I'm a...Twin?!

Chapter 12

"Dad, where are we going to go?" I asked nervously as I threw stuff into my suitcase. It was a verily small suitcase full of my greatest possessions, mostly involving volleyball accessories, but I had a few other outfits and toiletries in there too along with my laptop and iPod.

"Far away, sweetheart," his deep bass voice echoed from the hallway, where he had gone to let me change my clothes and gather my possessions. "We need to find a new place to hide you where Zemlicka won't find us."

"Are we still going to try and get Andrew back?" I wondered. My suitcase was now ready to be loaded in the bumblebee camaro with out other stuff so I lifted it off the bed and pulled it toward where my father stood waiting for it.

"We won't ever stop, Alleah," he said with a warm smile. I knew how fake the smile was from the look in his eyes. He was really struggling severely and it broke my heart. Who wouldn't be with a situation like his?

"Dad?" I asked again, though it sounded almost more like a coo than a question.

"What is it, honey?"

"You know, you don't always have to act so strong. You're always going to be my hero for all that you've had to put up with, especially for this long," I told him, comforting him with my arm, which I wrapped around his strong waist.

There was a moment of silence before I noticed a tear sneaking down his cheek. His soft green eyes had become moisturized with globs of tears and he looked at me with hurt pulsing from them like a heart beat. I felt some drops on my shoulder, but I didn't care. He needed to cry. Crying always made me feel better during hard times and now my father needed to cry.

It took a while of walking and some silence from his quiet crying before he finally made a noise.

"I know, sweetheart, but sometimes....sometimes I do have to be this strong," he sighed, wiping away his tears with his free hand. "I just don't know what I ever did to deserve any of this awful misery."

This caught me off guard. How could he even assume he deserved this? He hadn't done anything wrong in his whole life. He's always been trying for the good and this horrible thing never should have happened. But thanks to a selfish beast, it now had and what a nightmare it truly was.

"You didn't do anything, Dad," I finally spoke up. "Sometimes bad things happen to good people. And you are definitely a good person. You're the best in my life."

"Thank you, Alleah," he smiled, sniffling a little. "You're the best in my life too and this is why I am terrified to lose you again."

"It's okay, Dad. We will do anything in our power to avoid it. And if I do get captured, I promise I won't return without Andrew. I will make him believe us."

"But what if he-"

"Dad, we can't think about what ifs at the moment. We can only think about what we can do. Alright?"

"Okay, love," he nodded, breathing heavily to get calm. We were almost to the garage now where our stuff would be loaded. Barry and Phil were going to take the Mustang so that we would have two cars, but now it was just a matter of who was going in what car.

"Alleah," my father said, brightening up a little with a small chuckle. "I know you're going to hate me for this but I need to talk to you about something."

A bolt of fear shot down my spine. "About what?"

He looked amused. "Well, you see, dear, I think that you and I should not be together in the same car, as much as that is going to kill me, because Zemlicka will guess that you're with me, seen as how he knows how dearly I care about you."