Aftg react

Part60

Foxes react: chapter12 part2

He couldn't get away, they were inside with them. They were near Andrew's family and he was tense watching that. This was dangerous, how was this going to go? What would happen to them and Neil what was he going to do now?
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Romero let his hand rest casually on the gun hooked to his belt. Neil flinched and gave a fierce shake of his head. Romero turned away from him to face the Foxes. Neil had no problems interpreting that warning and he put his hands out in a desperate plea to stand down. Jackson flicked Neil only a cursory glance before returning his attention to the oblivious team.
"If we're all accounted for, we should head out," Jackson said.
"We're still waiting for Neil," Nicky said, and Jackson gestured down the hall in Neil's direction. Neil swallowed against the stone in his throat and tried to school his expression into something calm. He continued down the hall on feet that wanted to carry him anywhere but here. Nicky jumped to his feet when Neil stepped into the den, grinning ear to ear. "Hey, Neil! We were starting to think you'd drowned in there."
"I'm sorry," Neil said.
Nicky waved it off, thinking Neil was apologizing for the wait, and went to grab his bag.

"Jesus" said Wymack a sign of how bad this was, Nicky looked like he was going to cry any minute now and the other looked at what was going on horrified with tense shoulders, he was going to say something right? Neil was going to tell them something anything at this point but what made this a thousand times worse was that deep down they all had a feeling that he wasn't.
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Only Andrew saw the strain in Neil's mask. He crossed the room to stand in front of Neil, a silent demand in his stare. Neil wanted to answer that, but he didn't know how. German was the obvious answer because it would afford them a little bit of privacy, but Romero and Jackson didn't understand German. They wouldn't know what he was saying and they would have to react like he was spilling every dark secret. Neil couldn't allow that. He didn't want to leave Andrew with nothing, but what could he possibly say?
"Thank you," he finally said. He couldn't say he meant thanks for all of it: the keys, the trust, the honesty, and the kisses. Hopefully Andrew would figure it out eventually. "You were amazing."

At this point Nicky was crying at the others were close too, they wish this was just a nightmare that this was not actually going to happen, they couldn't do anything and it was eating them alive.
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Romero caught Neil's wrist in an iron grip. Neil dug his phone out of his jeans pocket with his free hand and stuffed it into the netted end pocket of his duffel. He just made it when the crowd's tension hit a breaking point. Students and fans went at each other's throats with the Foxes caught in the middle. Bodies crashed into Neil hard enough to take him off his feet, but Romero hauled him up and away as fast as he could. Neil dropped his racquet and let his bag get ripped from his shoulder. Andrew and Kevin knew he'd never let go of these things willingly. It wouldn't tell them where he'd gone, but they'd know he hadn't left them by choice.
Somewhere between the riot and the parking lot Romero lost his reflective vest. As soon as Neil's shoes hit asphalt Neil started struggling, but Jackson was right behind them. He yanked Neil's arm up behind him so sharply he almost dislocated Neil's shoulder. Neil gasped at the white bolt of pain that shot through his back.

They were horrified for their teammate and anger was starting to make itself present, it might sound wrong and horrible but it satisfying to see that he at least still trying to get away they would actually kill him if he gave up.
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"Speaking of which, it's tradition for me to tell a man what I plan on doing with his pieces," Lola said, and she proceeded to tell him in great detail how she was going to take his corpse apart.
Neil tried not to listen, but he couldn't tune out her cruel words. He put every ounce of strength he had left into keeping his fear from showing on his face. He couldn't keep his hands still, but he could at least hide them in his pockets. He didn't want her to know she was getting to him. It wasn't like a brave front would save him, but they'd been waiting for this moment for nine years. The least Neil could do was rob them of as much satisfaction as possible.

"Oh my god" said Alison a horrified and somewhat disgusted expression and the others too the only one that didn't wear these emotions was Andrew but deep down he was the same.
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It was only a couple miles to I-81, and the car they'd acquired for this job let them hit the interstate at ninety miles an hour. Jackson cut the police lights on and off depending on whether or not cars were in his way. Even at such speeds it was almost three hours from Binghamton University to Baltimore.
Two miles into Maryland they pulled off to the shoulder behind an abandoned car. Jackson stayed with the patrol car, but Romero and Lola walked Neil to the Cadillac. Neil was pushed into the passenger seat.
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Romero put his gun in Neil's face before Neil could even think of making a break for it.

They tensed because this was not just knifes now this was a gun and it sure hurt more then a stab wound.
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He was pretty sure he was supposed to be delivered to Nathan alive, but Neil's mother had taught Neil how many places one could shoot a man without killing him. Neil watched Lola cuff his ankles to the seat's rails and barely refrained from kneeing her in the face.
Lola climbed into the backseat behind him and pulled Neil's arms around back of his chair. She cuffed his hands together and clicked them as tight as she could. As soon as she closed her door Romero got them on the road again. Neil kicked his legs a bit, testing his range of movement, but was quickly distracted by the press of sharp, cold metal against his fingertips.
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Neil reflexively tried to clench his hands into fists. Lola laughed and dug a thumb into the pressure point of his wrist. When his fingers loosened she slid her blade between his fingers and palm. The scrape of the edge against his fingers was encouragement to open his hand again. Lola tapped the tip to the webbing between her fingers, hard enough to be a threat but not quite hard enough to break the skin. She got bored of the teasing before long and cut a shallow line along the base of his fingers.
Neil tugged hard at the cuffs, trying to yank his hands out of her reach, but there was no give in the metal. For a blinding moment it reminded him of Christmas break at Evermore, and Neil's wavering control cracked a little further. "Stop it."
"Stop me," Lola returned, and cut a stinging line down from the base of his finger to the thick flesh of his thumb.

They were angry, angry that they were not able to stop this, angry that they had not see past the facade he had put on in front of them in the locker when he saw who was there with them. But no one was giving up on him because that would be worse then anything else, they know that he was going to survive or at least they hoped he survived.