"I've told you so many times not to call me that," Caleb warns Carly with a frown.

Carly is still grinning from ear to ear. "You are my twin brother and it's a reality you can't escape no matter how hard you try."

"I'm only your brother because I don't have a choice," Caleb spits.

"I see you brought company." Carly finally acknowledges us. "Well, the more destruction the merrier."

"Leave them out of this. Let Alasdair go and give them back their inventions, this is between us."

Carly cackles, making us grimace. "I know you hired Alasdair to build an invention for you so don't act like the invention doesn't belong to you."

"You already have everything you want so why are you doing this?"

"Simple. I want to ruin you. When I found out that you wanted to participate in the contest to prove yourself to dad, I knew that I just couldn't let you win, or even stand a chance."

"You are a fucking psycho! Gosh, I wish dad and everyone else could realize this."

"Tsk, when will you learn to mind your language?" Carly hisses with disapproval.

"Carly..." Chris mumbles, unable to believe his eyes or ears.

"Oh my darling Chris, I'm sorry you had to be dragged into this and witness a part of me you've never witnessed before," Carly says to him.

Nathan shows up from the other side of the room, pushing an unconscious Alasdair on a wheelchair. We gasp.

"What did you do to him?!" Wyndy runs towards him but Carly stops her by raising her hand.

"As you can see, he is unable to see anyone at the moment, but don't worry, he would be awake in a while. He hasn't been completely incapacitated... yet."

Nathan walks up to Carly and kisses her.

"This is my baby, Nathan. He does everything in his power to make me happy. Isn't that right, baby?"

"Absolutely," Nathan replies and kisses her again.

"You must be wondering how I was able to outsmart you, right, brother? Well, to be honest, it wasn't that difficult because I'm way smarter than you. I had to spend a lot of money on drugs I didn't need, but it sure was worth it as long as I got to cripple your chances of winning the contest."

Carly takes us back to when she found out from his caretaker that Caleb was planning on participating in the Global Young Inventors Contest. She knew he wasn't smart enough to build an invention innovative enough to win the contest and would most likely hire someone to do it for him so she closely monitored him to find out who the person was.

When she found out the inventor was Alasdair and he attended the same school as Nathan, she asked Nathan to spy on him. When she discovered he sold drugs in secret, she had to buy drugs from him in order to find out more about him and place a tracker on him so she could find out where he kept the invention. Well, the rest has to be history because here we are.

"If you sports hadn't meddled, then you wouldn't have been in this situation," Carly says, shaking her head.

What on earth does she mean by meddle? Did she expect us to do nothing after stealing our inventions?

"I would also like to know why my invention was stolen. How am I involved in this?" I ask.

"I couldn't stand the fact that you had a higher chance of winning than I did. I just had to do something to make sure you didn't win," Nathan explains, smirking. He's clearly enjoying himself.

"Why? I didn't even do anything wrong."

"The reason is simple. I hate you. I hate that you are always at the top of the academic ladder and people like me are not even seen or noticed. Everyone talks about you and how you're going to win the contest cause you're so smart, even the janitors. You're the only student Mr. Trainor talks about and it's annoying. I thought that if I stole your invention then I would have a sense of fulfillment by ruining you."

"You're just as much as a psycho as she is," I spit. "And I thought you were just a friendly nerd."

"Being a friendly nerd made everyone trample on me, including you. You guys didn't even want to be friends no matter how friendly I was," Nathan says and I can sense the hurt in his voice at the last statement. "And being a nerd made me invisible. I could spy on everyone and execute my plans without being noticed, because, hey, it's just nerdy Nathan being weird again."

"I never took you for granted, and I wanted to be friends. I really did. But seeing what you truly are, I think people made the right decision not to be friends with you."

"Watch your tongue, don't forget we still have your invention."

"You don't plan on giving it back so what's the point?"

Alasdair wakes up, coughing and we all turn our attention to him.

"Why am I in a wheelchair?" He asks.

"Because you were unconscious and there was no better way to move you around. We had to sedate you so you wouldn't cause a scene before your friends arrived," Carly answers him, quite lovingly if I may add. Alasdair looks at us surprisingly.

"And look, the whole gang is here," Nathan adds.

Alasdair attempts to stand up from the wheelchair but Nathan stops him by pushing him back into the chair. "Not so fast buddy, you don't move unless we tell you to."

"You don't tell me what to do!" Alasdair retorts and stands up from the chair but Nathan points a laser gun at him and he sits back down like an obedient dog.

"Okay, what do you want, bitch?" Austin steps forward.

"You leave here and never attempt to get in my way ever again," Carly replies sweetly.

"That's not happening," Travis says.

"Well, have it your way." Carly shrugs and motions to Nathan who points his gun at us, forcing us to move further into the room.

Just as Carly is about to handcuff us, we hear sirens from outside and smile at one another. The cops arrived just in time.

Carly smirks. "I knew that you wouldn't just come here without calling the cops. Could you be any more predictable? Buffoons."

Nathan lifts Alasdair from the wheelchair and hides it under a sheet. He gives Carly a thumbs up and she nods at him. Something isn't right. Why aren't they worried about the cops showing up here?

The elevator dings and goes up, then comes back down with the head housekeeper and three cops, armed.

"What is going on here?" Carly asks, feigning surprise.

"We got information that there has been a kidnapping and a theft down here, Miss Daniels," the first cop says while the other two scan the room.

"I'm sorry Miss, I couldn't stop them. They already knew about this room so I just had to lead them here so they could see for themselves that you are innocent," the head housekeeper tells Carly and she nods understandably.

"It's all right," Carly says and turns to the cop. "As you can see, officer, no one here has been kidnapped, I was just getting to mingle with my brother's friends and they were curious to see my underground room so I brought them here."

The officer raises a brow at her and looks at us. He signals the other two cops to search the room and they oblige.

"The room is clear, sir. We found no inventions or anything incriminating," the second cop says and our eyes widen in bewilderment. I look at Carly and she is smirking at us.

"What is that, under the sheets?" The officer asks, pointing at the wheelchair and the third cop pulls off the sheets.

"That's the wheelchair my boyfriend used when he got in an accident and was temporarily disabled. He's fully recovered now so we wanted to get rid of it to avoid bad memories," Carly explains emotionally, holding Nathan's arm.

"Well, I guess it was a false alarm. We are so sorry for the disturbance Miss Daniels," the officer says and leaves with the other cops. We just stand there, fixated at our spots, unable to believe what is happening before us and unable to say anything.

The head housekeeper glares at Caleb. "What are you up to, boy? How could you accuse your sister of such things and even called the cops on her? If your father finds out about this, he would be gravely disappointed, just like I am."

"You don't understand, he's telling the truth this time," Chris defends him.

"You're on his side too?"

"You know I'm never on his side when it comes to things like this, but this time, I'm sure of the truth."

"He's managed to brainwash you, but I hope this ends here, Caleb. No more shenanigans. And Carly," she says, taking Carly's hands in hers, "please make sure your dad doesn't find out about this, he could disown your brother out of rage if he does."

"I'll try to keep this from him," Carly replies, smirking at us then frowning at the housekeeper who gives her hands a squeeze before leaving the room.

Once she has left, Carly and Nathan burst into fits of laughter and it's the most hideous sound I've ever heard.

"I told you, brother, I'm smarter than you, and I will always be one step ahead."

I notice that Caleb hasn't uttered anything since the cops got here. He is just glaring at his sister.

"Did you really think I'd be stupid enough to leave the inventions here after finding out that you guys were on to me?" She giggles and walks to the elevator with Nathan.

"That was a rhetorical question. Have a nice day, morons," Nathan says as he and Carly get into the elevator and leave.

"I can't believe this," Travis speaks up after several minutes of silence. "This was our chance to expose her. Where on earth could she have kept the inventions?"

We leave the underground room and are about to leave the house when the head housekeeper stops us, offering us some of her tasty snacks as promised earlier but we politely decline. We aren't in the mood for sweets.

"Sorry man, you don't have to feel down, we all tried our best," Chris says, putting his hand on Caleb's shoulder. Caleb shrugs the hand off and shakes his head.

"This is not the first time I'm losing to my sister. Carly wins everytime and each time, the loss hurts more than the last one and dad keeps getting more oblivious to the truth."

"So what? Are you just gonna give up?" Austin asks him. "Are you just gonna let her take the win without fighting back? She may have won this time but this isn't over until we say so."

For the first time today, Caleb smirks, eyeing her amusedly. "These motivational words would sink deeper if they came with an accompanying kiss."

Austin stares incredibly at him. "You can't be serious."

Caleb steps closer to her. "I am."

Chris comes in between them, glaring at his friend. "Now's not the time for this, dude. I'm standing right here, you know?"

"You know I don't care, right?"

Chris sighs and moves Austin away from Caleb.

"Well, today's loss is dedicated to Avan. If you hadn't gone snooping around in the nerd's locker, then that brunette bitch wouldn't have snitched on you and we would've caught Carly red-handed. But it's all right, we forgive you as long as you come up with another plan to get the inventions back before the contest, which is in the next two weeks in case you've forgotten. Good day," Caleb says and goes back into his house, but not without winking at Austin who sneers at him.

Chris drives us home in complete silence. After dropping off Wyndy and Alasdair, he drops us off at home. He gives Austin a quick kiss as Travis and I alight from the car. We drag our feet on tiredly and disappointedly as we make our way into the house.

As soon as we enter the house, mom and dad hurry over to us like they have been expecting us for hours.

"Why haven't you been picking your damn calls? You trying to give us a heart attack or something?!" Mom yells at us, at the same time pulling us in for a hug. Dad joins the hug and we remain like this for a while before breaking away.

"I was about to call the cops when your dad asked me to wait a little longer. What about Alasdair?" Mom asks.

"He's fine," I answer tiredly.

"I'm just glad you kids are fine and safe. I wouldn't have spared that Carly girl if anything had happened to my babies," mom says and we chuckle, knowing full well that she's not joking.

"Judging from the looks on your faces, I'm guessing there's more bad news than good news," dad reasons as he leads us to the living room. We narrate all that went down at Caleb's house to them and they listen attentively.

"Well! That girl sure is something," dad remarks. "It's heartbreaking that the contest is so close and there's nothing we can do to find your invention before then. We are so sorry, Avan."

"Don't be, dad, it's not your fault that things aren't working out the way we planned them to," I say and stand up. "I will find my invention before the contest and I will participate just like I have always dreamt of doing and hopefully, I will win the contest. Even if I don't win, I want to get the chance to compete at such a prestigious contest and I won't let Carly take that away from me."

"That's my boy!" Dad exclaims proudly and puts his arm across my shoulder.

"Who's ready for some food? You can't think properly on an empty stomach," mom says and we go to set the dining table then take our seats while she serves us dinner.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Hmmm! 🤔
Where do you think Carly could be hiding the inventions? 🤷
Let's hear your thoughts in the comments so we can help the gang find their inventions faster 🥺