Loser II || WlW

Thirty-Three

Zachary's gone by the time I kick the door open and run to the common's room. The usually busy kitchen is empty and the area around the fireplace has been vacated. 

"Brittany," I call out.

Nothing.

The front-facing windows show an empty driveway. Kyle's truck is gone but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. Did he leave? And if he did, did he take Brittany with him? Or did fake Ron kill them and hide the truck somewhere? I'm on autopilot, not considering the emotional damage I'll suffer if I stumble on Brittany's dead body, halfway to the garage when a blood-curdling scream sounds from somewhere outside. I add searching for Kyle's vehicle to my mental checklist as I sprint back into the snow and search for the source of the noise.

"Brittany!" I shout.

Another scream but it's not hers. Or, at least, I don't think it's hers. The voice sounds too deep to be Brittany. Regardless, I run toward the building where it came from. I can't take any chances right now.

"Please," the person is begging. "Please, leave me alone! I didn't do anything!"

I round the corner and stop in the doorway for only a second to squint into the pitch-black room.

Goosebumps run up my arms. This could be a trap. It could be Chrissy in there screaming. They know I wouldn't react to a male screaming but... I shake the thought off and push into the building. "Brittany?"

It looks like an old gym with shiny wood floors and bleachers. There are two posts on either side of the room that could have served as basketball hoops before but now the room is filled to the brim with Christmas decorations and boxes of junk that leave only a single trail to an unknown destination. Like a corn maze of junk. A hoarder's wet dream. It makes sense now, why all of this stuff is packed up in the middle of December. It was real Ron's job to put the decorations up and now he's dead.

"Hello?" I call out and then think better of it. If someone dangerous is in here with me, I can't give my location away.

I take slow steps, keeping my shaky hands up and ready for an attack, but it's impossible to see more than a foot in front of my face. My breath comes in shaky and every lawn decoration turns into a figure before I blink the threatening shadows away.

Something twitches out of the corner of my eye, and I freeze, trying to get my eyes to focus on what moved, but there's nothing besides a 6-foot-tall nutcracker staring back at me. No, something moved. But no matter how long I stand in the same spot, having a stare-off with the nutcracker, nothing happens.

I hesitate before taking the corner around the boxes, rocking on the balls of my feet before I swing around and embrace whatever's on the other side.

"Brittany?" I whisper.

I'm picking up the pace now, focused on covering as much distance as possible when a hairy arm clamps around my neck. I throw my elbow back, connect with the person's ribs, and turn on them as they double over in pain.

Without any light, I can barely place the bald head and thick, curly beard but there aren't many people who tower over me like this.

"Roger." I grin. I knew he had something to do with this.

He chuckles. "Gotten ahold of your mom yet?"

I lift my hands higher, curl them into soft fists, let myself envision Boss' studio and the drills I'd run with Jackson. Except Jackson was an inch or two shorter than me and probably weighed about as much as I do. Roger is a giant of a man. I can only hope Boss' training has been enough to get me out of this dark maze alive.

"What did you do to her?"

He lets out a dark laugh. "What did you do to my kid?"

I swallow. "Your kid attacked me," is all I say. I have to be careful about what I admit. Zachary could twist the entire situation and make me look like the crazy one. Like he did to my mom for years.

Roger scoffs. "He wasn't trying to kill you."

"Bullshit." But I find myself wanting him to continue. I want him to tell me what he's talking about. Tell me if all this guilt I've been feeling about his son's death is justified.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, kid." He shakes his head. "But he was given direct orders not to touch you. He was probably just pulling a prank."

"Direct orders from who?"

Roger shakes his head.

"You guys are taking orders from Zachary?"

His lips pull into a grin but still, he doesn't speak.

"Maybe next time you should tell your kid not to pull pranks on people," I snap. Anything to get a reaction out of him. If I can get him to respond, I can get him to keep talking. To feed me information about Zachary's little gang. "Listen, man—" I start but something crashes into the back of me and nearly takes me to my knees.

I turn on the figure, and ready myself to tackle them but they shrink away from me, their bloody hands held up to cover their face.

"Donna?"

She backs herself into the corner of boxes, whimpering something unintelligible.

Loud footsteps sound behind me and I ready myself for Roger's attack but as every muscle in my body goes stiff, I realize he's running in the opposite direction.

I want to chase him, try to figure out what exactly is going on, but I don't want to leave Donna alone so, instead, I crouch near her.

"Donna, are you okay?" I ask. "Who did this to you?"

She's covered in sticky blood, her forearms are sliced to shreds.

She shakes her head. "I don't know." It's like she's stuck on repeat, saying the same thing over and over.

"Okay." I take her hand in mine and help her up. "Shh, okay. It's okay. We'll get out of here together."

She pushes into me while we walk, hesitant around any corner and jumpy around the human-sized decorations but eventually, we make it out of the old gym.

"Do you know where Grace is?" I ask her.

She shakes her head. "We got separated inside. She could still be in there."

"Okay, we'll find her. Don't worry." I check the area for Roger. "Did you see where Brittany and Kyle went?"

Donna's expression falls. She shakes her head.

"What?" I demand, my voice getting caught in my throat. "Where's Brittany?"

"I don't know, Jordan," she answers. "He took them."

***

Hey, guys! 

Just wanted to drop in because I'm not sure I mentioned this specifically to my Loser II readers yet but I did post the first chapter of the next story that I'll be working on when this one is completed so make sure you swing on over and check that one out and do what you gotta do to make sure you get the upload notifications. 

Okay, that's all I have for you! 

Thanks so much for reading guys and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend (:

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