The Group, the Idiot, and the Murderer -Mavin short story-

Chapter 4 - The Plot Twist

        Unable to see, I felt my way around the room. I bumped into a seat and crouched behind it so nothing from the window could notice me when looking through. 

"I'm going to search for another way out," Geoff said. I imagined him walking around with his arms in front of him, feeling around for some kind of back door. 

While he was gone, Ryan tried to take charge of the situation again. 

"One of us could run out there and grab the branches," he said. "We could totally get there before he even knew what was going on." 

"And then what? You would run out there and try to defeat a knife with a branch?" I asked.

"It's a fake knife though," Ryan defended. 

"How do you know? It looked pretty real to me."

"But on the website they said nobody would actually get hurt. Of course it's fake."

"I think Michael might actually be right," Jack said quietly from in front of me. "We were both close enough to see it, and I'm almost positive it was made of metal. And... sharp. "

"Are you serious?" Ryan asked in disbelief, looking to Gavin for support. "That's ridiculous. Right now is not a good time to be joking around. What, are you trying to tell me there is a real murderer on the loose?" 

The way he had said it was so sarcastically, as if he had planned his words to be tossed away immediately. But after a few moments of silence, it seemed like nobody was going to answer. I thought of saying the truth, that it probably wasn't true or that it would be very hard to believe, but at the time I was scared. I didn't trust my mind to know what was the truth.

"There's a window in the bathroom. It's pretty small, but we could get through it one at a time," Geoff whispered, sneaking back towards us in the dark. 

"The sooner we leave the better," I said. I heard a stubborn grunt from Ryan.

"If you guys want to run away, go ahead. I'm going to be out there trying to knock that guy over," he said.

"Come on dude, that's dumb," Geoff said. "Our best chance is if we all make a run for it together."

"If just one of you helped me out, I guarantee we can do it this way. We can get it over with." 

My eyes were adjusting to the light now, and I could see Ryan's face looking around at everyone in a pleading way. He stared into my eyes, and I turned away because  I actually felt like he was getting into my brain.

"No," I said. "I'm going with Geoff." Then he looked at Gavin. 

"Sorry, but I go where Michael goes," he whispered proudly, coming closer to me so he could put his arm on my shoulder. I let him keep it there, glad that we could be on the same team. 

Then all eyes were on Jack. It was all up to him if they were really going to try this dumb plan out or not, and I was unhappy to see him having to think of what to say. He eyed Geoff, then me and Gavin, then into Ryan's manipulating eyes. 

"I have the other knife if you want it," Jack offered.

"I don't want it, we need to get the branches!"

Jack sighed. "Your plan will work better with two people," he told Ryan. "And there's no point of you dying over a slim chance we could knock him over..."

"Exactly!" Ryan said a little too loudly. "We'll have a lot better of a chance if you join me."

Jack then looked back at me and had a hard time opening his mouth to speak "Sorry," he finally let out. I wondered what was going through his head at the time.