‘I have to give him some credit, he’s not so stupid to just leave things out in the open.’ Kyle thought as he closed one of the drawers just under the TV cabinet.
To the right, there was a hallway that branched off into several other different rooms, such as the bathroom, their other bedrooms and most importantly the office. Since the last was the most likely place to find out information, the young teenager went ahead and checked there first.
‘I have to be careful, but also hurry in case he plans to work from home and comes back early.’
Entering the office, Kyle saw that the room was a complete mess. There were things scattered everywhere, and even the papers, notes, and more on the desk weren’t placed away properly. It was nothing like how he would have kept things, showing how different the two half-brothers really were.
‘Crap, this is going to make it harder.’ Kyle thought. ‘If it was all neat and tidy I could have placed it back perfectly in its place, but from what I can see he seems to be the type of person who even though it looks messy, still follows its own system. If I move something, there is a good chance he’s going to know someone was here.’
In the end, he would have to just make do with whatever he could find on the surface. After looking around for a little while, and reading over some of those documents, Kyle managed to find more information than he had initially imagined.
For one, there were several sticky notes posted all over the front of his laptop, with different dates, gang member names and times. Seeing them, and matching it up with other things he had seen on those documents, Kyle was sure that he had hit a gold mine.
‘Does he not know that he can keep just track of his notes on the laptop? … hmmm, maybe he’s worried someone might hack it. Oh well, this way made things easy for me.’ Kyle smiled as he used his phone to write down his own notes after taking some photos of the important things he had found in the office.
As Simon was already in a somewhat high position he had detailed information on planned attacks with the dates, safe house areas for the Underdogs, establishments the gang was planning on taking over or attack in case of them not cooperating.
‘The easiest way is probably if I can sabotage his missions. I just have to find a way to inform the other gangs of what they’re planning to do. There even looks to be a whole list of drops that those types of Transporters are meant to do.’
On a particular note Kyle could see the word NIRV written out on the top, though he had no idea whether the scribbled ‘parcel’ was meant as something to be delivered or get delivered.
There were also a lot of other things Kyle lacked the context to completely grasp. Nevertheless, with just the few things that were clear enough, he was sure he could sabotage him enough to cause a few missions to fail. Then, the Underdogs would undoubtedly start wondering about having a rat among them, at which point he would just have to frame Simon…
Exposing that it was all him, though it might even be a thing that they would figure out on their own. After all, who would suspect that all of it was a thirteen year old boy’s doing?.
‘The only thing I don’t understand is what the big deal was about? Why would he not want Kiki and Marie back for this?’ Kyle wondered. ‘From what I saw, this just seems like normal everyday business for the Underdogs, it doesn’t even look like something that would be a shock to anyone.’
Perhaps the big news was hiding somewhere on his laptop or under the big piles of paper, but in order not to risk himself, he decided to leave everything in place.
Leaving the room carefully Kyle closed the door behind him, using the pair of gloves he had worn. He was smart enough not to leave any fingerprints, though he doubted the police would get involved in this. Sure, it wasn’t something the Underdogs should do, but it was best to stay cautious.
As soon as he left the room with the information, Kyle started to question whether this was the right thing to do.
‘Can I really do this… if I provide the information to the other gangs… Simon won’t be the only one I’m putting at risk. I have no idea how bad things can go… what if they kill him… what if other members die trying to protect him?’
His mind was going back and forth. The people he was caring about were gangsters, who perhaps would have killed other gang members from the other side already, but he didn’t know that for a fact. Not everyone had already dirtied their hands…
While deep in his thoughts, Kyle found himself standing in front of a door that had a little sign out front stating that it was Marie’s room. Before even thinking about it his body was moving on its own and opened the door to what looked like a bright pink paradise.
“Whoa, what is all this?” Kyle was greeted by countless plushies that were all pink, pink bedsheets and pink curtains. It took a bit of time for the teenager to process this. He couldn’t remember a single time having seen Marie wear anything close to pink. The way she behaved around him, playing games and sports with him, gave him a more tomboyish impression of her.
‘Is she only that way around me or something?’ Kyle wondered.
With his curiosity getting the better of him, the teenager started to look around the room. The bed hadn’t been made, it was crumpled a bit and that’s when he noticed something else as well. Behind the door there was a large hole. It didn’t go right through the door, but it was indented as if someone punched it.
It made Kyle remember why he had come here in the first place, looking back at the bed, he noticed something by the pillow. A corner of what looked like a notebook stuck out. Pulling it out, he could see that to be exactly what it was.
Opening the pages, not caring for whether Marie wanted him to read it or not, Kyle soon found out that it was a diary of some sorts. There were some banal things written in there about how her day was, and it looked like it had been used a lot in the beginning, but less and less as time went on.
‘Seems like Marie is also one of those people who try to do this diary stuff, only to give up after a month or so.’ Kyle had a slight smirk on his face.
However, it didn’t remain for long, as he soon discovered a large shift in tone. After a large gap of blank pages, the next one had countless scribbles all over it, as if someone was writing in anger. The words didn’t fit in the guidelines, but based on the words that were being used Kyle could see why.
“I don’t understand…I don’t understand…why does he get so angry, why does he keep hitting her!”
A few pages later:
“I wish the man was dead! I wish he was out of our lives…why do we keep coming back to this god-forsaken place?!”
The pages looked to be a little wet, and Kyle could imagine they were because of the one writing having cried. The next entry, if one could even call it that, was just the word ‘die’ filling up the entire page, seemingly traced over enough times to damage the paper. There was pure anger and he knew who it was directed towards.
Alas, the next page was the worst one by far.
“I can’t take it anymore… I don’t know what to do. This pain in my heart hurts so much… I don’t want him to hurt Mommy, and I’m scared. I’m so scared. I feel like I can’t breathe when he gets like that…
I don’t know what to do… maybe it’s easier… if I weren’t there. Without me, Mommy could finally leave him.”
After reading the page, Kyle instinctively scrunched it up as he had made up his mind.
‘He has to go.’
When leaving the room, Kyle did his best to put it back to how it was and closed the door. As he walked down the hallway, he noticed a faint muffle. Stopping for a second, Kyle wondered if it was the sound of his feet pressing against the floorboards, but as the teenager stood still, he could soon hear it again.
It was faint, but it was also constant, and it seemed to go in and out. Walking further forward, Kyle could hear it even more now. He stopped in front of where the noise seemed to originate from…the bathroom.
*****
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