Taken

John (Chapter 4)

"Hey, John!  Your father wants to see you and your brother in his office as soon as you can."

 Chris and I looked at each other.  He put his hands on his waist.  "We haven't been back in D.C. for an hour and we're already in trouble!"  Then he said under his voice, "I still think that Sasha likes you..."

Sasha was our department's secretary.  It was no secret that she had a crush on me, but I didn't have any feelings for her at all, something Chris couldn't understand.  I wasn't into older women, another thing Chris couldn't understand.  "Thank you, Sasha.  We'll head over there right now."  I turned to Chris and continued in a lower voice as we walked away, "Would you shut up about that?  I don't like her, so nothing is ever going to happen between us!"

"Uh huh."  He said smiling.  Then he turned back to what he called his business attitude. "I know I should be excited for this case, but I was really hoping for a break.  I want to sleep in for once.  Not to mention I'm going to have to miss more school and get even farther behind."  I knew that wasn't the real reason.  I knew he wanted to try to practice shooting again so he could get his license, but we never had the time for that because of all these cases.

 "Well you should have caught up on your sleep while we were on the plane instead of flirting with the flight attendant.  And I know what you mean about school.  But we can catch up.  I hope.  Hey, we should stop by and say hi to Daniel on our way to Dad's office."  

"In my defense she was gorgeous.  And yeah, I wonder if he's working on a case."

Daniel Allen was twenty-one years old, and, like me, a trained sniper.  He worked most of his cases with his father, Carson Allen.  Our two families had become very close over the last few years, after Michael Troop, our father, had helped them stop a terrorist.

"He's not in here."  I said as he peeked through the window on his door.

"Damn.  Guess we'll go straight to Dad then."

We walked down three more doors until they reached our Dad's office.  Chris knocked.

"Come in."

 When we walked in, we saw Dad working on his computer.  He was about six feet tall when he stood, with dark brown hair and blue eyes.  He was a striking man, as Mom used to describe him, and most people could tell just by looking at him that he held a position of power.

I have Dad's hair, while Chris has his eyes.  We're both about the same height as our father, maybe a little taller.  I'm a year older than Chris, but the only way you would be able to tell is that I always take the lead, unless I'm instructed by a higher authority not to, or I simply don't care to for a certain case.  The rock paper scissors game is just something I do to amuse Chris.  I know him so well that I know exactly which one he's going to pick, probably before he even does.  Why he doesn't change it up, I don't know.  It's better for me that he doesn't though, because when I go into the Marines Corp, I'm hoping that when they see how many cases I have led, they'll put me in a higher position than just foot soldier. 

"Hey, Dad, what's up?"  Chris asked trying to get our father's attention.  He hadn't looked up once since we had walked in.

Dad looked up surprised. "Hello, boys, sorry I didn't hear you; and to answer your question Chris, a lot."

"Hopefully it's good."

"Unfortunately, it's not."

"I was afraid of that.  Well, there goes sleeping in." my lazy little brother said as he fell into one of Dad's guest chairs.

I shot him a warning look.  If Chris made it sound like we cared more about sleeping than working on a case, I was pretty sure Dad wouldn't like that, and that he would take away our chance to work with him.  "What happened, Dad?"  I asked.

Dad took a deep breath.  "It has to do with the Allen's."

Chris and I looked at each other, and I could the same thing running through both of our minds.

"Are they ok?"  Chris asked.

"We don't know."

"What happened to them?"

"If you would be quite, I would tell you."

"Oh.  Sorry."

"Carson and Daniel were working on an Al Qaeda case in the Middle east.  As you guys already know, if we are working on a terrorist case outside the country, we have to have contact with the base every day at the time given.  They haven't had contact in 4 days, so naturally we're worried something happened."

I felt my stomach drop.  If Carson and Daniel really had been caught by Al Qaeda ... ugh, I didn't even want to think about it.

"So what do we need to do?"  I asked.

"The case has been assigned to us, despite the fact that we are "emotionally" involved because they were..."

"Are," Chris interrupted.  He clearly didn't want to hear the Allen's talked about as if they were already dead.

"...are our friends."  Dad continued.  "But there's more.  I was just assigned yesterday to look into any immediate family members, and warn them that they might be targets.   Because who else would be a better hostage to get the Allen's to talk then the mom or a sibling..."

"But Carson's wife was killed in the line of duty and Daniel is his only child."  I recalled feeling slightly confused.  Dad already knew that.

He looked at us intently.

"There's more to that family isn't there."  I said

"Oh yes."

"Uh, guys?"  Poor Chris interrupted, "I still don't know what you're talking about so if you could clarify that would be great."

"I took out Carson's and Sarah's recorders...  they had another child besides Daniel."

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Sound ok?  Easy to follow or am I jumping too much?  Comment either way and please vote if you like it! :)

~Emily~