Masquerade

"Is it time to go, young master?"

"Oh, yeah..." The boy muttered as he shut the limousine door, laying his backpack on the plush leather seat. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Marcus, but I'm now ready when you are." The driver nodded, adjusted the rear-view mirror, and started out of the gated mansion.

My name is Andrew Maxwell, and the scary looking guy in the driver's seat is Marcus Vihone. He's kind of a bodyguard specifically for me, you could say... because my father is a paranoid tobacco executive. He gets a ton of death threats, and so each member of the Maxwell familly is well-protected... "Hey Marcus, do you hear that?" The older man took a questioning look at the rear-view mirror, "No, young master?" The boy stroked his chin before peering out one of the back windows silently.

Anyway, Marcus here is driving me to a new school where I'll probably be introduced as an exchange student. We moved here from Florida, you see, and even though it's the middle of the school year... well, my dad is a pretty influential guy as you might have guessed. And I'm really wondering if YOU hear that-

One of the many limousines of the Maxwell family spun out of control as a speeding car crashed into the right side. "Hang on, Andrew!" Marcus shouted during the chaos as he turned the wheel in a desperate attempt to maneuver out of the accident. "Marcus," Andrew yelled back as he bounced violently in the seatbelt, the corner of his eye catching something horrifying out of the window. "On your left!" Marcus made the mistake of looking, and the last thing he saw was part of a truck slicing through the the center of his head. The semi ate through the left side of the limousine as Andrew was miraculously seated on the right. The speeding car that hit them in the first place slammed into a fire hydrant, and the truck swerved uncontrollably to land on its side, but the limousine rammed through the outer wall of a building. Andrew was knocked unconscious.

The boy awoke suddenly with his seatbelt missing, leaving him hanging out of the cleaved portion of the limousine. Grunting and sighing in pain, he miserably tried to heave himself to a stand on the pavement, and then remembered he wasn't alone in that crash. The only thing left of Marcus Vihone, however, was sprawled out on the street with the side of the vehicle that the truck ripped apart. "T-this seriously can't be happening..." Andrew turned to the car that had hit them in the first place with an angry stare, and wobbily made his way over to murder the bastard who killed his friend. He threw himself against the door on the driver's side of the car, and looked inside to find that the person was a dark-haired young man whose body was morbidly twisted. Despite witnessing this gruesome sight and the debris impaled in the young man's chest, Andrew's eyes were drawn to a rather unimpressive looking (but strangely alluring) book laying on the man's lap.

"What's... this," Andrew made his way inside the car and over the stranger's lap, his hands reaching for the book as if it were a surgical instrument. Suddenly the man's eyes snapped open and his once lifeless hands shot around the boy's neck, squeezing with an inhuman strength for someone who should be dead. Andrew gasped in shock and grabbed his wrists with both hands, but the man wouldn't stop. "You leave it alone, you little bastard! You won't have it! Not you or anyone else! This is mine... it's mine..." The man tightened his grasp until the insanity in his tone gave way, the life in his voice fell, and his eyes abruptly rolled into the back of his head. Andrew breathed heavily after his assailant's hands fell lifelessly from his neck, and quickly fled the scene in terror as police sirens filled the area. He had the book clutched in his arms.

“Target located.”

Deep blue eyes peered from the high roof of the scene, memorizing each gruesome scene and most especially the poor, innocent victim. She hung on a very steep ledge seemingly draped over whatever she could put her limbs on, looking almost delicate in nature. Her long auburn hair flew with the direction of the wind with a small, satisfied smile on her face. As the sirens sung through the area and men began to exit their vehicles to assess the situation, she began to make her way down her restful position to sneak back into the dilapidated abandoned apartment where her equipment were displayed.

Onto the corner of the small room, an elaborate system with a simple desk and three large LED monitors side by side. With it were three different video feeds, one in an empty and extravagant room, another was a black screen and lastly was a moving frame that showed a street.

The woman typed a few commands and the image changed, slowly changing every so often as she analyzed them. A frown crept up her delicate looking face, quickly taking the long trench coat and scarf from the lone chair in front of the desk. She wore the garments as she walked back out of the window, quickly but carefully making her way downwards by jumping on the fire escape staircase.

As her foot touched the ground, her posture changed to a more forgettable, fleeting character. Codename Hannah.


It took roughly thirty minutes to reach her destination, a less impressive building with the words ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ graffiti on the wall. As if it was any indication, a young blonde haired woman stood by the door, her hands on her hips and decked in make-up too thick for her face. Yet when Hannah approached her, her whole demeanor changed and suddenly they were staring at each other.

“He’s out in th’ back.” The blonde muttered, eying her in disdain.

“Thank you, Tiffany.” Hannah smiled mockingly and made her own way inside, albeit a bit forcefully. The two men in the small inner room almost growled at her but let her through.

Five minutes of pure left, right and several turns later, she reached a dead-end. Her fingers prodded on the cement wall and felt a different textured spot. A gun emerged from her coat, as she pointed it at the certain hole and shot it. The wall collapsed and a yelp of pain was heard from behind the wall.

Six men were in a large room, one on the ground holding his bleeding shoulder.

“What the fuck, Hannah?” He hissed, the large muscled man darting evil faces at her while another man tied a cloth tight on the wound.

“Haha, why Robert, I believe you owe me my fifty bucks.” Jonathan who was at the corner on the room in front of six large computer screens said from his chair. His sandy colored hair was hidden under his grey beanie and his smiling green eyes hidden behind the thick glasses.

“Fuck off Jon, Patrick is just too big a target.” Robert groaned, handing over the money.

“Gene, I need my results.” She muttered, ignoring the other inhabitants in the room.

“Hannah, I would appreciate if you were not to shoot any more of my employees.”

“Amen.” Patrick growled from the background.

Gene a clean-cut looking man with glasses sighed, handing her a file and an envelope. “I don’t know your interest in this kid, but he’s clean. Believe it or not he’s just a normal high school kid.” As he told her his findings, Hannah smiled at him the entire time. It made him uncomfortable and had him fidgeting like a nervous puppy.

The newly bandaged up man hissed as he poked the gaping hole on his shoulder. He took his chair back, with a single computer screen in front of it. Robert leaned on the wall beside him with a gun in hand. He had short jet black hair, neat and clean. Turning his attention to the lady in the room, he proceeded to ask. “Well, the kids a brat, that’s for sure. But what interest would you have in him?”

It was a challenge. Hannah always liked him, he was a gambler and she always liked to win. “Care to make a wager?”

As was the nature of men and in this particular man, they will always take a challenge.

The boy attracted very little attention even as he staggered down the sidewalk in a bloodied student's uniform. People brushed past him without a care in the world. The blue-haired youth ducked into an alleyway and slid down the wall while breathing heavily. He had no idea why he fled from the scene or where he was going, but he knew he couldn't go back home to face the gruesome accident that just unfolded.

Andrew Maxwell grew up under the care of the man who had just died driving him to school. His father and mother were business executives who never tended to his needs or feelings. They only cared for their respective empires, and how they could make him the model son to show off to other executives. Andrew was unsure why all of these memories were swimming in his head and he was even more unsure of why he had the black book from the accident in his hands. It seemed as if he was in a trance and as he stared at the book, all of his pent-up feelings flowed out of him.

It was hours after he was supposed to attend class that he finally showed up to school in new clothes; a dark green jacket, black shirt, and brown cargo pants. He was also wearing a backpack that was not his own. Smiling to himself as he navigated the new school, he found the teacher and made up an elaborate excuse that cleared his absence. He was satisfied meeting faculty and fellow students before leaving. On his way home, he stopped by a park to enjoy some fresh air.

It was after six when Andrew finally returned home. He kept his backpack on as he strode into the livingroom and there waiting for him was a rare sight. "Welcome home, darling," his mother greeted him with a smile, and his father stared at him with that stern expression of his. "Where have you been?"

He blinked, "At school of course. Marcus never picked me up, so I had to walk there and back. Why? Shouldn't you two be at work?" Setting down his backpack, he took a seat on the couch and faced his parents who looked at each other uneasily. "Andrew... Marcus is dead. He was in... a violent car accident..." His mother broke into tears and his father spoke, "We were worried sick when the police contacted us. We thought you were in the car! Why didn't you-" Andrew cut in, "I... I didn't know, but Marcus! Why the hell didn't anyone try to contact me?!" He lunged from the couch and grabbed the lapels of his father's shirt. "You bastard! You knew how much Marcus meant to me! He was more a father than you ever were or will be..." He pushed him away and ran upstairs after grabbing his backpack.

“Why do we keep letting her in?” Patrick hissed again at his wound, giving Gene a raised brow. “Just last week she murdered Wilson, he was your cousin.”

Gene sighed and took a seat, glancing at his monitor screen while rubbing the back of his neck. There had been a twinge there for the last few minutes. “I don’t see us having any other choice, really. You’ve all seen what she can do. What she will do.”

Robert from his own seat nodded, however there was that attractive side to her that made him want to play with her. Something about dangerous women, he thought and grinned to himself.

“Besides, if we remain useful to her, perhaps she’ll leave us alone.” He tried to comfort them though the attempt was lost on them. They simply continued working in silence after that.

“We’re not her type of victims,” Jonathan hummed from his keyboards, “besides I think she just comes to mess with Gene. She’s perfectly capable of doing that crap herself. “

“Great.” Gene groaned from the back.


Hannah was on a tree. An arm was hanging on a branch, sitting sideways on a larger mass of wood while she stared at the dim window lights. The window was large, extravagant and incredibly liberating for her, it gave so much vision and access. The security cameras continued their endless sweep, but the trees heavy foliage hid her figure within the dark shadows.

Clean, Gene had told her, the word echoing in her head like a broken record on replay. Fascination led her on that tree, on her research and meticulous sweeping of his life. Everything seemed so normal, so perfectly disguised in the plain eye. It was genius. The hacked audio feed on the house began to feed her vocals, a fight between father and son, his storming out and now his quiet solitude.

Perhaps she would get a greeting.

Andrew locked the door to his room and staggered to his desk as if in a trance. His heart started beating faster as he laid the book down on the desk before taking a seat in front of it. His hands were shaking as he fumbled to open it up, and his wounds from the crash were starting to ache. He felt so many things in his head and in his body that confusion was dominant. The only certainty he could find in his thoughts was an extreme curiosity about the book he stole from a crime scene for no apparent reason.

He started reading the first page without hesitation and his eyes widened with each morbid word:
"I never was liked in school and there was one boy who always looked at me with great disdain. He soon looked at me with fear because my hatred for his prejudice against me grew and grew into this firey ball that consumed him. It was his own fault really. I still remember the look in his eye as I stood before him with the most satisfying grin I could muster. He squirmed so-"

A knock on the door. "Young Master, dinner is prepared. Will you be dining with us?"

"Uh-uhm..." Andrew struggled to find the words as he quickly closed the book and shoved it in his drawer. "I... I'm not really hungry right now, but thank you Antoinette."

The young woman smiled warmly to herself on the other side of the door and replied with her thick french accent, "As you wish, Young Master. Please let me know when you are hungry. By your leave then."

He heard the steps as she walked away and then sagged back in his chair. "What came over me just then...?" He looked up at the ceiling for a few contemplative moments before standing up to stretch. "Egh... I really should have went to the hospital..." He turned on his computer and then went to lay down, but a strange feeling washed over him. It was a feeling unlike that of the trance he felt earlier. It felt almost as if he was being watched and as a bead of sweat rolled from his brow, he turned his head to the single large window in his room. He couldn't see anything from where he was standing, but the feeling was still there and growing stronger. He swallowed audibly while slowly approaching the window and then he pushed it open as if to surprise whatever was out there. He was greeted by a bird that descended out of nowhere and onto his outstretched hand. "H-hey little guy... you nearly scared the crap out of me," he smiled and started stroking the bird's chest with a finger, but slowly the smile fell and his eyes narrowed darkly.

"Stay free," he muttered as the bird let out a cry before flying off abruptly.

It was just an ordinary day for Hannah, perching on a tree in different positions and angles to obtain the best view. She could see Marcus perfectly from her vantage point. He seemed distressed, confused, calm and scared all at once. The bird soon flew away, Hannah eyeing it with narrowed eyes. She threw a dart that was kept in her belt, and it hit the little creature. Just some good fun, she thought delightfully. She continued to observe him, paranoia growing at each second. She obtained a small screen, around the size of a phone. It gave a view of his room from a corner. Generally she could see everything. He stood by the window and she took another dart from her belt. She threw it just past his hair, the dart hitting the ground. Hannah watched her screen calmly with the most playful expression on her face.

His eyes widened as the dart flew by. He could have died just then because he was far too slow to react. He pushed that thought out of his mind because right now, he had to get to safety. He threw himself at the window and fumbled with closing it before nearly falling back in panic. He was sweating profusely as the thought again reared its ugly head.

He could have died.

He caressed his throat and for a moment, he thought about things that he would have never thought about before. And he felt this overwhelming anger at the thrower of that dart. He spun on his heel and fell to the floor with his face just inches away from the dart, as if to investigate it closely, but he was just a kid. He tried to tell himself that, but as he looked at the dart, he saw details about it and heard information that just swirled endlessly in his head.

And then all Hannah saw or heard was static. She lost sight of Andrew. Inside his room, he had just swept all the bugs she planted and used gloves to safely secure the dart in a baggy that he'd place inside his jacket pocket. He took the journal too and stormed out of his room. He passed the maid on his way out of the house, but she caught a look of his eyes and was too terrified to speak. He closed the front door quietly behind himself before his parents could realize he was gone and then he was away, his jacket zipped up to his mouth and his hood covering his face.

Hannah laughed silently to herself, incredibly amused at the meerkat-like reaction. All he was missing as a hole to hide in and burrow deep. She rose form her seat and crawled on the steep edge of the branch, luckily the tree was old enough to carry her weight as she landed on the balcony. Now that the security was turned off or broken, courtesy of Alex, Hannah peered at him from the window.

It wasn't unsightly, her legs were covered in skin-tight spandex up to her ankles and waist. She wore a simple black tank top with her orange auburn hair lose.

"Alex..." She called out from the window. "Show me something interesting..."

Andrew glanced back before ducking into an alleyway and behind a dumpster. If anyone was following, he'd hear their footsteps and catch a glimpse. Silence. He tugged down on his hood to cover his eyes and pocketed his hands before walking quickly down the dark path. He looked back again and didn't see anything, so he proceeded along the winding path until it spit him out into an abandoned street. "Further than I thought..." He muttered before running across and slowly walking up the steps of a humble apartment. He glanced around, exhaled deeply, and then gently knocked on the door.

"Hello dearie," came a gentle female voice from the other side of the door. It sounded like an older woman. One of her eyes was peering at him through the peephole. "What can I do for you?"

"I heard you were baking cookies today, grandma," he said carefully, hands naturally falling out of his pockets to show he was unarmed. The door clicked and then swung open for only a moment. He stepped in quickly and it shut behind him. He was then shoved against the door and the muzzle of a sawed off shotgun was staring him in the face.

"How do you know that phrase, dearie?" The voice behind the gun belonged to an old woman indeed and one who could easily pass for a grandmother. She looked normal, with bushy gray hair and a pink apron, but she was holding a gun.

"What, don't even recognize your own son now? Don't tell me you've gone senile, old hag," he mused with one hand wrapping itself around the shotgun and forcibly moving it out of his face. He was surprised by the confidence in his words and actions, but this wasn't him, was it? He had never met this woman before.

Meanwhile, her eyes widened. "It... can't be. The hell is going on here, boy?"

He grinned and motioned towards the kitchen, "Why don't we discuss it over a cup of tea and some of those cookies... mother?"

Andrew's departure was a pleasant surprise. This allowed her to open the doors from his balcony and enter the non-assuming residence and take a good look on the premises. His erratic behavior since the accident was a curious note and the young boy was becoming a person of interest. The security cameras scoping around his room and balcony were either destroyed or tampered with. He removed some of her own hidden bugs but failed to get all of them.

It didn't matter all too much, as she had her own eyes on him at that moment. The room was filled with no emotion, no personality just a large extravagant room fit for the young master. Hannah's fingers expertly caressed the wall checking for hidden compartments and lightly knocking on the wall for shallow sounds. After her initial sweep on his room she opened the door to his room. The hallway security was taken care of, naturally as she closed his door.

Footsteps seemed impossible to hear due to the fluffy carpet they had installed on the floor. It seemed like a huge hassle to clean. Well, Hannah smiled while looking at the fur carpet, I suppose it doesn't matter if they don't have to do it.

Hannah hurried across the long corridor to the other side. She ambushed a maid in an opportunistic attack and left her in the closet, unconscious and possibly gravely ill. Sporting a new outfit in the dashing grey-colored attire, Hannah's posture calmed. The man of the house was out and his office was ripe for the taking. Surprisingly it was unlocked, Hannah wondered if he was comfortable enough to live in true security. There was the obvious safe, papers stacked on the mahogany desk and several important looking items decorated the room.

Now, it was time to collect the loot.

Andrew walked into the livingroom and glanced at a picture on the fireplace mantel. He frowned while glancing over his shoulder, "Still clinging to the past?"

The old woman followed him in after grabbing a cigar from the box on the cabinet in the hall. "As are you, boy. What are ya doin' here? Thought I made it clear I never wanted to see ya 'gain."

He shrugged with a smirk, "And you don't see me. What you see, my dear mother, is Andrew Maxwell."

The woman's eyes widened as the cigar almost fell out of her mouth. "Maxwell...? Of the Tobacco Empire? Ya can't possibly mean that Maxwell..." She sat on the couch as if in disbelief, the shotgun almost falling out of her hand.

"The very same," he picked up the picture frame on the fireplace mantel and narrowed his eyes. She saw his determined expression and sat back with the shotgun lying across her lap. "Jack..." She began with a sigh, "She's dead, my boy. No amount'a bloodshed... or tears... will bring her back." She took a lighter out of her apron pocket and lit the cigar, taking a drag as silence descended upon the room. She was the one to break it. "I made... a mistake shuttin' you out, Jack. I see that now. I realized it years ago... that livin' in the past ain't do ya no good."

He gently set the picture back down on the mantel and his fingers lingered over the image of the young girl in the picture before he turned his back on it. "Listen, I didn't come here for your hypocritical bullshit about forgive and forget!" He took a deep breath and lowered his voice, "I'm being watched... or rather, Andrew Maxwell is. Somebody threw this at him," he pulled out the baggy from his jacket that held the dart inside and showed it to her. "I need it analyzed so I know what I'm dealing with."

She looked at it for a moment before setting it gently on the couch beside her. "Jack... I... fine, I'll look into it. But how... how is this possible?" She looked up at him and he turned away, pulling the hood down over his eyes. He then walked to the entrance of the livingroom and said quietly, "If I told you, Ma, I'd have to kill you."

She laughed while caressing the shotgun, "Well then, guess all I gotta do is my part in whatever the hell this is..." She looked at the boy's back and frowned, "Jack... be careful."

He waved over his shoulder and left without another word.

Meanwhile...
"What are you doing in here, Miss Antoinette?"
Margarette Maxwell stood at the doorway to her husband's office and stared at the maid's back before realizing she didn't have the hair or build that Antoinette had. "Oh my... you aren't her. Did my husband hire you?" Margarette was a beautiful woman, but a little dense. She had long blonde hair that spilled over her back, shoulders, and breasts, and baby blue eyes that gleamed wonderfully in any light. But she was dense. Many believed she merely acted that way to get to where she was - the wife and confidant of a highly successful businessman - but there were others still who thought she was just Christopher Maxwell's all-too-willing nymphomaniac.