Commence

Chapter 1 ~ Disappearance

As Veronica ran from the only life she had ever known, she thought back. Back to the day that changed her . . . forever . . .
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“Veronica!”
“OMG what is it Mom?! Like, can you wait a sec? I’m busy!”
“Veronica! Come here right now or you’ll be grounded for a month,” Veronica’s very annoying mother yelled. She sounded really angry! Veronica grudgingly decided to go see what she wanted before she got in trouble.
So Veronica grudgingly followed the sound of her mother’s voice. But making her way through her rich father’s mansion, was surprised to discover her mother in their kitchen standing over an empty pedestal. Veronica’s grandmother, now past, had given the vase that had occupied the pedestal to her mother when her parents had married. It was the only thing Veronica’s mother had left of her mother.
“Veronica,” said her mother with a slight tremble to her voice, “Do you know what happened here?”
“No, what happened?”
“It’s been stolen. My mother’s vase has been stolen. Someone broke into the manor and stole it. There were dressed in black, and each one had a gun, so your father and I were powerless. That’s not the only thing they stole, either. T-they kidnapped your father.”
“What?! How could they kidnap someone as important as Dad? I-I...” Veronica trailed off, too shocked for words.
“Veronica, you’re seventeen now, and you have a responsibility to your father to attempt to rescue him. Just before the people in black left, they said one name, Adriana. Do you know anyone with that name?”
“Not really, but I will find out. When I do find them, they are gonna pay. Nobody takes my father and gets away with it.”
“Just don’t kill them, sweetie. No matter how much they have hurt you, you still have to show mercy, as our bloodline is the one of knights and kings. The last name Goldsmith is associated with honor, and people with honor cannot kill, or they lose their honor. Do you understand, my sweet?”
“Yes, Mom,” Veronica said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Can I go now, mother?”
“Yes, just remember what I said!” Veronica’s mother yelled as Veronica grabbed her laptop and keys and raced into the garage to her car. She took off in a hurry, heading towards the nearest restaurant that had free wifi.
When Veronica arrived at the restaurant, (which of course was McDonald's) she searched translations for Adriana. She found out it meant Dark One while she was searching. As she expected, it came up blank. She tried again... and again... and again... until she had done it at least nine times. Veronica wanted to give up at ten, but she kept trying, and when she had reached eleven tries, she finally had a hit.
It said there was someone registered as Adriana Robertson living in London. However, I needed to get there, and fast if I wanted to rescue my father. Luckily, I knew someone who might be willing to lend me something that could get me there faster than a stupid car. See, my best friend, her name is Hannah and she’s... well... just a little crazy.
When I arrived at her house, I could see from the amount of cars in her very long driveway that she had a party going on. I recognized my other best friends Danika, Kimberly (Kim), Sydney, Alexandria (Alex), Amanda (Manda, she hates the name Mandy), Victoria (Toria), Heather, Constance, and Erica’s cars. My friends Abbey, Colin, and Gabe were there too.
I drove up to the house, or I guess the biggest castle in the world would be a more appropriate description of the place. For one thing, it was the biggest house I have ever seen, and as the President’s daughter, I get to see a lot of big houses.
Walking up the steps, I raised the large golden nocker and knocked three times upon the door.  As I expected, Hannah answered the door herself.
“I like pie! Oh, it’s you Veronica! What a nice surprise! I thought you said you were too busy today to come to the party!”
I replied, “Well, I kinda am. I didn’t come to party, but to ask you a favor. My father has been kidnapped.”
“What?! How?!” Hannah asked in a tizzy.
“I-I don’t know. I figured with your brains and mine together, we might be able to find him. I have a name and a location, but I need your help. Will you? Please?”
“Of course! How can I help? Should I get our friends together to search too? Should I get the parents to do something? Should I...” Hannah ran out of breath.
“Yes, you should get our friends together to talk strategy if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Okay, I’ll go do that. Do you want to come with me?”
“That would be great, thanks.”
“No problem.” Yelling now, she said, “Hey everybody! Somebody’s here to see you!” Speaking now, she said, “I’m off. The parents just put out desert!”
“Wow Hannah,” I said for what must have been the hundredth time that week.                           
Before I could follow her indoors, I was greeted by a rush of friends wanting to see who was there. When they saw it was me, they all started saying hi at once. Trying to get away from the crowd, I pushed my way inside. There, I saw Hannah eating a brownie and getting ready to dive into the pool at the same time to see if the brownie would be able to stay dry. No surprise there.
I went upstairs to the sitting room, and waited for my friends to calm down. It took a little patience but after answering half a dozen questions they were calm. It was then that I told them. I told them the entire story, starting from when I woke up and going until Hannah ran inside.
There were many different responses to the story: Manda wanted to go with me and help in any way she could; Erica wanted to come with me so she could beat up whoever did this; Heather wanted to go with me so she could actually do real-life detective work instead of trying to figure out mysteries, and so she could “protect” me; Sydney wanted to be able to actually get out of the country for once and help me; and the others all wanted to help too.
In the end, I had a group of people that wanted to help me rescue my father. Among them, there’s around five people that have experience in the martial arts, (including me!).
We talked strategy for a few minutes, but we didn’t get very far before Hannah came up the stairs. After filling her in, we decided it was best that we left right now, seeing as it was only around noon.
After informing my friends’ parents that I was having a slumber party over at my house and they were going to stay for a week. The parents, (thankfully) we're okay with that, and didn’t ask too many questions. By the time the sun set that day, we were on our way from Washington DC to London. We took my family’s private jet, so no one would suspect that my father was missing.
What I didn’t know at the time was that there was a major flaw to my plan. ...