Kill Or Be Killed

Chapter 4

Jordan Kleizmick,

I thought rich people were supposed to be resilient. And you're the son of the richest of them all. So why are you still moping like a dog without its treats?

I'm sorry for Julia. I really am. But that happened three weeks ago. Honestly, I expected you to move on by now. Or fight back. But no. You still spend every day sitting in this dull hospital room, waiting for your sister to wake up.

It's depressing.

Luckily, I have a distraction for you. It might even spur you back into action. I think you can recall when I had Vera shift through your house, looking for info. Vera had found very useful information, but it wasn't anything I didn't already know. So, it's your job to pick up where she left off. Get information from your father. And it better be good, or there will be consequences.

And if you even try to hold back on anything you had learned, I will know. Remember, you may have found that you're mere pawns in a game, but that doesn't mean you've left the board. Your fates still lie in my palm.

Tread wisely.

-Secret Keeper

My shoes clicked against the marble floor, following a steady rhythm as my footsteps echoed down the long hall, only stopping to let a few doctors with a gurney pass by. Their wheels scraped across the floor, bouncing through the hollow space in my ears. The sound was consuming, like nails on a chalkboard. Or on a coffin. I shuddered and continued down the hall, trying to keep my thoughts from straying too far into the deep end.

At the end of the hall, a few guards stood on either side of a single door. I gave a stiff nod and pushed through the translucent door. Another hall extended on the other side, not much different from the one I had just been in, except this one was wider and much more quiet. No doctors rushed by, no hushed voices and whispers drifted through the halls as family members worried for their loved ones. Only a receptionist sat behind a desk to my left clacking away in the empty space. She glanced at me once and her lips had quirked upwards at the ends ever so slightly before her eyes flicked back to the computer. 

I kept walking, pushing away thoughts of the place's emptiness. I was accustomed to the vacant feeling one got in a place too big or too quiet. It was where I had lived, thrived even, all these years. In a house much too big for five people, separate presidential suites on vacations, private jets that had been divided into rooms. In hospital rooms that had been tucked away in the farthest corner of the private ward. So why had it bothered me now?

Perhaps its the lack of decoration, I thought as I pressed on. The place was most definitely made to reinforce the stereotypical pure white hospital and I was not enjoying it. At last, I had approached a door marked "Room 132" and braced myself for what I knew was about to come. It happened every time I stepped into her room and the only thing that saved me was focus.

The metal knob felt cold and hard as I twisted and pushed open, stepping into the scene of my brother's death.

The trees extended around us as Julia and I ran. Our hands and feet shook, but we pushed ourselves further and further, not daring to stop as the police sirens rang in our ears. And then we were walking through the same hallways I had journeyed through just moments before, my hands clasped in Julia's in a silent promise: we wouldn't speak a word. And then I was walking into Jason's room as the doctors filed out the door, giving his family time to mourn the death of a  beloved.

But Jason wasn't dead. It was all an elaborately drawn illusion, a trick employed by a magician's hand. And we were the ones clapping and throwing our money as a rabbit hopped out of an empty box. But it wasn't empty, only adorned with a mirror cleverly angled by the magician just a mirror of illusion had been placed in front of our eyes. Jason was the magician and we were the fools.

My thoughts, which had been filled of despair just a few seconds earlier, were now brimmed with rage. Jason was the reason I was, here standing in my sister's hospital room, his hospital room, as she lied still on the white mattress. He hid everything from us and left, not caring that we were siblings, that we would be connected no matter what. He dove into the deepest trench, right in the middle of the prowling sharks, forgetting of the cuffs wrapped around our ankles, connecting each of us with a metal chain. He decided to drown in the water, and we drowned with him.

But when had Jason cared? It was always the next party or next golden opportunity with him. Always about how to be a golden boy, not a brother. Did he even regret his actions? Was he lying awake, tossing and turning in the bed, staring out into the dark night, thinking of the siblings he had left behind? No. I doubted it. He probably didn't even care that we believed we had killed him.

I hated this, all of it. And my brother was right in the center.

Jason will burn for what he had done. I'll make sure of it.

The memories of that day faded as they were turned into rage and bottled, building up until they were to be expelled. I turned my focus back to the room around me. The amount of white was, once again, sickening. Florescent lights cast down on the room, basking it in a deathly light. Julia laid on the bed, brown hair sprawled across the pillows in stark contrast of her bleached surroundings. A tangle of wires connected her body to the numerous machines surrounding her. A ventilator covered half of her bruised face. Bandages extended down the length of her arms, barely revealing any skin. I remembered the open cuts that blood spilled out of as I held her limp body in my arms.

No.

I shook my head. I couldn't think about that night. I would break all over again. Pushing a chair closer to her bed, I sat by her side, resting my hand on her arm, staring at her unmoving body in silence. Her eyes flickered in the barest of movements, but I payed it no heed.

Julia hadn't woken up in nearly three weeks. She would move, sometimes wrap her fingers around my hands, move her eyes frantically, sometimes even open them, but she never woke up. But yet, everyday all of us visited her in shifts, hoping that it might be the day, that a miracle would happen. That our sweet Julia would come back. But she never did. She just seemed to be getting worse and worse, the life slowly draining out of her.

Still, we tried to take care of her to the best of our ability. Dad would come in the mornings, stare silently or accompanied with world-renowned doctors that he had spent the last few weeks hunting down. None of them had an answer for her revival. Vera would replace the flowers by her bed at around ten during her free period. Alyssa often came by during her lunch period and read the "get well soon" notes aloud to her while keeping her up to date with all the latest news and gossip. Tyler told her jokes in the evenings and left a various number of car keys on her bedside table. He'd even offered to give her his prized possession and world's fastest car if she woke up. I would simply sit by her side and hold her hand in silence. It was the most I could bring myself to do.

I sighed and rested my head gently on the side of her bed, the drowsiness seeping into my eyes. Homework and trying to find Jason had kept me awake too long and even when I did sleep it was restless, interrupted by strange visions of Jason crawling out of his grave, hands covered in blood, or Julia calling out in the dark, always near but just out of my reach. But sleep came easily to the steady beat of her heart on the monitors. I closed my eyes and reached out, rubbing my hand lightly down the length of her forearm, reminding myself that she was still here and not in a grave. And then my fingers brushed by something smooth.

My eyes snapped open, all former thoughts of sleep gone. Righting myself, I looked at my sleeping sister and sure enough, a red and gold card was tucked underneath her torso and between her arm.

My heart was beating loudly in my ears like a drum. I pulled on the card and sure enough, the golden letters spelled my name. My breath hitched. Secret Keeper knew our informal schedule, who did what in Julia's room. She knew exactly where to place it so I would find it.

My fingers settled on the flap for a moment, hands shaking, before I tore open the red card.