Chapter 1

The Hardy house was quiet in the town of Bayport. Everybody was sleeping peacefully, everyone except one person lingering outside of two teenage boys' rooms. Hiding behind a bush just below their window, he was getting ready to go into the youngest boy's room to do some serious damage… well that was the plan anyway.

Only one word was on his mind…. revenge. He didn't care about anything else right then. But under all of his anger and hatred was fear. Fear, for being done away with like his father. He tried to push that thought to the far reaches of his mind. He almost succeeds, but the thought still lingered on his mind some.

Concentrating on the task a head, he climbed up a tree near the youngest boy's room. He opened the window and silently scrambled in just in case someone saw him sneaking into someone's window which was very impossible since it was a couple minutes passed midnight.

A smile crept onto his paled face when he saw the sleeping bundle of his victim. His enemy, Fenton Hardy, was going to pay for the life of his father with the pain and hopefully the death of his son or sons; one would be enough for him. Walking slowly toward the bundle of sheets, he thought, 'I'm finally going to be able to complete my plan from about two weeks ago when he planned it. God, I'm so happy that I'm going to be able to cause Fenton the pain he caused me but differently by not with his father but one or both of his sons. If he didn't get all of his anger out or didn't have enough fun with the youngest, he might just go to the oldest next door. This is gonna be a piece of cake.'

In those very special months of planning he had bugged and spied on the close family. He had noticed that no matter what happened, the younger one, Joe, and the older one, Frank, seemed to always be together; it was so hard to get those two apart, they even slept close together. They were much closer than any of the other siblings in the world he was sure of. He thought that he might have to kill both of them to get to Fenton because he was around them both too.

He wasn't going to do anything to them when Fenton had arrested his father because he thought that he probably deserved what he got but he also still loved and cared for him. When his father escaped jail, Fenton's boys were seen snooping around there safe house (he had no idea how they had found them). Then one day, Fenton showed up with the police and had killed him at point blank… or cold blood is how he saw it; he had no idea why. He never did realize that his father had kidnapped their mother, Laura Hardy, and had a gun stuck to her head.

His thoughts were interrupted by the boy shifting heavily in the bed, and rolling to face him. He stayed still for a few minutes to make sure he did not wake up.

'I need to hurry up before him or Frank wakes up,' he thought, noticing how close daybreak was; it was now close to four in the mourning. He wasted way too much time climbing the tree and dwelling on his thoughts.

Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a needle as he advanced towards Joe. Hearing a noise behind him, he swung around quickly to find Fenton, Laura, and Frank Hardy in the doorway.

'How could they've heard me,' he thought. 'DUH. Silent alarm! What would you expect with a PI?'

Joe, who still hadn't noticed the danger around him, was still sleeping peacefully. That was solved when he felt something wet hit his arm and a 'thud' from the side of his bed. He saw, through bleary eyes, Frank on the floor wrestling with another figure he could not identify with the black ski mask on his face.

Frank was finally able to pin the guy down, and trying to restrain himself from hitting him at the same time was not easy. Finally, Fenton found some mountain rope near Joe's bed quickly to tie the intruder up.

After the guy had been tied up firmly (and Frank made sure of that), Frank found the needle at the side of Joe's bed and handed it to his father; he never did realize that it was empty when it once had been full. Laura walked over to her youngest son carefully as not to scare him because he looked like he still hadn't figured out what was happened and he also looked spooked.

"Are you okay? Do you feel sick?" Frank asked his brother when he had made it to his bedside beside his mother; he was extremely worried about Joe's health right now because he didn't know what the intruder had done to him yet.

Joe wanted to say 'yes' to ease the worry off of his family but he couldn't say that because he felt extremely sick at the time. And the look on Frank's face said 'he had better not lie to him or he'll not see the light of day for a long time' so he didn't dare to lie to him right now. "No, not really," Joe paused feeling a wave of nausea pass through him. "Frank, could you get me to the…," he never did finish his sentence as he was violently sick. Luckily, Frank managed to shove a trashcan in front of his face before he vomited all over his bed.

When he was finished he asked Frank in barely a whisper to take him to the bathroom, but when Frank help stand him up, he swayed as his vision darkened; the world went black as Joe passed out in the hands on his brother.