As Larkin walked away from Finn's treehouse, fluffy gray clouds gathered overhead. About halfway home, they began to spit rain down upon her. After deciding that she didn't want to draw attention to herself by staying dry in the monsoon that was about to grace her town, Larkin stopped absorbing the rain drops and let them run down her face.

She swiped the water out of her eyes before following the cross-walk over 22nd Street. Her palms were sweating, despite the cool rain. The butterflies in her stomach were not left over from the close encounter with Finn; they were for her parents' reactions when they saw her walking home at five o'clock.

Larkin cursed her luck. Of all the days someone could have poisoned her, it had to be the day both of her parents were going to be home early. She didn't even have her cell-phone on her to text her mom an excuse.

After a good twenty minutes of walking, she reached her home. Larkin entered through the side door of her garage, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was empty. No one's home then, I suppose. Finally, a lucky break!

The door was unlocked, just like she had left it when she had fled the house two hours ago. She took her shoes off on the rug in the entryway, hoping to save herself from mopping up more water than she had to. A rattle of thunder shook the screens on the windows of her home, and Larkin could only hope that the power didn't go out.

As she made her way to the kitchen, the landline sitting on the counter rang. Larkin ignored it. She never answered that phone because it was usually the pharmacy calling about prescriptions or someone wanting her to donate to something or another. Larkin squeezed her hair out over the sink and let the phone ring four times before the answering machine picked up.

The shrill beep echoed through her kitchen, followed by Larkin's mother's voice.

"Larkin, I don't know where you are right now or what happened to that cellphone we pay for—"

Larkin blanched a hurriedly picked up the phone. She had forgotten to take her phone with her when she left. It was probably still in her backpack.

"Mom, I'm here. My phone died," she lied. Larkin hoped that her mother would believe her. On the other end, she heard her mother sigh in frustration.

"If this was any other circumstance, I would lecture you about keeping that thing charged so that I can keep in touch with you, but there are more pressing matters at hand," replied her mother.

Larkin could sense the urgency her mother conveyed. She thought she could hear the nervous tremors in her mother's voice, but that might have been the low quality of the phone speaker.

"There was another assassination attempt on your father. He was shot. The shot itself was not fatal, but I heard that he was found lying on the floor of his office unconscious."

Larkin paled. While she had been running from her problems in the woods, someone had tried to kill her father, and by the way her mother spoke, it sounded as if that someone had almost succeeded.

Her mother continued, not attempting to hide the wavers in her voice. "They found him in a pool of his own blood."

She wasn't fazed by her mother's blunt nature. Working as a lawyer, Mrs. Knolls had formed the habit of getting right to the point. Larkin heard a sniffle. Her mother was not one to cry. She decided not to acknowledge the sudden breakdown of her mom, and asked a question: "Where are you now?"

"He was airlifted to Des Moines. They have a specialty center there. I'm driving down there now."

"Oh." Larkin found it difficult to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She furrowed her eyebrows, trying to remember if it was still Monday. To her, it felt like days since she had last seen her parents. "When will you be coming back?"

"I don't know. I stopped at our hospital right after they sent your father to Des Moines. By what I heard, he needed a blood transfusion, and there might be some nerve damage in his shoulder, but we won't know for sure until after surgery. I've decided that you're going to stay with Aunt Elizabeth. I've called her and she said that she'd be by to pick you up around 6:30," explained Mrs. Knolls.

Larkin nodded before remembering that she was on the phone. "Sure. I'll be ready for her."

Her mother ended the call without any more words.

Larkin couldn't help but feel guilty about her father being shot. She should have seen it coming. She should have been there to help. She shouldn't have been with Finn. She also couldn't help but notice how her mother hadn't said 'I love you' or 'goodbye,' as if she knew what Larkin had done wrong.

()()()

Aunt Elizabeth, or Libby, for short, barely counted as Larkin's aunt. No, she wasn't cruel or absent like some of Larkin's relatives. In fact, some of Larkin's fondest memories were shared with Aunt Libby. However, Aunt Libby wasn't really related to the Knolls family anymore.

Larkin tried to remember exactly what had happened. She knew that Uncle Michael, her mom's brother, was presumed dead after he went missing for the second time eight years ago. Right after he went missing the first time, Aunt Libby and him divorced. They had no children, so it was a clean and quick break off.

Larkin had stood next to Aunt Libby at the funeral. The casket was closed. She knew that the casket was empty, but many of the people at the visitation did not. They all believed that poor Michael Cooper, the brother of Anita Knolls, had died while deployed in Afghanistan, and the body was too mangled to show to the public.

It was her family's dirty little secret.

As Larkin looked back on the event of her family's past, she couldn't help but see things in a new light. Occasionally, she would wonder if her Uncle had been a super. Perhaps he had met an early and tragic demise, and never got the chance to say goodbye. Or the pressure of keeping the secret from his wife became too much and he simply needed to get away. Larkin didn't know for sure, but she had a gut feeling.

Aunt Libby's car pulled up and Larkin was snapped out of her thoughts. Larkin picked up her bag that she had packed with clothes, along with her backpack because she knew she would still have to go to school tomorrow. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she worried about how she would get to school tomorrow, but that thought was quickly dismissed when her aunt stepped out of her car and into the mid-August heat.

Larkin opened the front door for her aunt and let the woman step through into the air-conditioned interior of her home. Larkin was immediately engulfed in a bear hug by Aunt Libby, and dropped her bags.

"Larkin! It's been so long. I feel like I haven't seen you since we went out for your birthday," fussed Aunt Libby, squeezing Larkin. She even went as far as to lift her up off the ground and do a small spin.

"Glad to see you, too, but could you please set me down?" asked Larkin. Being as tall as she was, Larkin was never the person to be picked up. She was always to person to give others piggy-back rides.

"Oh, oh, of course. I'm just excited to see my only niece," she said, gently putting Larkin back on the ground. "Although the circumstances are rather unfortunate."

Larkin grimaced and gave a tight nod.

"All right. No time for dilly-dallying. Once I get you back to my house and settled in, we can go out to eat."

"Sounds good," agreed Larkin.

With a flourish and a mighty heave, Aunt Libby attempted to pick up Larkin's back pack.

"Gosh, how much homework do they give you on Mondays?" she exclaimed, switching Larkin's backpack for her small, rolling suitcase.

"The chemistry book itself is three pounds."

"I see."

()()()

Larkin and her aunt arrived at her modern suburban home ten minutes later. Larkin dragged herself and her luggage inside, and automatically took it to the guest room she usually used.

"Larkin, honey, could you bring your things to this other guest room?" Aunt Libby asked.

Larkin opened her mouth in surprise. "Uh, sure. This is the one I usually use though."

"I know, it's a mess right now, so I got this one ready for you."

If you could clean that one, why couldn't you have cleaned this one? Larkin mentally asked her aunt. She didn't object, though, and dragged her things further down the hallway to the door her aunt was standing in front of.

She quickly unpacked in the unfamiliar room. It had bare walls and white shag carpet. Despite the emptiness of the room, she decided to like it. She would make it her own during the time she stayed at her aunt's home.

By the time her suitcase had been stowed under the bed, Larkin was starving and couldn't wait to get some food into her stomach. She and Aunt Libby decided on a local barbeque place for dinner.

Larkin walked in and realized that she had never been there before. The walls were wood paneled, and the floor was covered by uneven red tiles. A hostess immediately approached them and led them to a booth. Larkin could already envision the pulled pork barbeque sandwich she would soon have within her grasp.

Her good mood was ruined when she heard the voice of one person she would rather avoid at the moment. The person was sitting at a booth with someone who was presumably his mother. Jacob Bridges was sitting, seemingly unaffected by all that had gone down in the past couple of hours, eating dinner. Larkin noticed him glance over at her once while she was waiting to be served.

She fumed silently as she tore into her dinner. She couldn't believe he had the audacity to show himself in public after shooting at her! At that moment, Larkin realized something that had been nagging at her since she heard of her father's surgery.

If Jacob had been shooting at her, then who had shot her father?

She also remembered that she had to do a chemistry project with him, and it was due one week from today.

She completely avoided making any eye contact and hoped that Aunt Libby wouldn't notice her as she tried to ignore looking at one half of the restaurant.

As her eyes swept over Jacob one last time before leaving the restaurant, she noticed Finn sitting in the back corner, alone. Her eyebrows furrowed. Why on earth would he be alone?

Dismissing herself as being too nosy, Larkin left with her Aunt. She would find out who was shooting at her father.