I fully admit that this is wrong and horrible and I'm a horrible person for doing this to you guys and I don't deserve to even have this read let alone reviewed or subscribed to. I won't make excuses because I don't have any. I won't say anything to try for your forgiveness because I don't deserve it.

On the bright side: I still don't own anything!

This is for PJOTKCLucian's 2nd Generation contest so, obviously, it's about the kids of the clue hunters. And if you know me, you know who the main character's parents are ;)

I debated the title for this for a long time so if it changes its cuz I changed my mind.

Hope POV

"That was my fire!" My little brother exclaimed.

"Well you should have grabbed it! Go get the mushroom." I told him.

"But we agreed that I would get this one since you got the other one!"

"Yeah but then you threw me off the cliff and I lost it!"

"You were in my way!"

"Luke, it was your fault Hope lost hers. Not to mention you made her lose a life." my younger sister told him.

Luke sighed "Fine. But I get the next one no matter what!"

Olivia and I agreed to that. The kid needed some kind of power.

If you haven't figured out, we were playing Super Mario Bros. Yes, our parents are leading organizations that the fate of the world depends on and my younger siblings and I are trying to beat world six of Super Mario Bros. Is that wrong?

Wait... You're wondering who I am, aren't you? My name is Hope Cahill. Not to be confused with my grandmother whose name was also Hope Cahill. It happens a lot when I tell people at the stronghold; they go into all these stories about my grandmother. I never knew her but apparently she was amazing. My mom told me that she and my grandfather died in a fire.

You already know that don't you? Any good Cahill does. Do you know that the fire was set my dad's mom? Not everyone knows that part. But dad doesn't like to say that she's his mom so don't say that! Just refer to her as Isabel.

My siblings and I don't know a lot about Isabel just that she's evil. Mom and dad hate talking about her. I know she's a Vesper though and Vespers are evil so... I don't think I want to know.

"Why do you guys even play that game?" asked my older sister who was sitting with her journal in a chair in the corner of the room.

Right, my siblings. I need to explain them to you.

Grace is the oldest, seventeen, and she's kind of punk and stuff. She has amber eyes like dad and black hair. Well actually it's a lot of colors. It's naturally black but she dyes it half blonde and with red streaks. My mom said she got it from hanging out with aunt Nellie.

Then there's my younger sister Olivia. We call her Livi. She's fourteen and she looks a lot like mom. She's almost like her younger clone or something, looks and personality.

And if course we have my baby brother Luke. Okay, he's not a baby, he's ten but he's the youngest so I get to call him the baby of the family. He looks exactly like my dad but their personalities couldn't be any different. Luke is messy, loud and just plain annoying. I suppose you typical ten-year-old boy. But we love him anyway.

"You'd like it if you'd play!" Luke told Grace.

"Why would I play that? It's a waste of time." Grace rolled her eyes.

"Oh, and just listening to music all day isn't?" I argued. Seriously, that's all she seems to do.

Grace glared at me. She didn't argue back but somehow her eyes seemed to say "I do so much more with my life." If she did, no one knew. Maybe that was the point.

You probably don't care about our game so I'll skip ahead. By the way, Luke never got his fire power.

~~~~~~~Skipping to about 5pm~~~~~~~~

Eventually Livi, Luke and I finished our game (more like gave up. The first level of world eight is impossible) and Grace disappeared to Heaven-knows-where.

Livi picked up her book and Luke went off to go break something or bother someone or whatever it is he does in his free time.

That left me alone. Mom and dad wouldn't be home for an hour... That was my opportunity to do my favorite pass time activity.

I picked the lock on my parents' bedroom door. When you have the blood of the two sneakiest Cahill branches you get good at this stuff. Training also helps. And I suppose it doesn't hurt that both my parents are branch leaders.

Their bedroom looks pretty normal at first but when you sneak around as much as I do you know it isn't normal. I know where all the secret rooms are, all the hidden escapes and all the dark passageways. Well I thought I did.

*My favorite hidden thing in my parents' room would be the secret room under the shower in the bathroom. I have to say, it's a creative place to hide stuff. The trick is you have to look really close and you can see little numbers on the handle that controls the water temperature. If you turn it to the three then right to the nine (could it be any easier?) a keypad opens on the wall. If it's not turned fast enough you get soaked. I mean it is a shower.

I would tell you the code and how I got it but I don't think I should.

I put in the code and the floor of the shower opened, revealing a door. I opened the door and walked down the steps.

It's a small room. There isn't much, just some files, a computer and a supply closet but I like to look through the files when I'm bored.

I'd checked a million times and there were no hidden places in this room. Or… I thought there weren't.

You see, as stupid as it sounds, I'd never opened the closet in that room. Call me paranoid but I thought there might be dead bodies or torture devices or something freaky in there. With my family you never know. My dad's side of the family does seem to have a liking for that kind of thing.

Now, I normally avoid that closet and I didn't plan to today.

But when you see a really big spider on the opposite side of the room and the closet is the farthest away from it you can get, plans change.

I know I shouldn't be but I'm afraid of spiders. Really it's all arachnids. I get it from mom. So when I saw one the size of my palm on the desk I ran as far as I could which was right against the closet door.

"Alex, slow down!" I heard a British voice on the other side of the closet door whisper "You walked right passed the door!"

"That isn't the right door! Natalie said the third door!" an older boy — Alex? — said.

"This is the third!"

"No it's the second!"

"Mum gave you a map, but you lost it!"

"We wouldn't be able to see it in here! I can barely see my own hand!"

"Because you lost the light! You always lose things! That's why I'm in charge of the-"

"Shh!" Alex shushed the other boy. "What if someone hears you?"

"Right. Sorry."

I wasn't sure what to think. Who were these people? Why were they here? What were they talking about? One thing is for sure, this was not a closet.

Oookay so I was going to have Hope listen to the conversation between the boys for a while longer but that ended in angry swear words and a dead end so I had to erase it.

*I was cleaning the bathroom one day and noticed that this would be the coolest place to hide a lock for a secret room or something so I figured it would be best used in this story.