Okay! Two things!
One: OBVIOUSLY THERE IS A NEW COVER!!! And it's not one I made before! This cover was actually done by read_on33
She did it a couple of months ago and I promised I would use it so here it is! I also love it anyways so yay!!! Thank you read_on33
My cover will switch in about a month again to another one I made before.
The second thing: I HAVE A PLAN!!!!! Okay so during the upcoming weekend, I'm going to try and write around 5 chapters ahead of time so when it comes the days I have to update, I won't skip days because the chapters will already be ready.
ITS A WIN WIN!!! I HAVE MORE REST DURING NEXT WEEK AND YOU GUYS WILL GET MORE FREQUENT UPDATES!! Yayyyy!!!
Lol anyways, onto the chapter little dumplings! Enjoy!
"Wait...are you serious?!" Sophie shrieked, looking back at the mansion behind her.
Linh's then gulped nervously as her eyes started to water. "Y-Yes...when
sh-she laughed, I just h-had these flashbacks of w-when she visited me in-in the hospital."
"I KNEW SHE WAS EVIL!" Tam yelled, then trying to sprint to back to the mansion but Sophie and her friends held him back.
"Shh! She can probably hear us!" Sophie hissed.
"Who cares?! Let's get her now!" Tam snapped, trying to yank Sophie's arm off of him.
"What are you going to do, Tam? Beat her up?" Biana questioned.
"SHE'S A MURDERER!" Tam argued. "SHE'S THE REASON SOME PEOPLE ARE DYING OR HAVE ALREADY DIED!"
"Keep it down man!" Fitz said, glancing nervously at the house.
They were literally on Mai's driveway.
Sophie needed to calm Tam down.
"Tam, listen to me. We need to approach this in a smart way. She might have a gun on her! And then if we just charge back in her house, then we are trapped!" Sophie reasoned.
Tam then took a deep breath and wrapped an arm around Linh. "Alright...what do we do then?" He asked.
"Well who do you guys usually go to for help?" Wylie asked as he also came by Linh to hold her tight.
She was shaking...
"We um...usually go to Mr. Forkle..." Sophie mumbled.
Marella coughed. "Well...he's not exactly able to um...help us..."
Everyone then looked down with a frown.
Ever since Mr. Forkle was shot at the Royal Ball...things hadn't gone well...
The doctors were able to take the bullet out of his stomach but the bullet had caused an infection that was spreading quickly...
And it was deadly...
The doctors said that he probably only had a month left unless they can somehow get rid of the infection.
Sophie and her friends refused to talk about him and tried not to think about what might happen to him.
"Well...I guess we are on our own then," Stina mumbled.
"Okay so...what now?" Dex asked.
Sophie gulped when everyone looked at her. "Okay...well we can't just barge back into the house. Um...maybe we can just call the police and tell them to come here and they can take her away?" She suggested.
"Yeah! Let's do that!" Tam exclaimed, starting to pull out his phone.
"WAIT! Stop! We need to think logically," Dex exclaimed, putting his hand up from where he was sitting in his wheel chair.
"What do you mean?" Tam asked, looking annoyed.
"Think about it. If we call the cops, they'll come and arrest Mai, right? But let's be real here. There are more Neverseen members out there," Dex explained.
"Okay, but we can just arrest Mai for now and try to defeat the other members whenever they come at us again," Biana said.
"No, you're not getting what I'm saying. What I'm trying to say is that, if the rest of the Neverseen members see that we arrested Mai, they will then go into hiding and we will never catch them or stop them from whatever evil plans they are doing," Dex explained.
"But?" Sophie asked.
"But, what if we don't call the cops? Maybe...we can leave Mai alone and she will never know that we know she is a Neverseen member. THEN, we can secretly use her as a lead and like follow her and stuff. THEN, we have a better chance of catching all of the Neverseen members at once by secretly gathering information from her or following her!" Dex explained.
"That...could work," Sophie mumbled, trying to sort out the pros and cons.
"ARE YOU GUYS CRAZY?! That's wayyyy too risky! Let's just arrest her now! It's the safest plan! We can stop her from doing anything bad! If we wait, we might be too late!" Tam argued, getting a little too loud.
"But Tam...this might be our only chance to actually get to the bottom of this and to catch the rest of the Neverseen members faster," Marella reasoned.
Everyone then bickered amongst themselves as they tried to decide what was best.
"Guys...also remember that Keefe's life is at stake. Chances are that Mai might be keeping him captive in this very mansion! So...maybe we should pretend we never found out anything and use this as an advantage so we can spy on her," Sophie pointed out, gesturing to the mansion.
"Do you think Keefe might be in there?" Fitz asked, glancing back at the mansion too.
"Maybe," Sophie said, trying to hold back her tears. "Even if he isn't in this mansion, we can still stalk Mai and have her blindly lead us to Keefe. It's our best chance."
"S-Sophie's right," Linh whispered.
"Really Linh?! You're only saying that because you don't want to arrest mom! You're too afraid to still accept the cruel woman she is!" Tam told Linh.
Linh then looked down and nervously bit her lip. "I'm sorry...part of me still wants to hold onto the hope that maybe we still have loving parents..."
Linh then started to sob and Wylie wrapped his arms around her.
"Look, I'm really sorry, Linh. It's just, you need to put aside your feelings right now and do what's logical and right. Just think about all the times that our parents abandoned us and left us to die. Do you still want to save them?" Tam reasoned.
Linh just stayed quiet and avoided everyone's gaze.
"Wait...parents as in plural. Guys, your dad is probably involved too," Dex told Tam and Linh.
"Our dad? Quan? Yeah, he's worse than our mom so he's probably involved too," Tam said.
"So...what if Quan is in the
house—mansion—right now? That's a full grown man against us kids. Plus I'm in a wheel chair. This is another reason why we shouldn't barge in or just arrest them without preparation. Like if we don't have a plan, we might send police in there but Quan and Mai might already have machine guns or something ready," Dex said.
"They're police. They should know what they are doing and how to fight," Tam argued.
"The key word is 'should.' I don't think we should underestimate the Neverseen," Biana pointed out.
"What, you're on board with the wait-and-use-this-as-an-advantage plan?" Tam asked, glaring at Biana.
"Hey, you have to agree we have pretty good points..." Biana said.
"Is everyone agreeing to this?!" Tam asked everyone.
Everyone, except him, then slowly nodded their heads.
Tam then sighed in frustration. "Fine, whatever. But if my mom escapes somehow and disappears...it's on you guys," Tam said, giving everyone a death stare.
Sophie then gulped nervously and she nodded.
This better work...otherwise Tam would never forgive them.
"Okay...so we will hold off?" Sophie clarified.
Everyone then nodded their heads but Tam seemed the most reluctant.
"Okay, so we'll just have to probably have the help of the Blackswan to get people to spy on Mai. Or maybe we can but not today. We just need to get out of here. We can't risk Mai seeing us still on her driveway—she'll get suspicious," Sophie explained.
"Alright so we came here in Wylie's car so let's all go back home together so
we are safer," Sophie suggested.
"Let's go," Wylie said as he started to lead them to where he parked his car along the side of the street.
"Oh God no...UGH! YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Wylie yelled out as he ran to his car.
"What?!" Linh asked, rushing to where was now bending down next to the car.
"Someone slashed my tires!" Wylie yelled, followed by a frustrated groan.
"Um...so what now?" Sophie asked after a few seconds of silence.
"Um...we are going to have to walk to the nearest gas station in order to get help," Wylie said in frustration.
"Walk? How far?" Biana asked, glancing down at her flip-flops from the beach.
"Um...a good five miles maybe?" Wylie guessed.
"Ugh who could have done this?!" Stina whined.
"It was probably a Neverseen member..." Linh said.
"Wait...maybe it was a Neverseen member that did this so we could walk alone..." Dex realized. He then gasped. "Guys! We can't walk to the gas station. This is a trap! The Neverseen are going to be waiting!"
"Well, what else are we supposed to do?" Wylie asked.
"I could call my dad and he could pick us up and help you with your tires," Sophie suggested.
Wylie nodded. "Call him."
Sophie then grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialed Grady. But no one answered.
"Hm," Sophie said to herself. She then tried to call her dad two more times but he still didn't answer.
"Try texting him maybe?" Marella suggested.
Sophie then nodded and texted, hey dad, we need a ride. It's a long story, I'll give you the location of where we are at and then I'll explain everything.
About a few minutes later, Grady texted back, oh hello kiddo.
Hello :) why didn't you answer my calls from before? Sophie texted.
You called? Sorry, I just looked at my phone now so I didn't see them. I'm sort of in a situation too right now, Grady texted.
What situation?! Sophie texted, frantically.
Well my car engine broke down on the street that's along the forest preserve. I checked your location through the tracking phone app I have. You aren't too far from me so please just use the app to track and find me. We can then work together to get a mechanic to fix my car and then I can help you, Grady explained.
Okay, we'll try, Sophie texted before she turned her phone off.
She then faced her friends and explained to them the situation she Grady was in.
"Alright let's hurry. And stay together," Wylie instructed as they started walking together as a group to where Sophie saw Grady on family phone tracking app.
As they started to walk, they weren't that far in when they already reached the forest preserve.
"Okay he's on the street around here," Sophie said.
Fitz then looked ahead and squinted his eyes at the distance. "Um...I don't see any cars parked along this street."
"The only thing that will be parked right here is you guys," a voice said behind them.
Sophie and her friends then abruptly turned around to see Mai.
And two dark figures hiding in cloaks behind her.
And a beaten up Grady that was tied up.
Along with Keefe.