Red Mask

Chapter 1

North silently packed his bags.

His mother's funeral had already taken place but he hadn't been allowed to attend.

You will be their next target.

The words kept echoing in his head.

What difference does it make? he thought bitterly. Mom is gone. Who even cares if I'm alive or dead?

Every few minutes, he broke down again.

He looked around the room that had always been his. The walls still held the trophies he'd won in school competitions. His books were stacked neatly on the desk where his mother used to sit with him while he studied. The curtains still smelled faintly of the lavender she liked.

It was supposed to be his home. Instead, he was being sent away from it.

His father insisted it was for his safety, but North didn't care about being safe.

He wanted to stay in his own house. He wanted to go back to school and complain about homework with his friends. He wanted to sleep in his own bed. He wanted his mother to walk into the room and tell him dinner was ready.

Instead, strangers had buried her while he sat locked inside this house. No one had asked him what he wanted.

North wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and walked into his mother's room.

The room looked exactly the way she had left it. A book lay open beside her reading chair, her glasses resting on top of the page as if she would return to finish the chapter.

His father had strictly forbidden him from touching anything.

But North didn't care anymore.

He carefully picked up a few of her favorite books, her old fountain pen, and the small leather diary that only he knew existed. His mother had once smiled and told him that every important memory deserved a safe place. North had never read the diary, but he couldn't leave it behind.

They were all he had left of her. He packed everything else he thought he might need, though none of it seemed important anymore.

When the driver knocked on the bedroom door, North zipped his bag shut.

He took one last look around the room. He was terrified that if he walked out now, he would never see this house again.

Without saying a word, he picked up his bag and followed the driver outside.

He didn't know where they were going. He didn't know who would take care of him.

He didn't know who would remind him to eat, wake him up for school, or scold him for staying up too late. Yesterday, he lived in a mansion full of servants.

Today, he was leaving it with a single suitcase and one silent driver. His whole life had fallen apart in less than a day.

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It would be hours before they finally reached their destination.

Chiang Mai.

His father had sent him away to the mountains.

He really doesn't love me, North thought as he stared out of the window.

North knew his father was an unconventional man. His mother told him that he was a businessman but North had learnt that he was a mafia boss, who had no time for kids.

In sixteen years, he had seen his father only a handful of times. North had never been denied anything money could buy, but his father's time was never one of them. The only person his father had ever truly loved was North's mother.