So Many Decisions But Only A Few Bullets Left

I unlock the door and open it only to find... everything where it should be. We all walk in, Roscoe immediately going over where a bed was placed in a little corner in the room. Alex places his briefcase on the large coffee table and opens it up then sits on the couch in front of it. Me and Aileen sit on a love seat and watch Alex as a hologram pops up asking for his name and password. He enters it with his fingers as a holographic keyboard appears in his lap. The information is sent and opens a file of the next mission. The hologram turns to a design of Augustus's mansion.

"So, Casey, up for another round of killing Augustus?" Alex asks as he looks dead at me through the hologram. I lean over and quirk an eyebrow at him.

"When am I not?" I reply, leaning back into place.

"Alrighty then. Then we have no problem." he says as he pushes a button on his holographic keyboard. A blue figure appears on the hologram which looks like me. She stands outside the perimeter of the wall that guards his place.

"Since the last time you were there, he has improved his security. He has added more guards, more laser grids, and definitely more cameras. I've pin-pointed all the cameras, what the daily rounds are for the guards and found out which parts of the house the lasers are set at so everything is taken care of." He finishes as he lays back into the couch and puts his arms behind his head.

"Ok that’s cool and all, but there is one part you're missing." I tell him, leaning forward.

"Oh? What’s that?"

"The part where you tell me the plan." I said with an innocent smile at the end.

With a slight chuckle, he leans forward to the hologram. "You'll have to go through the air vent located here behind the house and head through until it reaches its end." He points near the back of the house, "But before you can get to the vent, of course, you're going to hop this wall but this is where he added some of his lasers. In every corner of the walls are 4 sprinklers, each one a motion laser scanner. Pass through one and the alarm goes off. Anyways, the beams cover 6 feet wide across from the wall. You need to jump at least 8 feet just to stay on the safe side. But since you're incapable of doing that--"

"I can jump 7 feet thank you very much!" I interrupt him and cross my arms.

"No, you can jump 7 feet with a wire attached to your back. Thank YOU very much."

Aileen snorts out a laugh. I turn to face her and say with a cold attitude, "What are you laughing at? You can’t even jump 3 feet without a wire attached to your back!"

"Well at least I'm not the one who has to jump 8 feet WITHOUT a wire attached to my back!" she snaps back with a satisfying smile.

I mumble to myself a few curses and focus back on the hologram.

"Like I said, since you can't, I have added jet boosters to your black army combat boots and extra padding and a special material Aileen placed in to make sure the heat from the boosters doesn't burn through into your feet. After you've made it over the wall, you will need to hide behind these trees and put on some of this stuff." He tosses me a bottle what looks like to be perfume, through the hologram slightly distorting it.

"Ok so you want me to put on perfume so I can get caught or did you want me to seduce the guards?" I say as I look at the bottle. The liquid sloshing around inside is clear and overall the bottle is small, almost like a vile, with a blue cap.

"This perfume if you want to call it, makes your scent disappear so the dogs can't smell anything.
Now, you're going to sneak by them by hiding behind the trees. Also, by hiding, the cameras can't see you if you hide behind these specific trees." He pointed out to 9 different trees which he had enlarged each about a good 5 feet apart. They seem to lead to the air vent while dodging the rotating cameras and the guards. Then they went back to their normal sizes.

"When you reach the vent, use your laser pen to open it up. I suggest making a circle starting from the bottom to at least 2 inches from the top. It will cut time and it will be a lot quicker."

"Ok, next?"

"Next, you go straight until you can't anymore. Open the vent and you'll be inside the mansions 1st floor. Since he has 3, start moving up. You'll pass by a few guards and some grids. The grids and camera's I will disable so you're going to have to make your way through the guards. Make sure you get them quickly and quietly so in order to help you with that, take this ring." He said as he tosses a silver ring to me.

"Aww Alex! I didn't know you felt this way about me! I'm speechless!" I tell him as I slip it on my finger. He madly blushes and shakes his head.

"That’s not what I meant! See the ring will allow you to be invisible for only a minute. So, you're going to have to take down the guards in less than a minute."

"How long does it recharge?"

"It will only need about 20 seconds."

"Ok, suits me."

"Just keep going through and make your way to his office and it should be a done deal right there." he finishes. "It should look like this."

The hologram plays the plan with my character making it through like a video game would. Once it reaches the office of Augustus it blacks out and returns to where it was; in front of the wall.

"Amazing…. is that it?" I ask.

"That’s it! Easy enough? We should start the mission sometime in the night. It would make for perfect cover." he says as he shuts the briefcase.

"Well, its 10:40 so I'm going to sleep. C'mon Roscoe! Night y'all!" Aileen says to us and Roscoe immediately gets up and follows her to her room.

Alex heads the same way as I head towards mine. I have a 4 bedroom house each of us having our own bathroom. The house is fairly large and the kitchen and game room are the 2 biggest rooms in the house. Then mine and the other 3 bedrooms.

As I entered my room, I look to find everything also organized the way I had it this morning. I turn towards my wooden desk with the flip-able mirror attached. My eyes gaze upon it and the mirror flips over to reveal the guns. I place my hands on my gun holder and unsnapped it to pull out the silver pistol. I hold it before me between my hands and looked at my reflection. My hair had a few strands of hair popping out but it’s nothing a brush can't fix. My eyes were starting to get tired as red lines swivel in from deep inside my eye socket. Other than that, I looked like I never went outside today. I smiled and kissed it softly. As I started to pull away, horrible past memories appeared on the gun as if an old horror film was being played on a silver screen.

My face was frozen but my eyes revealed the horror and shock of my whole body as my mind rewound the hands of time to place me back into the past, where my nightmares began.

This one moment of my life.... this never forgotten event.... is what made me become who I am now.

When I was 5, I was playing with my Barbie’s in my bedroom. I had always like Teresa more because I thought she looked better than Barbie. She had beautiful clothes and gorgeous hair that went below her shoulders. She was so slim like a supermodel, and her tanned skin went perfect with any outfit.

I kept playing with her when my father, Joseph, came in, swooping me up, and twirled me in the air. Behind him was my mother, Maria, smiling like always. Even when things were bad for whatever reason, she kept on smiling. Little did she know that this would be her last real smile.

After my dad twirled me around, which felt like forever, there was a knock at the door. My mom left the room to see who it was. When she came back, her face was pale and scared as if she had looked at the face of death itself. My father placed me back down, patting my head but a very concerned expression upon his face when he saw my mother enter the room.

She pulled my dad into the corner and whispered something into his ear. I continued playing with my dolls until my dad picked me up and took me into the closet. He shut the door and opened a secret door in the ceiling.

He picked me up and pushed me inside.

"Casey, princess, I need you to stay here. Whatever you do, do not make a sound and do not come out for any reason." He told me. Something about what he said and how he said it made me feel scared and uncomfortable so I did what any 5 year old would do. I started to cry.

"Why? Tell me daddy!"

He didn't answer. He just put his finger over his lips in a hushing manner. I calmed down a bit and obeyed my father. He shut the door but it opened a bit for me to see little of my room. I sat there in the dark secret room, waiting for my father to come back. But... he never did.

Then I heard commotions so I leaned over and peeked through the crack of the opened door. I saw my mom on the bed with a face of horror.

My father was in front of her in one of his defensive fighting stances. My father was a professional boxer/martial artist. He would win most of his competitions and he got paid a good amount of money.

And then, that’s when I first saw him; the man that caused my life to end up like this. My own real boogeyman.... Augustus Neo, along with some of his lackeys.

"You haven't paid me back Joe. I mean, that broke my heart when I found out that you didn't return my money months ago. I thought we had a deal?"

"Augustus, I'll pay you back! I'm working on some more fights and-"

"So now you're trying to put it off?" Augustus sounded angry.

"NO! It’s not that! I-"

"I've been nice to you. I've given you a chance. You had more than enough time to return my money. Now, it’s too late." He snaps his fingers and 3 of his 5 men jumped my father. The other 2 grabbed my mom and pinned her to the bed. One man was upon her while the other had a rope and tied it around her wrists and her ankles to the bed post. She struggled to get free while they did this but to no avail due to the stranger’s weight and strength.

My father punched and kicked at the 3 men but started getting worn down. Then the men got up and fought him at the same time. Soon, I saw my father fall before my eyes for the first time in my life. All the fights that I've been too, my dad has never lost. He had promised me he'll never let his daughter see him fall. He broke that promise today.

They slammed his head to the floor and tied his hands and feet with another set of ropes.

Augustus grabbed his hair and yanked it up to meet his angered face.

"I liked you Joseph. Ever since I saw you fight, I had this passion- this urge to help you out. Which I eventually did and then you just betrayed my trust, OUR trust, when you didn't bring my money. So now, to pay back my money, you will pay with your life and your wife’s."

My fathers’ eyes widen as he saw Augustus pull out a 7" inch knife with the handle embedded with jewels.

"But before I kill you, I'm going to have fun with your" -he looks at my mother with a sinister grin- "beautiful wife."

She turns her head and starts to cry. I mouth out 'mommy' as tears ran down my face. My eyes were bloodshot and my fist gripped the door I was still hanging on to, watching every second of torture go by.

The men pulled my father out of the room. He called out, "MARIA! MARIA! I LOVE YOU!!"

My mom cried some more before replying, "I love you to."

They shut the door. I looked back to Augustus and my mom. He began to get on top of her and I turned my head, closed my eyes, and covered my ears, but I could still hear it. I heard my mother scream out in pain and my father still calling out her name from behind the door. I knew what Augustus was doing to her. I wasn't stupid. He was raping her.

I don't know how long I heard her scream in pain until the next thing I heard was one of the 2 sounds I will never forget. The sound of my mother’s last ear splitting scream.

I turned around to face a horrific sight. Lying there, still as an untouched lake, was my mother with the knife protruded from her chest.

Augustus chuckled at what he had done. The door opened a few moments after what Augustus was finished with.

My father was dragged in and saw his beloved wife dead on the bed. Or so he saw...

"Now Joe, it's your turn to meet your fate." he pulls out a magnum, pointing it at his head. "Any last words?"

My father turned his head at me and winked. "Go to Hell Augustus."

As fast as lightning, the gun went off with a thunderous bang.

That was the second sound still haunts me.

My dad laid motionless. His once lively brown eyes were now dark and kept looking at me with a dead gaze, blood oozing its way down my fathers face.

Augustus smiled wickedly at his own masterpiece of death.

I raised my hands to feel my cheeks. They were cold, so cold that I pulled them away. My petite body was freezing as though all the warmth had left me.

Then appearing by his side, a little boy a slightly older than me, stood by Augustus. He peered at my father’s lifeless body and looked back at Augustus.

"Can we go home now?" he said as if nothing was wrong. As if 2 dead bodies weren't lying before him, laying in their own bloody pool; knowing that they could have been parents to someone.... to me.

Augustus placed his hand on the boys shoulder. "Yes, my son."

They turned and walked out with their henchmen trailing behind them. When I heard the front door closed, I waited for about five minutes until I jumped down, landing on my feet like a cat would. Pain then surged up my legs and I let out a yelp. I waited until it had subsided.

When it did, I walked over to my father and kneeled beside him. Tears once again flowed freely down my face as I placed my 2 fingers on his eyelids and closed his eyes. Then, I heard my name being called softly from my bed.

My mother’s voice was so soft I barely even heard her. I got up and walked to her. Her eyes burned with tears and the knife still in place.

"C-Casey," she stuttered as blood spat out her mouth, "you m-must find Asuki and her s-sister Haruno. T-they will t-take care of you. We love you C-Casey." she tried to smile and then closed her eyes.

I put my head on the bed and cried. Then something sparked in my small mind.

"I swear to you Augustus, on my parent’s bloody grave, that you will die next.”