Chapter 22

------------San Francisco, California.

------------------------ next morning.

Sophia

I tried adjusting my eyes to the brightness of the room. The reflection from the sun made everything look so bright. I tried moving my arms and legs but they were restricted. I was tied up to a chair, my whole body was tied up. I was so weak, and pale, I was so dehydrated and my mouth and lips were dry. My head hurt a lot. How was I even brought here?, the driver was actually Carlos, why wouldn't I be here. I looked around the room as I adjusted a strand of my hair with air as I blew towards it with my mouth, It was blocking my view. The room was darker on the insides, it was an uncompleted building, It was pretty big. There were some construction materials scattered everywhere. I looked around the building again and found another tied up figure across the room. It was a male figure.

"Hey" I tried yelling but it came out as a whisper. I tried rocking my chair to make a little noise. There was no way I could get loose from this thing. I was stranded here. What could they want from me this time. " Hey" I called again and tried shaking my body from the tight ropes. I heard some groans from the man on the other side and I yelled again. " Ouch, where is this place?" Neill, that was Neill that was his voice. They took him too. " Neill" I called again. " S....Sophia" I heard him groan as he called out my name. " Neill! Are you okay?" I called as I tried shaking again. " What are you doing here?" he groaned again. I could feel that he was in pain. More than I was.

" Well, you're not the only one that was kidnapped" I answered as I tried shaking the chair to go a little bit further. " My head hurts a lot Soph" He groaned again. He must've hit his head as he was brought here. " Sorry" I called as I looked for something I could use to cut through the ropes. There was nothing I could reach.

I looked towards the door as I heard some footsteps coming towards where we were put. The door finally creaked open and a female figure appeared, she walked towards us. " Who are you?" I asked her as she untied my ropes. She didn't answer. She wasn't American, her face looked like one of those Korean models. She had brown long curly hair. She untied me and I felt a little bit at ease that I could move my arms, but she took out another smaller ropes and tied my hands up. " Who sent you here?, was it Carlos?" I asked as she walked towards Neill. She untied him too and told him to get up and he obeyed with a stagger. " Get up girl" She ordered me too and I obeyed. She pushed us out of the room and we headed out. We were at the top of the building, it looked like a four or five storey building. Like that of a mall. We walked towards the stairs when I sighted some police cars coming towards us. It was pretty clear that they were the ones.

" Don't move, let them go and surrender your weapons, you are surrounded" We heard one of the policemen say. His voice sounded like that of director Malcom's. I felt her hold around my neck tighten as she let go of Neill making him fall to the ground. He looked so pale and stressed out. I'm not sure he had enough energy to run. " Come any closer and they're dead" I heard her say as I felt a gun above my right ear. I didn't want to die now, not even like this. She dragged Neill up from the ground and held him by the neck too. " Put your gun down" we heard Director Malcom say again. I suddenly felt the lady stagger back due to the hit she got from Neill. She still held on to me as she and Neill fought for the gun. She finally let me go and pushed me towards the wall. I couldn't watch my brother fight her alone like that. They were still struggling towards the open edge of the floor with Neill on the wide open end when we heard a gunshot come from them. I felt something in me, a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. I looked towards Neill and found blood escaping his lips. No, this wasn't happening. The lady let go of me and my eyes widened in shock and fear as Neill fell down the building. " Neill!" I screamed almost instantly as I ran towards where he fell. He had already reached the ground. It was a very far distance. I couldn't lose my brother now. No, he needed to survive this. I looked towards the Korean lady and found her on the ground and the gun was a little bit away from where she was. I had never been as angry as I was right now. I quickly took the gun that was away from her and aimed it at her in anger. I was going to lose my brother all because of her, he was always beside me and now here he was, he was dying. The thought of me never seeing Neill again made me pull the trigger at her angrily. I couldn't count the number of times I shot her, I was just pouring out all my anger for her killing my brother. The police finally arrived and collected the gun from me. I had killed her, out of anger. I was a murderer. I killed someone. I ran down the stairs to meet Neill, only the Lord knew how badly I wanted to jump down and meet him too. I couldn't lose Neill. Neil bunny.

I finally got down the stairs and found him being pushed towards the ambulance on a stretcher. "Neill" I cried as I got to him. " Neill, please, don't leave me, don't leave us, Neill please, please" I cried again. His eyes were closed but he still had a pulse. He needed to survive this. I got into the ambulance with him. " He needs immediate surgery, administer CPR" I heard a paramedic say as they drove out of the scene. We were losing him. " Neill" I cried again as I watched him slowly open his eyes. " Faa....Far...Faryah" why was he calling Faryah's name. How could Faryah be the last thing he could think of?. " Neill?" I called as I cleaned my eyes. " S..So..Soph... I...II... Far..Faryah" He said again before finally closing his eyes. No. Noo. " We're losing him" I heard a paramedic say again. " Noooo!, Neill, Noo!" I screamed as the tears ran out my eyes profusely. No!

We finally got to the hospital and I went with him until I was stopped before the OR. Neill was going to try to survive. I knew he could. I looked around the hospital and I didn't find it familiar. We weren't in LA. My phone wasn't with me. I had no way to contact my mother or father now. I took a seat at the front of the OR, to calm myself down from the events that happened. My head hurt a lot. I needed to hear good news or else I was going to lose it.

The doctor finally came out of the OR after like ten minutes and I jumped up to hear from him. " How's he?" I asked the doctor as I tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. " Are you a relative of the patient?" He asked again. There were some questions I found unnecessary in some situations. " Yes, I'm his sister" I answered with the tears pouring down.

" I'm sorry" No. " We did all we could" No. " We lost him" No.

No.

This couldn't be true.

----------- Los Angeles, California.

--------------- Same Morning

I slowly opened my eyes and tried adjusting them to the brightness of the hospital lights. The last thing I could remember was myself being shot and that I fell to the ground. I looked at the face that was in front of me as I adjusted my eyes to the brightness. " Ella" I whispered as I called her name. She was right in front. Her smell made me want to hug her tight and never let go of her.

" You're awake, I'll call the doctor in charge, give me a minute" she said as I took in a deep breath. There was a horrible sting in my stomach. It hurt badly. " Ouch" I groaned as I placed my hand on where I was shot and tried relaxing better on the hospital bed. Ella finally came with another male doctor as he examined my eyes and mouth as he asked me a few questions. " Your wound will heal very soon, you just need to eat properly and in the next two weeks you'll be out of here" he said as he smiled at me weirdly. I nodded and he finally left.

Pamela had come back to me, I was expecting this, but I wasn't really hyped up about it. " Are you okay?" she asked as she sat carefully on my bed. " Yeah, the wound hurts though, where are the others?" I asked again as I watched her facial expression change. Normally Mother was supposed to be the one here and Sophia too. " How's Faryah?" I asked again as I looked closely at her. She was trying to hide the sadness she was feeling inside. What was really going on?. The door creaked open and GrandPa Julius walked in. " oh he's awake" he called as he walked towards where I laid. " Yea he is" She sounded like she was going to cry. " Pamela what's wrong?, GrandPa where's Mother and Sophia?" I asked as GrandPa pulled a stool to sit beside my bed. " Khalid, a lot happened after you were shot, a lot" GrandPa began. They should've probably arrested Mrs Ji Hae Soo by now.

" Sophia and Neill were kidnapped before you were shot" What the!. " How did that happen?" I asked as I looked at him sternly. " Sophia's body guards reported that the driver driving them yesterday was actually indeed Carlos and Neill's bodyguard's were shot and Neill was taken too" He added. " Khalid calm down" Ella tried consoling. My siblings weren't safe. At all. I was getting angry, very angry. " Who took them?" I asked again to be sure. " The same people that tried killing you and Faryah" They tried killing Faryah again. After all what she had gone through. They still tried killing her again. Those bastards. " Was it Carlos?"

" Yes, Carlos and another lady, your mother caught them luckily, the police followed them and unluckily they ran into a terrible accident, their car exploded. Carlos died according to the police and the other lady almost survived but she died" GrandPa added. " How's Faryah?" I asked again. " She's stable, miraculously" Thank Goodness. I sighed out of relief immediately I heard those words. " Your mother, father and Sandra are on their way to San Francisco, that's where your siblings were taken to, the police were able to track the Van that took your siblings there down. They'll be fine" He added again. I had a bad feeling about him saying that they were going to be fine. I had this bad feeling my guts about all this.

" Did they manage to arrest the Green Viper?" Before I was shot, Director Malcom informed us that they were going to be sending information to the Korean Police Force. " No, she fled, but her hideout was infiltrated, a lot of children were found, thousands of children were rescued, some of her men were shot and some were caught, but She Fled, they lost her" he sounded disappointed. We weren't completely safe. Even though she had fled, she was going to attack us soon enough. " Jake was arrested last night and everyone is on alert for the green viper. She'll be caught soon, well hopefully" he added.

" No news from them yet?" I asked again. " No not yet"

" Khalid you should calm down, they'll be fine" Pamela consoled as she gave me a light hug. " I am feeling bad about something, I just have this bad feeling" I replied.

Grandpa’s phone finally rang and he answered almost instantly. " Yes, Son how are they?" He was talking to Brandon. " Put it on speaker" I whispered to him and watched as he did. " Father" Brandon was crying. I knew something was wrong. " Son, what's wrong?" GrandPa asked. " Brandon" I called. " Neill.." no! No please. " What happened to Neill?" GrandPa asked. " He's dead"

Oh lord No. Why!, why!. How could I possibly live without my brother, Neill bunny. He was gone. I honestly couldn't believe this. It was too hard to believe. Neill was gone. For good. There was no turning back.

It was really hard to believe.