I nod, not trusting my voice since my throat is so tight I doubt I could get a single word out right now.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” gun-guy says menacingly.
I can only stare down the barrel of his gun as the guy behind me comes into my field of view, an open laptop in his hands.
I blink at the laptop a few times, my mind spinning as my body goes cold with fear.
Are they going to let us go if I transfer the money to them? Or are they going to kill us as soon as they have what they need?
I’m still trying to process everything that’s going on when there’s a flash of movement beside me. Before I can fully register what’s happening, Xave breaks the hold his captor has on him and lunges at gun-guy.
The men around are momentarily stunned by the move, and that gives Xave enough time to get his hands on the gun and literally twist it out of gun-guy’s grip.
Crack.Crack.
One after the other, gun-guy and the man who was behind Xave both drop to the ground.
Holy shit. Xave just shot them.
Neither man is moving. Did he kill them?
Tearing my gaze from their bodies, I look back up at Xave as he points the gun at the guy still holding the laptop.
“Don’t even think about pissing me off,” Xave says in a cold, emotionless voice that sends a quick shiver up my spine.
He looks like a completely different person from the guy I’ve gone to school with for the past three and a half years. His posture is casual, and his hand is steady as he keeps the gun leveled at our captor’s head. There’s also no emotion on his face, but the really freaky part is his eyes. His gaze is as empty as his expression and as emotionless as his voice. There’s no life left in them, and that’s a thousand times more terrifying than if he were crashing out.
“Give the laptop to him,” Xave says.
The guy’s hands are shaking as he extends the computer to me, and mine are shaking just as hard as I take it.
“How many of you are there?” Xave asks.
“Three,” the guy croaks.
Crack.
I jump a mile at the gunshot and almost drop the laptop as the guy in front of me falls to the ground with a strangled scream and starts rolling around and grabbing at his leg. Blood pours out of a wound on his thigh and quickly soaks into the dirty ground.
Jesus H Christ. Xave just shot the guy like it was nothing.
“I told you not to piss me off,” Xave says, his tone shifting from blank to unbothered, like he didn’t just shoot three people in the last thirty seconds. “How many of you are there?”
The guy is too busy writhing on the ground to answer, but instead of asking again, Xave shifts the gun so it’s pointing at the ground beside him.
Crack.
I jump another mile as a tuft of grass and dirt explodes out of the ground only inches from the guy’s head.
“How many of you are there?” Xave asks in that same unbothered tone. “Don’t make me ask again, because the next one isn’t going into the dirt.”
“Four,” the guy croaks.
“Are you lying to me?”
“No, I swear.”
“Good answer.”
