, looking like a formidable line of… yes, Connor had to admit it, teddy bears.

            Big, burly teddy bears.

            “Ok,” she said to them in succinct tones.  “We’re going to have to look for an opening.  Check all of the windows, any other doors there might be, the storm cellar, whatever.  Just find me a way into that building.  Don’t go in yourselves, though.”

            The line of teddy bears nodded in agreement and scattered in every direction around the house.  Mandy and Connor walked along the front of the house and tried to open the few windows that they found at ground level.  Most of them were further up than even Connor could reach and a couple of times he lifted Mandy onto his shoulders to try those that she could reach by such a stance.  None of the windows budged an inch though, so they continued along to one side where the boys were all working the windows there. 

            “Back here, guys!” Connor heard Parker call out.  “Come on!”

            Connor and Mandy went around to the back where the young man who played center for the Bayport Knights stood, staring at a half-open window.  He pushed it up a little more and Mandy stared at it, and then looked at Connor.

            “You are not going in there by yourself, Mandy,” Connor told her in no-uncertain terms.

            “Oh yes I am,” Mandy retorted.  “I’m the only one who will fit.  I’ll open that door for you when I get in there.”

            “No way!” Connor exclaimed.  “Mandy!  Your brothers, your father, half of Bayport will kill me if I let anything happen to you!  You are not going in there on your own.”

            “Yes.  I am,” Mandy repeated calmly.  “Connor, I don’t know what’s in there.  I don’t know who’s in there.  I don’t even know why they cut my hair but I do know this.  There is a chance, even if it’s a one percent chance, there’s a chance that whomever is in there knows something about my brother.  I’m going in there.  You’re not stopping me.  They’re not stopping me.  You can help me or you can go away.”

            Connor sighed.  He’d really got himself in for abuse when he started dating her but there was no way he was giving her up now.  Nope.  Head over heels.  Good job, MacKenzie.

            “Fine,” he said.  “You have exactly two minutes to get that back door open and if it isn’t, I’m going to break it down.”

            “Guys!” another of the fab four came over, all excited.

            “What?” Mandy demanded, irritated. 

            “There’s a helicopter in the garage!  A little two-seater job!”

            “Good Lord, does everyone but us own a helicopter?” Mandy wanted to know.  “My aunt said that my uncle has a helicopter.”

            “You think it means anything?” Connor asked her.

            Mandy shrugged then shook her head.  “I doubt it.  It just means that someone who lives here has a toy.  Give me a boost.”

            Connor sighed and shook his head, then lifted Mandy up and into the room.  She scrambled up and climbed inside, then disappeared into the darkness on the other side of the window.

            Connor used his watch to check the time – he was dead serious about the two-minute limit before he went hunting for her, but ninety seconds later, she was standing at the now open back door.

            “Come on in guys,” she said in a very soft voice.  “Let’s start looking around in here.”

            She led the way cautiously inside of the house, aware that they had taken the plunge into the fine art of ‘breaking and entering.’  Obviously, whomever was in here had some reason to not be seen again and Mandy was going to find out if he, she or it had something to do with her brother’s disappearance.  She knew that breaking and entering was small, that she would do far more to find her brother again.  She knew there weren’t limits, not really, not if it came between her and making sure that Joe would be alive.

            It was, she thought, the difference between herself and her father or older brother.  They would draw the line somewhere.  Mandy wouldn’t.  Breaking and entering, in the grand scheme of things, was not that big.

            Mandy motioned to different hallways when the boys came in and she and Connor continued down the corridor they were walking down.  She looked into each room, an intense expression on her face and occasionally she would stop to listen.  Nothing.  Whoever had cut her hair had disappeared – or else they were hiding very well.

            She heard running behind her and she and Connor both turned quickly and saw Chad standing there.

            “Mandy!” he gasped.  “You have to come see this!  Hurry!”

            Mandy raced down the corridor and followed Chad, a curious expression on her face.

            “What did you find?” she asked.

            He shook his head.  “You have to see it, Mandy, I can’t describe it…”

            They ducked into another room and Mandy realized that this house had changed a lot since she’d last been here – none of those homey touches that had been here before were still evident.  She frowned as she continued to walk and she wondered when the family had moved out; obviously they weren’t involved in this.

            They went down a small flight of stairs and down another hallway into another room.  Mandy wondered if this was the basement of the house – it was only two stories on top, after all, for all its size.  She ducked into the room that Chad was leading too and stopped in the door, her blood gone instantly cold.

            There were all kinds of pictures in here, pictures of Joe, from the time when he was about three until just a few weeks ago, a picture taken of Joe at a football game.  There were other pictures here, too.  They were pictures of her cousin, Andrew, his golden smile evident on each of them and, again, the time was the same, three until, probably, though she couldn’t be certain, a few weeks ago.

            Dear God, she thought.  Derak owns this house!

            She reached out and touched the pictures – all of the faces other than Joe’s and Andrew’s had been blocked out, some cut out, sometimes just marked out with a black marker.  Mandy pulled her hand back and turned away to look up at her boyfriend.  Connor pulled her close for a minute, letting her get herself back under control again, then he took her from the room.  Mandy was grateful for him, for his strength, for the fact that, of all the girls at BU that he could have dated, he had chosen to date her.

            “Connor!” that was Sam’s voice.  “Mandy!”

            They went out of the room and down the corridor.  Chet was standing in the hall just outside of another room and Mandy almost dreaded what she’d see this time.  Samantha stood in front of what looked like a half flight of stairs, next to a large gear mechanism.  Mandy stepped toward it and frowned, then looked over at Samantha.

            “What?” Mandy asked her older brother’s girlfriend.  “This is weird.”

            “Yeah,” Samantha agreed.  “I think I figured out how it works.  Want to try?”

            Mandy nodded her agreement and Samantha reached over to pull on a large lever that was located beside the stairs.  An opening appeared below the stairs and the gears above the stairs started to church, causing the stairs to lower through the hole.  Mandy’s eyes went wide as she watched the stairs connect to a set below the hole in the floor and she took a deep breath as she turned to her boyfriend.

            “This,” he said in a succinctly disgusted tone.  “Is insane.”

            Mandy nodded her agreement but stepped onto the top platform of the stairs.  Samantha flipped a switch located by the stairs so that the lights went on down below and Mandy led the way down the stairs.  She stopped halfway down when she saw the table.  A metal table half-covered with a single sheet.  Chains still danged out of the mouths of lions on either wall at the foot and head of the table and Mandy felt her stomach do a flip.

            Connor went past her to a small bathroom set in another wall and turned to see that Mandy’s face had gone very pale.  Mandy was staring at a small table where a half-eaten plate of food sat against the wall.  She held in one hand, though, a piece of paper like a crumpled newspaper.  She held it up to her boyfriend.

            “Vanessa’s obituary?” Connor was confused.  “But she’s not dead…”

            Mandy nodded, afraid that if she tried to speak she was going to throw-up.  She was looking at the only other item on the table.  An hibachi brazier.  It was nearly cool though she could tell it hadn’t been that long since it had been used. 

            Connor pulled a metal pole out of the brazier and looked at the other end of it.  A letter ‘M’. 

            Mandy’s face paled even more as she turned away.

            “He was here,” she said, softly.  “He was here, Connor.  We have to find him, they can’t have gotten too far!”

            Mandy screamed and touched her boyfriend’s face.  Tears streamed down her cheeks and she buried her face in his chest.  He moved her toward the stairs and they went back up, just in time to hear a bellow from up top.

            “Mandy, Connor, HURRY!”

            They ran up the stairs and found Parker standing near the back door.

            “I just saw them,” he gasped.  “Some guy put Joe into the back of a blue-green Audi and they raced away.  They were inside that back garage; I couldn’t get inside before they left.  They were here!”

            Mandy’s face paled even more; she was pretty sure she was going to faint very soon.

            “Mandy,” Parker touched her shoulder and spoke softly.  “Mandy, I’m pretty sure that the guy I saw… I’m pretty sure it was your cousin…”

            The young Hardy Girl’s eyes shot up as she looked into Parker’s eyes.

            “What?”

            “It was that guy who came to the Radley’s earlier,” he said.  “The tall guy with the blonde hair.  Your cousin, right?  That’s the one who has Joe.”

 

*****

 

To the sounds of birds chirping in the background and the wind blowing through what Grimacing in pain as Derak tightened his grip on Frank’s arm, Frank tried once again, to no avail, to pull free of his uncle.  He felt the cold, sharp edge of a knife pressed against his neck and he walked slowly along the path directed by his uncle, with Derak not bothering to mention things like rocks in the way or branches or, once, a pile of what felt like bricks for Frank to trip over.   His grip on Frank’s arm felt like he used a vice gripper or something harder; Frank couldn’t break it and he didn’t want that knife getting any closer.

Frank was not a happy camper.  Every time he tried to lash out with a hand or his good leg, Derak managed to not be in the right place.  He stepped back or to one side or just pushed Frank forward then pressed the knife a little more tightly against Frank’s neck.  Frank tried nothing for a little while, until he smelled the smell of some kind of fuel.  He didn’t need someone to tell him just what the fuel was used for or where it came from.  The helicopter his father mentioned earlier.  He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck and he stopped dead in his tracks and dug in as well as he could.

“I’m not going with you, Derak,” he said in a tight voice.

“You don’t have a lot of choice, boy,” Derak growled.  “Do you know what men do in prison?  They work-out.  They get stronger.  You get to pay the price, boy.  You get to see just what I can make you do, just by brute strength.  You are coming with me, until I’m well away.  If you’re lucky, I’ll just let you go.  If you aren’t lucky – you might get let go in pieces.  You can determine which it is.  I’ll let you make your own luck, Frank.  Cooperation means good luck.  Interference means bad luck.”

Frank frowned and struggled again.  Derak gripped his arm even tighter and Frank grimaced in pain.  Frank gave a yell and felt Derak release his arm and grip his hair.  The knife dug in just a little and Frank froze, unable to move, to swallow, in case Derak meant to make use of that knife.  He could feel the sharp edge cutting, every so slightly and he realized that his Uncle meant to kill him if he didn’t cooperate.  It wasn’t just a show.

“Let me go, Derak,” Frank said again, his voice a whisper.  “I’m not going to be another victim!”

“Too late, Frank,” Derak laughed and Frank was dragged forward again.  “Maybe I can have as much fun with you as I did with Joe.  I’ve always thought you were handsome, my boy, with that brown hair and those brown eyes.  I’ll bet you’re more interesting than Joe is.  I’ll even bet you’re smarter.  Maybe I won’t let you go.  If I’m condemned to be the bad guy, maybe I should be.”

Frank’s blood chilled and his ability to fight back was hampered by his absolute fear.  Derak’s laugh, an evil, taunting laugh, preceded Derak pushing Frank again.  Frank ran up hard against the side of something metallic – the helicopter.  He felt the knife prick a little more, then Derak released his hair and took his wrist – the one that had been injured during the explosion.

“Get in,” he said.  “The strut is right in front of you.  I know you know how to climb up there so do it.  Don’t make me hurt you more.”

Frank froze again and felt his stomach start to churn.

“No,” he said, softly.  “I’m not.”

Derak laughed again.  Frank felt something tied around his bad wrist and Derak pulled tightly.  Frank cried out in pain and had to follow the path of least resistance, just to make the pain in his wrist stop – that was up, and into the helicopter.  Frank felt the helicopter shudder to life and then he heard, or thought he heard over the roar of the chopper’s noises, someone yelling his name…

“We’re going to have fun!” Derak shouted in Frank’s ear.  “And you’re going to enjoy it at least as much as your brother did!”

 

            Fenton Hardy raced down the corridor of the old mansion, Deanna Merrill hot on his heels as they made their way to the stairs.  The whole way they ran, he kept seeing Derak with Joe and swore, then and there, that Derak wasn’t getting another one of his sons.  Fenton no longer had control of his legs; he ran far faster than he’d ever run before in his life.  They slid down the stairs, taking them recklessly, sometimes two or three stairs at a time.  He heard Deanna hopping down behind him, yelling into the walkie-talkie she carried.

            Fenton led the way, not through the front door, but down the long corridor to the back door.  Derak and Frank had disappeared to the side of the house and Fenton knew where they were going – the helicopter.  Fenton didn’t remember ever hearing that Derak even knew how to fly a chopper, couldn’t find any memory of it in his head, but he knew that Derak would use it to get away anyway.  Determination set in and filled him with desire – Derak wasn’t getting his other son.

            “This way, Fenton!” Deanna sprang over the shrubs in the back and saw that Derak managed, somehow, to get Frank up into the chopper.  She sprinted and jumped over another bush and cleared it by about two feet.  Fenton followed her, determined not to lose his son to his maniacal brother-in-law.  He heard the chopper come to life with a roar and Fenton held his hands over his ears while he continued to run.  They were almost there.  Just a little farther and he would be able to rescue his son.

            “He’s got a knife!” Deanna yelled over the roar of the chopper.  “Be careful, Fenton!”

            Fenton nodded in agreement, then saw the helicopter begin its ascent.  He got there in time to grab onto one of the struts and he held on for dear life as he tried to raise himself up to reach his son.  He pulled hard, aware that the strength of the wind coming from the choppers propeller blades was strong enough to knock him right back to the ground again.  Derak turned the handle and the chopper went out over the large pond in the back of the estate.  Fenton grunted and reached up to find a new handhold and he pulled himself up then froze, breathless.

            There was a bomb in the back of the chopper, just below the seat in which his son sat.  Fenton could see the unmistakable countdown going on, started, he thought, when Derak started the chopper.  Fenton didn’t have time to do anything else.  He reached up and grabbed Frank and, surprising Derak, was able to pull Frank free of the chopper.  He saw his son fall toward the pond below them and hoped that he’d be able to swim his way out of it. 

            Fenton looked below, took a deep breath, and jumped.

 

            The blast from the chopper knocked him head over heels in the air and he landed, very hard, onto a mulch pile near the pond.  As Fenton lay there out of breath the burning bits of the chopper started to rain down around him and into the pond…  His head fell back a few minutes later as a feeling of failure swept through him.

            What were they going to do now?

            Then the darkness claimed him.

 

The End of Part One of the “Living In Darkness” Trilogy “The Loss”

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. I've only borrowed them to play with for a while but I promise to return them whenever I've finished with them.  (I make no promises as to condition, that's entirely up to them).  I promise, I'm only writing for fun and I'm not making a single dime off of this (unless you count personal fulfillment).