“Ok, this cuts down on my work,” he says. “The two of you will do, although I would sure like to get my hands on all of you!”
“What work?” Eli asks.
“The work of tracking you all down,” he answered. “I was given a list of who I needed and who I didn’t, so here I am, making good on my errand. I have a very anxious boss awaiting your arrival.”
“What do you want with us? What does your boss want with us?” Eli demands again.
“Who is your boss?” I ask even though I know deep down he does not have any intentions on telling either one of us anything. At least not yet.
“You will find out as soon as we get the rest of your group,” he smiles. “Let’s just say you are needed. Plus, my guess is they are out here somewhere since little miss lied.”
He looks around, aiming his gun high into the air and lets out a shot. Leah squeals in fear, giving up her and Mar’s location. Another shot rings into the air as a confirmation he had heard her squeals.
“Come on out here girly, with your hands up,” he demands.
Slowly, Leah comes out from behind the rocks and brush, Mar following behind her. They both throw their small guns at the man’s feet. He promptly discharges their ammunition and hands their weapons back to them.
Neither one of them tries the stunt I did, probably because they watched it unfold.
Mar hangs from Eli’s arm while Leah looks around frantically. My guess is she is wondering if Shawn will show himself or not. I don’t know if she is hoping he does or doesn’t.
“So now we are missing Isaac, Magi, Samantha, Brad, and Jake, right?” He asks the question to no one in general. It is almost as if he is checking a list off in his head.
“It’s Shawn,” Leah blurts out, “not Brad. Don’t you dare call him that.”
“Yeah, okay, so who will we work on showing themselves now?” he asks, while grabbing me from behind by my hair, ignoring Leah altogether. “Can you tell who we are going for now?” he whispers to me. “It’s kind of a fun little game…now isn’t it?”
“Fun! Ha! Jake, don’t come out,” I yell into the void. “Don’t let this sadistic sicko get his way.”
“Oh yes Jake, don’t come and be the hero,” the man mocks me. “Don’t save the damsel in distress from the sadistic sicko,” he grins in mock enthusiasm.
Anger rises in me.
It is almost like he knows it would take something extreme for Jake to give up his position. He puts his gun to my temple as I freeze in fear. I don’t feel he will shoot me, but looking at Morimoto’s body I am not so sure if he is stable enough to make a wise decision. He says that we are needed, so that may mean he wouldn’t kill any of us. Although, we don’t know for sure if more than Morimoto is on his kill list.
Seconds seem like minutes as I hold my breath, hoping he will never give himself up. As I am standing here in this man’s arms with a gun pushed against my head, I begin to wonder why I even gave myself up.
Loudly, a shot rings out from nowhere, but I know it didn’t come from the man’s gun because I am still standing here unharmed. I look around, seeing no one anywhere. As I am looking around, though, I can feel a sickly wet feeling oozing down my arm. I look up to see where the bullet made contact.
The man reaches up, pulling the bullet from his shoulder as if it doesn’t hurt one bit. The only guess that it does is a small grunt that escapes his lips as the bullet comes free from where it made contact. I notice from the hole, he is wearing a kind of thick vest under his t-shirt. The bullet grazed the side of the vest, half missing the fabric, half contacting his skin, but only barely. The blood is already slowing down.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” he yells out, angrier than before, as he presses the gun harder to the side of my head. My breath hitches with the intense pain that the pressure causes me. I didn’t know the gun could get any closer to my skin, but by now, it feels like it is imbedded there. I let out a painful groan as I feel a trickle of blood run down my face. I don’t think I can take much more of the pain this is causing me. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see an M-16 slide from over the top of the ravine.
A sick feeling sinks into the pit of my already nauseas stomach. The man walks me over to where the gun is resting. He leans over and discharges all its ammo, but this time into the air, one shot at a time, rather than onto the ground.
“It has been a long time since I have got to shoot one of these,” he smiles against my ear. “Just enjoying myself; this one may be mine.” He tosses the gun back to the ground and backs us up to our previous location, but nothing more happens. “You have until the
