Page 1 of Five
Prologue
B4
DearReader—Followingisabrief prequel to Five, a collection of chapters we compiled to introduce each of our characters to you prior to the release of the main attraction. Although it is available on its own, we’ve added it here for your convenience.
OSCAR
The Distant Past
Key West’s historic Shipwreck Museum wavers in the heat rising off the pavement as my kid brother, Ollie, my dad, and I head across the parking lot toward the entrance. He has been playing at being a pirate for ages, completely obsessed, so Dad thought it would be a fun day out for us.
Ollie’s dressed up in a striped blue and white tee-shirt. It’s been his favorite thing to wear for weeks; he even whines when it needs to go in the laundry. Dad bought him an eye patch and one of those foam swords, and Ollie’s excited in the irritating way only a little kid can be.
But me? I don’t want to be here. I’m missing out on a day with my friends for this garbage, and Ollie keeps poking me and whacking me with the stupid sword, making my already bad mood even worse.
It’s too hot, and this place is just dumb. Ollie wants to stop every few minutes and stare at the people dressed up in olden-day costumes, and it’s boring.
He’s trailing way behind by the time we get into the museum itself, and I race ahead in an attempt to move him along, wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible. So, while Dad and Ollie stop and look at every single thing, and Dad reads all the information boards out loud, I take off and walk to the top of the lookout tower.
I don’t know how much later it is before I realize something dreadful has happened. After the lookout tower, I was hot, bored, and thirsty, so I sat under a palm tree near the exit and waited for them.
It’s not until some security guy in a black uniform comes and asks my name, then says into a walkie-talkie that I’ve been found, that it occurred to me anyone would think I was missing.
I’m taken to some office where my dad’s pacing frantically, and guilt hits me like a mack truck as I realize how worried he’s been.
“Oz! Thank God!” Dad rushes up and gives me a huge hug, squeezing me so tight I can barely breathe. But it’s the way he looks behind me, towards the door, with such hope in his eyes, that gets me really scared.
He looks back at me. “Where’s Ollie?” he asks, the joy in his eyes turning to apprehension again.
I frown and look around myself, before shrugging. “I don’t know, Dad. He wasn’t with me.”
Whatever happiness Dad experienced at seeing me is short lived. “Why weren’t you watching him?” he demands. “He’s only six! You can’t just run off and leave him.”
Anger churns in my gut and I lash out at the unfairness of it. “He was with you!” I shout. “You were reading all those stupid signs to him while I went up the tower.”
Fury wreaths my dad’s face and for a second I think he’s going to hit me. Then some lady comes rushing up, followed by a policeman, trying to calm the situation.
Hours later, they finally send us home. Dad doesn’t want to go, wants to stay and wait for Ollie to show up, but he’s finally forced to accept that’s simply not going to happen. There’s no sign of him. The park is closed. The staff and the police searched every building, every nook and cranny, but Ollie is gone. They found a foam sword near one of the exits, but it could have belonged to anyone.
And that was it. Our lives would never be the same again.
The next two years are… difficult.
Dad and me? Well, on the face of it we both blame each other, but I guess on the inside we both blame ourselves.
Dad’s taken to drinking and finds his solace at the bottom of a bottle, and me? Well, if I get into trouble nobody cares, anyway.
And then it happens.
Ollie is found.
It’s a miracle. And it’s a miracle social services allow him to come back to us, with the state my dad and the house is in. Me too, if I’m honest, with the amount of trouble I’m always in, but no one takes much notice of another kid with issues. Most probably think it’s expected after everything that’s occurred.
I haven’t mentioned our mother, have I?
She died giving birth to Ollie. One of those things nobody expects to happen in this day and age. As a precaution, she’d been on blood thinners for a suspected blood clot in one of her lungs, but then she suffered a ruptured placenta at thirty-eight weeks, and the resulting hemorrhage killed her.
Back then, Dad always felt like he had to make it up to us. Especially baby Oliver.
