“So where are we going?” Sarah asked.

“You tell me.”

Michael pulled the car onto the main road through the suburbs and parked it right up against the edge. He glanced into the rear-view mirror, looking to see if he was being followed, and turned back to the road.

“We can’t go straight for Brad,” he said. “We don’t know where he is. He could be driving to your house, looking for his friends, looking for your friends, or just waiting for the cops to show up. We need to deal with him, but we can’t just drive across him and make him stop. We’re forced into being reactive.”

“So we need to just wait?” Sarah’s voice ran thin in the yell. “I just need to wait for him to show up with a bunch of his friends in tow to talk him down?”

“No you don’t. Don’t panic.” Michael lifted a hand off the wheel and tried to gesture for her to calm down. “We’re only reactive when it comes to Brad. We need to wait for him to give us a location or time, but otherwise, we can be as active as we want. Which is why you need to tell me where we go next.”

She looked at him with wide and confused eyes. “Why aren’t you deciding?”

He shrugged. “I’m not the one being hunted. He doesn’t know I’m in this yet. You’re his target.”

Sarah took a deep breath, then several more, forcing herself to be slow as she looked around where they had parked. The houses lining the roads were mostly dark, with a few lights on where kitchens and dining rooms seemed to be, or a few bedrooms. It was quiet on a Ravenville weeknight, no plots brewing or moves being made. Not visibly, he thought. Nobody could see what wheels were turning now. Not him, while they sat there.

She spoke, breaking the silence. “I think–we should go check in on Jane. She was a target close to me, and even if Brad said he wasn’t going to go for her, they might try to use her as a hostage or something. I don’t know, she just seems like the best place to go, because I’m not stupid enough to go back to my house and they know I’m not stupid enough to go back there.”

“Alright. Jane’s it is.” He shifted the car out of park and pushed down on the gas, starting the car southward. One hand held the wheel while flicking the headlights on, and the other stopped Sarah’s hand before she could reach the radio. “We’re not putting music on.”

“It would help me focus?”

“You don’t have anything to focus on.”

“But I want a little bit of noise.”

She pulled her hand back and rubbed at her nose, sniffling, trying to give him a pleading look. It wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t going to turn on the radio when they would probably need to kill somebody within a few hours. But he understood the need for some noise right then.

“No.” He reached for his phone in his pocket. “If you want noise, then I can call Brad to attempt to call him off now.”

“Absolutely.” She nodded furiously. “Just try and talk him down, please.”

Michael sighed and flipped his phone open, bringing up the call history. Brad was still very recent in the history, only set back by a few calls to his parents concerning what to do about dinner when they had to work late and James yelling to him about a history paper due soon in a panic. He pressed the call button over his name, and brought the phone to his ear.

Brad answered instantly. “Hey, Michael.”

“Brad.”

“What, uh, what are you calling about?”

“I’ve been informed that you’re making a play tonight.”

“Did Sarah come running to you? Oh, come on, man.” He sounded disappointed. “She’s just standing around. She’s never tried to do a thing here. Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Michael said. “I didn’t actually know that you had been making a play, only that you had something planned. But I assumed you were.”

“Uh. Fine, whatever.” He paused and shouted to somebody else. “No, Louis, not that one, dipshit. The other one, the aluminum one. Yeah, that’s it.” Somebody cleared their throat incredibly loudly near the phone, and Michael moved it away from his ear, giving it a strange look out of the corner of his eye.

Sarah was giving it a look too, and he shrugged. “I think he just told Louis to get the metal bat.”

Her eyes went wide, but he looked back to the road and returned the phone to his ear. “Are you done in there?”

“I’m here.” Brad grunted. “Do you want a piece?”

Michael blinked. “Of Sarah?”

“Sarah Vic, yeah. I’ve got her address. I’m not fuckin, gonna run away or something. I haven’t even attacked her yet and payback doesn’t count, and you’re not gonna call somebody to tell them to stop.”

Sarah glared at him. Michael didn’t respond and moved along. “You haven’t attacked her, no. I assume tonight is some sort of change of plans?”

“You’ve got that right. Stop the car. Aaron, stop the fuckin car!” Something slammed in the call. “Check the windows. You know it’s a change of plans, man. If she told you, you know what’s up. You know I’ve got something to gain.”

“From killing somebody with little presence, no record to her name, and dumping her body in the woods?” Michael snorted. “I may be getting rusty, but that doesn’t seem especially prestigious, especially if you need multiple people to do it.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yeah, she doesn’t go for a lot on her own, but like–” There was a muffled yell, and Brad slammed on something. “Check again, Kelly. Yeah, get Alex–wait, why are you here? Get out of the fuckin car, go!”

Michael moved the phone away as he turned off the main street, down the path to where he knew Jane’s house could be reached. Sarah was shifting in her seat uneasily, and pointed at the phone. He let out an annoyed sigh. “I assume they’re sweeping the area around your house. Unsuccessfully.”

Brad began shouting through the phone. “You there? Michael? You there?”

“I’m here,” he drawled, raising the phone again. “You were explaining something.”

“I mean, you know why I get something out of this, y’know?” Brad chuckled. “If you want in, you’ll be set for life. It’ll solve all the problems you’d ever have here?”

“With one kill?”

“No, man.” He scoffed. “With the body.”

Michael froze, and laughed. A cruel and sarcastic noise, a single “Ha!” that made Sarah jump before pulling the car to the side of the road. “I don’t know what you think you’re planning, Brad, but it’s wrong. It’s so, so wrong. And you apparently don’t even know how off you are.”

“What the fuck–” “I will not be joining you on this little hunt tonight.”

He flipped the phone shut, ending the call, and turned the car off. “We’re here.”

“Is he going to back off?” Sarah asked.

“Absolutely not.” He removed the keys from the ignition and slid them into a pocket. “But we can still check up on Jane and work from there.”

She nodded and almost stumbled out of the car, leaving the door open and sprinting across the front lawn. Michael slowly extricated himself from the driver’s seat and closed the door, pushing the passenger door shut as he followed in Sarah’s footsteps. She was slamming on the front door now, and it opened as soon as Michael began up the front steps behind her.

“What are you doing?” Jane hissed. “My parents are trying to sleep upstairs.”

“I’m sorry, but Brad’s doing shit, I didn’t know, I had to check on you and–”

He thumped her in the back.

Sarah stopped talking and burst into a coughing fit, doubling over as dry heaves began mixing in with the coughs. Jane leaned down in concern, but Michael waved her off, patting Sarah on the shoulder as she stood back up.

“Sorry, I’ve been panicking a lot tonight.” She still sounded stressed and pushed to her edge, but not to the point of paralysis and terror. “Brad’s plan is really bad. He wants to chop my body up and use it for something. I couldn’t go back home, so I wanted to check in on you before something happened.”

Jane looked around and stepped aside in the doorway. “Bleeding hell, get inside, Sarah. And I guess you too, Michael. Are those knives?”

“I came prepared,” he said, wiping his boots on the doormat as Sarah looked around inside. “I assume you haven’t been attacked tonight then?”

“No, I’ve just been doing homework and laundry since I called you.” She pointed at Sarah. “You said that you’d be fine.”

“I wasn’t stealthy enough.” Sarah’s shoulders fell as she leaned against a foyer wall. “I got freaked out by what he was talking about, and I got exposed. He’s chasing me down now. He would have done something soon anyway!” She corrected, cutting off whatever Jane’s stern look foreshadowed, “But he’s going now because I got caught.”

The lights in the foyer flickered, casting shadows on everything around. Jane turned to look at the kitchen, staring at something in the darkness, jagged stripes of shadow crawling across her face. It was another moment before the lights returned to full strength, and Jane stepped into the kitchen, turning the single light above the sink on as she did.

“I don’t want to wake my parents up,” she said, the faint illumination bouncing off the finished wooden cupboards and catching faint chips in the countertops. “Turn the lights off in there. It goes all the way up the stairs.”

Michael hit the switch as Sarah sat down on a dining room chair, leaving the only light a dim bulb above the sink. He took in the room, the old floorboards and the thin single entrance to the living room and backdoor, the cabinet under the sink, and the ancient-seeming cabinet full of porcelain and decorative teacups. He pointed a thumb at it, and Sarah waved a hand.

“Her parents are weird. I’ve asked her to let me look at them before, they’re apparently super old, but she never lets me.”

“I know you’re not thinking about investigations now, when Brad might be coming for you.” Jane shook her head. “I don’t have a lot for you guys, it’s not like there’s anything I can actually give you to help this fight or whatever. I think my parents restocked our first aid kit, if you need that?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Sarah threw an arm over the back of the chair and rested her chin on it. “I’m not hurt. I just wanted to check in on you. It’s been a scary night, and I really just had to pick somewhere to start.”

“Alright. Well, if you need to use it–”

A phone rang, and Sarah jumped, reaching for her pocket before freezing and looking at Michael. He tilted his head towards the landline, the indicator light blinking on the counter. Jane picked it up and answered it.

“Hello?”

There was a response, and she covered the receiver with her hand and leaned away. “It’s Brad,” she whispered.

Sarah leapt off the chair and lunged for the phone, grabbing it from Jane’s hands. She tried to grab it back, but Sarah pushed her back and pulled the phone to her face.

“Bradley Mansill, go fuck yourself, you murderous, stupid, piece of shit!”

She ended the call with a forceful jab and tossed the phone into the sink, furious, only to stop and slowly turn to the other two.

“I think I might be a little stressed?” She suggested.

“He did say he’d never stop,” Michael replied without missing a beat. “I suppose I understand. There’s only thing to do now, if you don’t want to try again.”

Jane sighed. “What is it?”

He tested the knife in the sheath, and pulled it free without a hitch.

“Brace for violence.”