The Forum by Marie Reyes (short books for teens .txt) 📕

"See, you get it. If you behave, you may just get out of this. It's not you I'm interested in."

"Then why are you—"

"You're my collateral. Just in case I need a hostage or two."

Although Kristen could barely hold a thought in her racing mind, she knew that this was who killed her father. Connor was only interested in hurting women he felt had wronged him, whereas this person, he was after something else entirely. She imagined the kind of conversation he would have had with her father when he called Best Choice Insurance. Sure, he could be a jerk sometimes, and he could have given this guy hell, but that was no excuse to do what he did.

She had no idea what to do with her anger right now. She wanted this guy dead, to suffer like her father had, but what could she do with Piper in the car? Whatever Kristen did would have consequences for both of them. If it was just her in the car, she could be as reckless as she liked. She could grab the steering wheel, distract him, try to get his gun from him, anything but sit there pretending nothing was wrong. At this point, Kristen didn't even care if she lived or died, just as long as this person paid for what they did. For now, all she could do was sit tight, and do what this maniac wanted.

Chapter

Thirty Eight

Both Aadesh and Martin hurled themselves at the door. Surely if they used enough force again and again, the latch would detach, or the padlock would weaken.

"If we broke the glass, maybe we could open it from the outside?"

"Is he out there?" Isabella asked, still in her corner, but considerably calmer, and no longer screaming.

Aadesh banged his fist against the weakened glass, and it didn't break, but the cracks grew bigger. He looked out but couldn't see anything but the fractured glass obscuring the view. Defeated, he slid down the door and sat on the cold, hard floor.

"What's our next move?" Before Martin could answer, another shot fired, and glass fell on them as the window above shattered. They tried to shield themselves by putting their arms over their heads and they waited. They had nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait, but no more shots came. Martin wanted to look through the broken window to see where Connor was, but he knew the minute he did, his head could be blown off, yet sitting there waiting was even more excruciating.

Just as he went to move, a metal object fell onto the floor, a pipe? A fizzing sound. He saw Aadesh dive into the corner, shielding Isabella with his whole body, and then it dawned on him. He barely had time to face the wall and place his arms over his head when a force rippled through him and a deafening sound perforated his eardrums.

~~~

"What is your name?" Piper asked, and Kristen wondered if she was trying to manage him, to get personal details about him so she could ingratiate herself to him, and to stay alive.

"John."

She knew this route as they had only traveled it a few hours prior. She recognized the junction. Gas station on the left, pharmacy on the right. He turned left at the lights. There were barely any cars on this road as it was still too early for people to be starting work, and apart from offices, there was just open, grassy spaces, and trees.

He hadn't driven down the road long before the turning came. They passed the artificial lake and Kristen wondered what the hell this guy was going to do once he got there. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

There were only a few cars parked in the lot, and John found a space as close to the building as possible. He turned off the engine and his finger hovered over the trigger of his gun. "Now we wait."

"What are you going to do?" Kristen asked.

"Can't you make an educated guess?"

"How many people have you killed?"

For some reason, he didn't seem to mind the questions. It was as if he wanted to talk and unburden himself. "Only two. Two for me, two for Connor."

"There are only three videos."

"Soon, there will be a fourth, and a fifth."

"How did this all start?" She wanted answers, now!

"It was fairly innocent at first. Connor and I would bitch about our customers. We sat next to each other and whenever I got an obnoxious ass on the phone, I would pull up the plan and find out all their details. You'd be amazed at what you can find out about people online. I would find their homes on the internet, look at their social media, learn everything about them. My first act of rebellion was this guy who was claiming for loss of earnings. He screamed at me for almost an hour straight and you know why?"

"Why?" Kristen humored him.

"Because he didn't want us to deduct tax and expenses from his payment. He wanted us to pay him more than he actually earned. How crazy is that? That someone could abuse me like that because he was an amoral piece of shit. My boss enforced a no hanging up rule, so no matter what abuse these people flung at us, we just had to take it like little bitches. So, a while after this person called, so it wasn't obvious, I set up loads of fake accounts, even used a VPN and I tanked his business, all from the safety of my computer. I gave him awful reviews, flung accusations around. The dude actually went out of business. Can you imagine what it feels like to have that kind of power over someone who likes to walk all over