Mission:Betrayal part 8

...continued from last week...

Timothius walked up to his sister’s front door and took a deep breath. He couldn’t believe what he was about to do. His brother would say it was stupid, Kayla would say it was stupid, heck, Ryan and Laz would say it was stupid as would everyone else he knew, especially his sister. But it was his only option. He knocked on the front door. Answering it was a very surprised Katie Danaford. “Tim, is that you? You look awful!”
“Gee thanks,” Tim had to smile. “You look real good yourself.”
Katie smiled at the playful, sarcastic insult. Her blonde hair was a mess, she was in her pajamas, and she looked like she hadn’t slept for days. “Come in, Tim. What brings you here?”
“That,” Tim said slowly, “is a long story.”

“Wait, no!” Emmy cried as Jordan dragged her down the hall. “Please, it’s not what you think!”
“Oh, its exactly what I think,” Jordan disagreed, turning back to look her in the eyes. “You were handing our butts to the emperor in a hand basket. You betrayed us.”
“I had no choice,” Emmy said softly. “He forced me to do it, please I beg you. Don’t tell the others.”
“Not a chance,” Jordan shook his head. Ryan appeared around the corner.
“There you guys are, I’ve been looking everywhere,” he began.
“I found the mole,” Jordan said, throwing Emmy at Ryan’s feet. She looked up at Ryan with a scared look on her face.
“What?” Ryan said, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s the mole,” Jordan replied. “I caught her red-handed, informing the emperor of our exact location.”
Ryan looked at Emmy, a shocked look on his face. “Is that true?”
“No,” Emmy lied, shaking her head emphatically. “I would never betray you.”
Ryan looked at Emmy, and then Jordan, then back at Emmy again, as if deciding whom to believe. Finally he shook his head. “You’re lying to me, Emmy.” His voice was full of hurt. “You betrayed us, why?”
“The emperor forced me to,” Emmy insisted. “He said he’d kill my brother if I didn’t do as he said.”
“What brother?” Ryan asked, growing angry.
“He doesn’t want you to know,” Emmy shook her head.
“Know what? Who doesn’t want me to know?”
“Dad doesn’t,” Emmy replied.
Ryan scoffed at this and drew his sidearm.
“What are you doing?” Emmy asked.
“Thinking of doing something rash,” was all Ryan said. Then he pointed the gun at her. “Now you’re going to tell me exactly what you told the emperor and how he threatened you!”
Emmy started to cry and she hugged Ryan’s feet. “Please don’t, please!” she sobbed. “You don’t understand!” By now, a crowd of IMF agents had gathered, and Jordan filled them in on what was happening. Most of them were shocked, but Derek seemed almost expectant for some reason.
“Please, you don’t understand,” Emmy repeated, still crying.
“Then enlighten me,” Ryan growled, still pointing the gun at her.
Emmy wiped a few tears from her face and whispered to herself, “forgive me Dad, I had to tell him.”
“What are you talking about?” Ryan asked, still holding the gun.
Emmy looked up at Ryan. “You’re my brother,” she said simply. Ryan’s gun fell from his hand, and clattered to the ground.

The hooded figure stood at the emperor’s desk, his face concealed by his long hood. “What is thy bidding, master?” he asked.
The emperor turned around in his chair, raised it up so he could see over the desk, and looked up at the figure. “First of all, you can cut the “thy” talk, that died out centuries ago,” he paused. “But the master part is fine.” Then he turned serious, “I want you to finish them off. Thanks to young Hunter, I have their location. Now go kill them, all of them.”
“As you wish,” Morris bowed and walked out of the room.
The emperor laughed to himself. “At last, I will remove the last of the Hunters from this earth, and be free of them forever.”

Ryan continued to stare at Emmy and then turned his head towards Derek. “Is this true?”
Derek sighed and then asked everyone else to leave them for a moment. Then he took Ryan and Emmy into a small room and sat them down in a couple of chairs. He remained standing.
“What Emmy says is true,” Derek said. “Evan never actually told me your real names, but I suspected that you were his children. He hid you rather well actually, but it’s hard to hide a pregnant women, especially one that was bearing twins.”
“We’re twins!” Ryan cried. “This is too much!” Then he paused. “Wait, did you say Evan tried to hide us, as in Evan Hunter? The famous IMF agent?”
Derek and Emmy both nodded. “My name isn’t really Emmy,” Emmy said. “It’s Jessica Hunter, after our mother, Jess.”
“Sweet woman,” Derek recalled. “It’s so very sad the way the emperor murdered her. It really devastated your father.”
“I’m Evan Hunter’s son!” Ryan exclaimed, still not quite able to believe it. He looked at Emmy. “What’s my real name?”
“Jack,” Emmy replied, tears flowing down her face. “Jack Hunter.”
Ryan sat down, mulling all of this over. Then he stood up again. “This is too much like Star Wars,” he muttered, running his fingers through his hair.
“Except your Dad isn’t Darth Vader, and this isn’t the emperor’s story,” Derek was quick to point out.
“How can I believe this?” Ryan asked, ignoring Derek’s comment. “Why didn’t he tell me? How do you know, and not me?”
“Watch this,” Emmy said, pulling a small computer chip from her pocket. “It’s a message that Dad left for us before he died. I’d tell you how I got it but it’s a long story.”
Ryan took the chip and Derek pulled out a laptop and set it on the table in the room. Ryan inserted the chip into the laptop and a video of his Dad, Evan Hunter, came onto the screen.
“Hello,” his Dad said, he turned to someone off screen, “is this thing on?” He was assured that it was and he focused back on the screen. “Hey, Ryan and Emmy, this is your father, Evan Hunter. If you’re watching this video then I’m probably dead by now,” he paused and thought about this. “Wow, that felt really weird to say. Anyways, you also probably know by now that Ryan and Emmy aren’t your real names, but I’ll call you by your old names if that makes you feel more comfortable.”
“Yes it would,” Ryan mumbled.
“Okay Ryan, then that’s what I’ll do,” Evan said.
Ryan looked at Derek with a questioning look. “How’d he do that?”
Derek shrugged. “People who have been long dead and leave messages behind for their loved ones always know what you’re going to say.”
“Thanks for the input, Derek,” Evan said on the computer screen.
“Now that was kinda freaky,” Derek admitted.
“Ryan and Emmy, I just want you to know, first of all,” Evan continued. “That I loved you, and your mom loved you, more than anything in the world.”
“Then why didn’t you tell us who you were?” Ryan asked, talking more to himself than anyone else.
“Because we wanted to protect you,” Evan answered, continuing his uncanny trend of predicting what they would say. “The emperor wanted all of us dead, and he would have killed you in an instant if he knew you were born. That’s why we changed your names and sent you each to a different set of loving foster parents.”
“My parents put me in a correctional school,” Ryan muttered.
“So maybe they weren’t as loving as we would have been,” Evan admitted. “But we were under a lot of pressure and they had the best front doorsteps we could find.”
“I still don’t see why you had to do this,” Ryan said bitterly. “I went through my whole life thinking my parents didn’t understand me, and I didn’t even know who my real parents were.”
“Hey, I would have bailed you out, son. If I were still alive at the time,” Evan defended himself. Then he apologized, “I’m sorry, I failed you both.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Emmy spoke up. She put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “You did the best you could.”
“That’s all we ever tried to do,” Evan said. “Now you two go out there and kick some serious imperial butt. Oh, and Ryan, I saw these really cool sunglasses that were half-off right before we left you at your foster parents house, so I left them with you. Do you still have them by any chance?”
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “My parents said they were a gift from a benevolent uncle who lived in Indonesia.”
“I’m glad you still have them,” Evan smiled. Then he shifted his gaze towards Emmy, but Derek shut the video off. “That’s all we have time for, I’m afraid,” Derek said.
“The rest was for me, anyways,” Emmy said. “I’ve already heard it.”
Ryan’s head was full of questions still. “Why did you betray us?”
“I didn’t,” Emmy replied. “The emperor found out who I was,” she explained. “He told me that if I didn’t hand all of you guys over to him that he would kill you and me as well. Of course I wasn’t going to betray you, but I needed to buy some time. So I pretended that I gave in, and that I was betraying you.”
“How can we be sure of that?” Derek asked, apparently he wasn’t filled in on everything.
“Because, you’ll see where I lead them in a moment,” Emmy smiled.

To be continued next week...

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