Chapter Twenty-Nine
Heather led me away from the view of the campus and over to the woods where the reservoir was located. There were no guards or any passing students there to witness my kidnapping, and that seemed to frighten me even more. We reached the entrance to the forest as I noticed that someone had already removed the bricks so there wouldn’t be any problem stepping over them.
“Don’t even think about running.” Heather said pressing the gun in my back.
“I won’t.” I had seen enough movies to know what happens when you try to run from a idiot holding a gun. If I wanted to escape, I would have to be smart about this.
As the two of us walked entered the forest, I turned my head up to stare at the sky. Rain clouds were rolling in as the sky began to darken— setting the mood for what was sure a horror movie. I put my head down and turned to glance at Heather out the side of my eye. Though her eyes moved frantically around the campus, there was also a determined look in them. I gulped silently. I had no idea why she was acting this way. I only knew that I had to think of something fast before she ended up killing me.
Heather caught me staring and smirked at me. “What’s wrong Princess Autumn? Afraid of something?”
“Yeah. I’m afraid of my hair getting wet from this rain. I just washed it.” I replied back smartly. If I was going to die, I was still going to be me. I wouldn’t give this freak the pleasure of seeing me afraid.
Heather frowned at my smart remark and dug the gun deeper into my back. I fought the groan that threatened to rise as I prayed that she didn’t stumble over any branches and accidentally pull the trigger into my back.
“I never did like your smart mouth.”
The smell of pine trees and soil surrounded us as I tripped a couple times over some fallen logs. We were so far away from the campus that I couldn’t see where the opening was any more. As we drew closer to the area where the off campus parties were held, I could hear the sound of the rushing water from the river. It soon came into view as we made our way into the clearing. There were scattered paper cups on the ground and I knew someone had been up here recently since the last party. My only hope was that they would come back to clean up their mess and see Heather and me.
“Right here.” She said waving her gun at me. “Turn around and toss me your bag.”
I turned as she asked and tossed the bag at her. The bag collided with her leg as she shot me a glare. I smiled. “Sorry.”
“Oh you will be.” She promised. Keeping the gun on me, she reached into my bag and removed my cellphone. She took it and tossed it deep into the woods out of my reach. Turning back towards me, she smiled. “So you won’t get any ideas.”
“Hmm. So what was so important that you needed to talk to me out in the middle of the woods with a gun?”
I tried to remain nonchalant as if this was an everyday thing though I knew it was not. I just had to get her talking enough to distract her. If I got her talking, I could figure out a way to escape this maniac before she shoots me. I’ll also have to get that gun away from her so she doesn’t shoot me in the back when I run.
“Where is The Beggar Boy painting?”
“Huh. What are you talking about?”
“Are we really going to do this Autumn?”
“Heather I promise you that I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said frowning at the way her voice suddenly changed. It was like I was talking to a whole other person.
Heather stared at me for a moment as if going blank and I really got afraid. Her face became so blank that I wondered if she was even seeing me. Thunder sounded above as the sky continued to darken, making a blanket over the top of the woods, cutting off any natural light that was on this trail. I could see the shine from Heather’s eyes as she stared without blinking at me.
“You’re a liar Autumn.” She finally spoke in a quiet chilled voice. “You’re a liar and you’re a thief.”
The fear left and I tensed at the way she pronounced thief. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that she had found out about me. Now things were starting to make a little bit of more sense. She knew I had the painting. My only question now was why did she want it?
“Harsh words coming from a girl who use to preach about peace among humans and animals. What ever happened to her?” I asked.
“Unlike you Autumn, I’m not a liar. I do believe in bringing peace on earth. But like our great God, I believe on washing away the evil that is on our planet. And my dear Autumn, you are evil.”
“Says the girl with the gun in her hand.”
Heather shrugged. “Just think of it as a peacemaker.”
I laughed even though there was no real feeling into it. “So why are you bringing me out here. You should know that I’m not going to tell you where the painting is.”
“The gun is here to help you make the decision.”
“Do you really think the fact that you’re threatening to shoot me would make me give up the painting? If anything, it would make me work even harder to keep it a secret from you.”
Since the first time bringing me out here, Heather didn’t look so composed. She moved around as she kept the gun trained on me trying to think quickly on her feet.
“You’ll tell me if you don’t want me to hurt your best friend. I know you left the painting somewhere on campus. I tried to get in your room, but Yuri wouldn’t let me. It seems she doesn’t care for me too much. I would have killed her then, but that stupid nosey Karen was in the hallway causing a commotion which brought everyone into the hall.”
For once I was happy to have Karen around. Because of her, Yuri’s life had been spared and I was now taking her place. I had no problems with that if it meant I was saving my best friend’s life.
“I then realized that you wouldn’t leave it somewhere where it’s easily assessable. You’re not that careless. I don’t know where you hid it, but I know it’s here and I’ll do anything to get it, even if that means killing you.”
“So you’re going to kill me, that’s rich. Go ahead. You won’t get far. The guards will gun you down for harming the daughter of a Senator.”
“Like I care about that!” Heather yelled. She stopped yelling and composed herself. “Good game Autumn, but it won’t work. You almost had me ready to give up my position by doing all this yelling. I can see it now, the guards hearing my yell and coming to investigate, only to find me holding you hostage. It was a cute idea, but I’m smarter than you. You won’t leave this spot until I say so. You got it.” I nodded. “Now where is the painting?”
“What do you want with it?”
“I don’t want anything with it. My boss on the other hand is a different story.”
I stared at Heather. “You work for him don’t you? The Invisible Spider.”
“I knew you weren’t as dumb as you look. Every school you go to, there’s always the dumb popular girls, but not here. You girls actually enjoy reading something other than some teen supernatural romance novel. There might be hope for the young generation yet.”
“Why does the Invisible Spider want the painting?” I asked ignoring her.
“Why for the powers of course? Clearly you didn’t think you and your father were the only ones who knew that the painting was actually filled with power? The Invisible Spider needs the painting since he is the only one that can access the powers.”
“What do you mean he’s the only one who can access the power?”
“Surely you didn’t think you and your gang of misfits were worthy enough to receive such a blessing.” Heather scoffed. “Here I was praising you and you know nothing about the myth. It is written in Bartholomѐ diary that in order to access the powers, you must take the lives of three powerful guardians—the gatekeeper, the prophet, and the beholder. If you successfully complete all three tasks, only then will you be able to access the powers hidden in the painting.”
Heather ment
ioning the three powerful guardians seemed spark a memory in me. Back when my father was alive and staying with us, he used to talk a lot about the three powerful guardians and their hidden treasure. I never wanted to hear about them because it didn’t seem relevant to the picture, so my father didn’t bother to talk about them again. However, a month before my father left, he started talking about them again. He didn’t seem to care how annoyed I got. He still forced the story into my head. I saw the mentioning of them again at the end of Joaquin’s journal but I never really connected the two stories until now. The stories were similar, but Heather seemed to be misinformed. Yes, it was true that sacrificing the three guardians would give you power, but the power wouldn’t come from the painting, it would come from the beholder. The beholder was the only one that could access the powers from the painting.
My breath caught in my throat. Only the beholder could access the powers. The four of us had touched the painting and were now displaying supernatural symptoms. The four of us…were the beholders.
Staring at Heather, I realized that she didn’t seem to know this yet. So if she didn’t know about us, than maybe the Invisible Spider wasn’t aware of what we could do yet. We were at an advantage. I just needed to figure out exactly how much did Heather know. Clearing my throat I asked, “How did you know we were the ones who stole the painting?”
“I’ve been studying you.”
“What do you mean studied me?”
A reminiscent smile came on Heather’s face. “My brother and me, Mark.”
“Mark is your brother.” I said in shock. The two of them look nothing alike.
“We’re twins actually. Mark and I were raised by a foster family that couldn’t care less about us. Since we had little money and our foster parents never paid for the necessities we needed to survive, we became thieves. My brother taught me everything to the point it became surprising the things we could get away with when people didn’t pay attention. By age ten I was a pro at picking pockets and what many called a born actress. We would trick people into thinking I was lost, and when they go to take me to the last place I saw my mother, Mark would jump them and we would take everything they possessed. Before long, we had mastered every act of robbery skill that was possible—that’s when he found us.”
“The Invisible Spider.”
Heather nodded. “Mark and I were so scared when we ran into him. We thought we were going away for a long time, but he didn’t turn us in. Instead, he wanted us to work for him. He even offered to give us a permanent residence and more money than we could imagine. We couldn’t turn a good deal like that down, so we decided to work for him. We thought he wanted us to steal money, but he was after art. Mark and I didn’t care too much about what the guy wanted, just as long as we got paid. At first, he had us doing jobs together, it was like old times. But then, he pulled Mark into different missions, more violent missions. Mark had gone from a thief to a killer within a month. We never got to see each other. Our boss kept us separated. It wasn’t until Mark had come off his last mission from killing the prophet that we were allowed to work together again.”
“The prophet?” I said. “Who was the prophet?”
Heather’s smile grew on her face as thunder boomed above. “Why don’t you know Autumn? The second guardian known as the prophet was your dear old dad.”
My heart pushed against my chest as I reached out to clutch it. “You’re lying. My father wasn’t a prophet.”
“Of course he was. Why else do you think he quit the job he had dreamed of doing? It was because he saw the painting. He started to have visions of it to the point he couldn’t avoid it. It was more than his obsession— it was his destiny to find it, which he did.”
“Is that why your boss had him killed?” I said crying. “He killed him because he found the painting.”
“My boss was going to kill him regardless if he found the painting or not. He was one of the tasks remember. Your father hid the painting which just seemed to make his death come a bit faster.”
Tears rushed down my face as I balled my hands into fists. I felt sorry for my father. He had gone through all of this and I had no clue. My mother didn’t even seem to know about this, or at least she didn’t tell me. Then again she never told me things.
“I was your next mission, wasn’t I?” I said looking at Heather.
“Right you are. Since my brother had to get close to the prophet and his family, he enrolled in your school as a typical freshman. At first he tried to get close to you, but he said you seemed to distrust him right off the back. That is why he turned to your BFF Yuri. Being close to Yuri meant he had the chance to get close to you and your family. Yuri use to bring him all the time to your family house or any event your parents were hosting. It made for the perfect cover for him to get in and out without being caught—and then Mark fell in love with Yuri, and things got sloppy. The boss as you can imagine was not happy with Mark, so he sent me in to help. I entered the campus and immediately sought you out. Since you were always trying to prove that you weren’t the shallow bitch that everyone thought you were, it didn’t take long to become your friend. In that short time, I had learned more about you than Mark had ever learned.”
I said nothing and she laughed.
“I have to admit Autumn, you became more than a cover to me as well. I became happy to be your friend. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends. But none of them were you. They were boring and quiet just like how I was supposed to be, which didn’t interest me at all. So I started to follow you. At first it was just around campus. I loved watching you and Yuri sneak off to parties at the boy’s dormitory, or watching you make out with different guys as if it was nothing.”
I frowned in disgust at the thought of her basically stalking us. I mean what kind of person would sit there and watch as someone makes out with people. A pervert, that’s what kind of person would do that.
Heather once again unaware of my thoughts continued. She was like those people in the movies who had to get out their whole evil plan before they killed you. I just hope I could be like the ones that got away.
“I thought we could become real friends until I stumbled onto you and Kerry out in the woods. I overhead your conversation about the painting and decided it was best to keep a closer eye on you. I wasn’t really worried at first, because Kerry hadn’t agreed and we knew there was no way you would find the painting. But then you began to get closer to the painting, and the boss needed updates so I had no choice but to tell him. Since you were my friend, I tried to protect you by threatening you and your friends.”
“You were the one sending those emails.”
“The emails were just to get you to back off. I didn’t want you to get hurt so I sent them behind Mark’s back. I knew how serious he was about taking the painting since he’d been screwing up. He was serious enough to kill and I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t care about the others. But you just had to keep meddling in affairs that wasn’t yours, and now my brother is dead! YOU GUYS KILLED HIM!”
“HE KILLED MY FATHER!”
“And you’re about to join him if you don’t tell me where the painting is.” Heather said saucily. “I’m done talking. Where is the painting?”
“Heather please think about this. You don’t have to follow in your brother’s footsteps.” I said backing away from her as she stalked towards me with the gun. I was nearing the river and any minute I was about to go in. A flash of something moved behind Heather as I froze.
Heather unaware of anything behind her, released the safety on the gun. She went to take another step when a stone rock came crashing down on her head. Heather’s body tumbled to the ground as the gun flew out of her hands.
Glancing from Heather’s body, I stared in shock at the person holding the rock. “Paige?’
Paige tossed down the rock and place her hands on her hips. “Some friends you have here Jones.
”