Hello! I have another chapter done! This one should explain a bit more about what happened that started the tension between Alice and her father. It will be explained a little more in the next chapter as well. Hope you enjoy it!
An explosion came from the basement of the Stronghold house. "Eureka!" Called the voice of a young Steve Stronghold. Alice, no older then 3, sat at the kitchen table coloring with her crayons. A very pregnant Josie Stronghold stood at the kitchen counter cutting vegetables for dinner.
"It sounds like your father had a breakthrough." Alice's mother said to her. Alice laughed as her father came into the room covered in soot. His hair was sticking straight up in the air. He went over to his wife and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "It's done!" he said, extremely excited. He turned around to Alice and picked her up. She laughed as he spun her around in the air. "Do you want to see what I've been working on for all this time?" he asked her. Alice nodded, and gave her father a big toothy smile. "Great!" he said, and put her down on the floor. He turned back to go downstairs, and Alice ran right behind him.
"Slow down Alice!" her mother called after her, following the two down into the basement. There was a giant ray gun sitting on the workbench.
"What is it daddy?" Alice asked, jumping up and down, trying to get a good look at it. Steve picked her up and put her on the table next to it.
"It's my new ray gun. I'm going to use it to defeat my arch enemy, Baron Battle." Steve said, looking at his ray gun with some great pride. It looked a lot like a giant super soaker, only the liquid inside of the tank was bubbling. While Alice's parents were talking over on the other side of the basement, she stood up and got a closer look at the ray gun. The cap to the top of the ray gun was off. I should close this for daddy so the stuff doesn't spill out! She thought to herself. As she reached over for the cap, she dropped the red crayon she was still holding into the bubbling mixture. She quickly turned to see if her dad had seen. He didn't seem to notice at all. She quickly put the cover on the gun and got down off of the work bench. She went over to where her parents were standing. She looked back over at the ray gun. It was bubbling even more, and there was a light going off on the side of it. There was a sound of an alarm and Steve looked over at the ray gun. "Quickly!" he said, grabbing both Alice and her mother, "Over here!" He pulled the two of them around the corner of the basement, just in time for them to dodge the fire of the exploding ray gun.
"Are you two alright?" Steve asked, looking Alice and Josie over..
"We're fine." Josie said. Steve nodded and went over to the destroyed work area.
"I don't know what went wrong." Steve said, kicking around the rubble. He went over to where the workbench once was, and found a pile of red wax. "Alice?" he called, getting a closer look at the wax. "Did you put a crayon in daddy's ray gun?" Alice hid behind her mother's leg.
"It was an accident. I'm sorry. I was only trying to help by putting the cap on, and I accidentally dropped the crayon in. I'm sorry daddy, please don't be mad."
Steve was very quiet for a moment, and then he spoke in a very calm voice. "I have been working on this ray gun for months." He said, his voice slowly getting louder. "It was the key to defeating Baron Battle, and now it's gone. Not only that, But you could have killed us all!" he said, now yelling.
"I'm sorry! It was an accident!" Alice said, in tears. She had never seen her dad upset before.
"Steven calm down. She's only a child. It's not like she meant for it to happen!"
"She almost got us killed Josie!" he yelled.
"I'm sorry!" Alice yelled, running up the stairs.
After that, her father spent 3 months cleaning up the basement. It would be 4 years before he defeated Baron Battle and put him in jail. He never truly forgave Alice for what had happened that day in the lab.
Alice awoke from the nightmare in a cold sweat. Tears were streaming down her eyes. She felt as though she was going to throw up. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked at the clock. It was 11:30. She fell back onto her bed and tried to calm herself. She hadn't had that dream in a long time. She hated remembering that day. She felt guilty that she broke her dad's ray gun. She knew how much it meant to him to catch Baron Battle before Will was born. He wanted Will to come into the world at a time where he didn't have to focus on crime fighting all the time.
Alice sat back up when she hard a tap on her window. She wiped the rest of the tears from her face, and went over to the window. Warren was outside, gesturing for her to come down. She took a deep breath and climbed down the side of the house.
"What's wrong?" he asked, when he saw her. "You look like you have been crying. Is everything alright?"
"Will told my father that we're going to homecoming." She said, half asleep. She was still a little drowsy from earlier.
"Aw Alice, I'm sorry. It just slipped out earlier. I didn't think he would tell your dad." He said, giving her a hug.
"It's not your fault." She said. "They would have found out at the dance tomorrow anyways."
Warren pulled away a little bit and lifted her chin so that he could get a better look at her face. "Did he hurt you?" He asked, worried that Alice had been hit again.
"No." she said. "Not physically at least." She sat down on the ground, and leaned against the house.
"Do you want to bail on the whole homecoming thing?" he asked, sitting down next to her. "It's not too late to say no."
"No. I don't want to give my dad the pleasure of winning that battle. He needs to see past this whole kids are like their parents thing."
"You dad thinks that I'm like my father?" Warren asked, a bit confused.
"Yeah. I'm sorry about that. I don't know what's wrong with him. He usually isn't like that."
"It's not your fault." Warren said, leaning his head back against the house. He turned his head over to her and gave her a small nudge. "Are you going to be alright?"
Alice gave him a small smile, and nodded. "Yeah. I'll be fine." Warren stood back up, and then helped Alice get up.
"Good." he said. "I should go now though. I just wanted to check in on you." He leaned in and kissed her. "I'll see you in the morning." Alice nodded, and turned to go back inside. "Goodnight." He called after her, as she climbed up the tree.
"Goodnight." She said, and she climbed the rest of the way up into her room. Warren stayed just long enough to make sure that Alice got into her room ok, and then he went on his way. Alice closed her bedroom window, and went back to bed. She hoped that she wouldn't have anymore nightmares tonight.
Alice sat under a tee in front of the school. Her last class had gotten out early, and she was waiting for the bus arrive. She was finishing the last of her homeowrk when Warren came over to where she was."Hey." he siad, sitting next to her. "We got an A on our project."
"Cool." She said, half concentrating on her work. She was trying not to think about wat happened the night before.
"Are you still up to going to Homecoming? We can still stay home. We can rent a move, make some popcorn." He was worried aobut her. He didn't want her to go if she didn't want to.
"I still want to go." She said, closing her book. "We can do the movie thing after if you want. It's not like we're staying the whole time." Alice put her books in her bag just in time to see the bus pull up. The both of them stood up, and walked over to the bus.
"So we'll meet there?" he asked.
"Yeah. " She said. "I'll see you tonight." They shared a kiss,and the went to their usal seats on the bus. Alice felt a bit uneasy about going to homecoming, but she still wanted to go. She hoped that nothing bad would happen when Warren and her father saw eachother.
Ok I lied….NOW there is only 2-3 chapters left. I don't know how long the next chapters will be. I think I'm going to split homecoming into two chapters and then have a chapter that ties up all the lose ends.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please R&R!
The next chapter: Blast from the Past Pt.2