Fri Fant From Dem Dem

It's still technically Friday, and there's been somewhat of a drought in my posting my Fri Fant, recently.

Chapter 4: Capture

"Okay. I pulled some strings and now I have a room for The Murderer." Cathrine tells me.
"Stop calling him that!" I say. "He didn't do it."
"You don't know that." she says.
"Yes I do."
"Whatever. But whenever he kills you, I'm going to say I told you so."
"Well, that'll be difficult, considering he won't kill me. And even if he did, I'd be dead. You couldn't tell me." I say.
"Well, I bet you he's gonna kill someone." she replies.


Later that night, Cathrine and I are sitting in the hospital room with Joseph. Joseph's asleep already. I guess running from the cops and almost getting killed takes it out of you.
"James, I just don't like this. What if you're wrong? What if it was him? What if he kills you?" Cathrine asks with concern.
"Well, to answer all of your questions, one, I'm not wrong. Two, It wasn't him. And three, he won't kill me."
"You don't know that. You've been wrong before." Cathrine states.
"Name one--" Maybe that's not such a good question to ask. " ...Nevermind."
Cathrine gives a small smile of satisfaction. She's such a jerk, but I guess she's my friend, so she's allowed to be a jerk to me. It's annoying sometimes though. I sometimes regret the day I met her... But usually I don't, considering that she's saved my life quite a few times. Which is why I owe her. Ugh.
I start to get tired of the conversations exchanged by me and Catherine, most of them concerning how stupid I apparently am, and start to doze off. She rouses me from sleep a few times but I fall back to sleep every time. That is, until about six in the morning when she punches me in the stomach. I struggle to regain by breath, so when I try to swear, it ends up being a jumble of a few different words.
"Good, you're up," Catherine says brightly. "I need you to run a few errands for me while I stay here and keep an eye on your little criminal, considering that I don't trust him alone with you." She gestures to Joseph, who is still asleep. I try to object running errands, but Cathrine interjects with, "You owe me!" in a singsong voice.
"Fine! Just shut up!" I shout back, but then remember that Joseph is still asleep, so I try to avoid much more yelling. Cathrine hands me a post-it note with a few things for me to do written on it.
"Have fun!" she calls after me as I leave. I just ignore her and keep walking.
I walk into town and take another look at the list. Her handwriting is awful. I can barely make out the words on it. Whatever. I don't really even care about the list, I just am enjoying getting out of that cramped room with her. It's a complicated friendship. I crumple the list in my hand and shove it in my pocket, then my stomach growls. The diner should be just about open by now, so I just walk a few blocks and get there in only a few minutes. When I walk in and sit down in a booth, it's not long before a tall, burly man with straight, brown hair down to his shoulders walks into the establishment.
"Just so we're clear," he says loudly, so everyone can hear. He pulls a gun out of his jacket. "Call the cops, and you die."
The man looks around the room and gives a sinister grin. One small child wriggles out of her mother's arms and runs up to the man with the gun.
She points at the man and looks him in the eyes. "No!" she says sternly. Her mother is a picture of panic as her little daughter tries to stand up to the man.
She tries to go get her child, but the man just smiles broader and puts his big hand around the woman's neck when she comes near. "Now hold on a second," he says, then shoves the little girl down and puts his booted foot on top of her chest. "I have a better idea."
"My baby!" the girl's mother calls out and starts sobbing. "Please. Please!" she begs.
"Shh. Shh." he says calmly. "You don't want to get me upset--" he pushes his foot down harder on the child. She lets out a shriek. "--Now do you?"
I'm too shocked to do anything. I can't get myself to move or speak. I just sit there and watch, helpless. Hopeless. Nothing I can do would help.
But that's when Ms. Finnis strides out of the kitchen and glares at the man's scarred face. "You leave them alone!" she shouts menacingly. She holds a steak knife at her side.
The man looks at her, still grinning. "Hm. I like your style, haha. But don't you worry, I'm just here for some information." he states. "I'm looking for someone. Do any of you know where I could find a James Xyles?"
"Well, it seems you missed the memo, but he's dead." Ms. Finnis says.
"I've heard otherwise. I've seen otherwise. And I happen to know that you two are very close friends. Now, you could tell me where he is," he raises the gun. ", or I could blow your head right off."
I'm even more paralyzed now. I really can't move no matter how hard I try. One of the last people I care about could get... And I can't do anything about it!
"I beg to differ! Now you let go of the woman and get your foot off of that child before I gut you!" she shouts and holds up the knife.
The man lets both the woman and the child go and walks over to Ms. Finnis. He twists her wrist and she drops the knife. "At first you were amusing, but now you're just annoying." he frowns with irritation. He points the gun at her. "Now, if someone doesn't tell me where I can find the boy, there's gonna be some...consequences." Silence. "No? Well then..." His finger goes to the trigger.
A burst of adrenaline unfreezes my muscles and I stand up quickly and try to shout 'Wait!', but I'm too late. My word is cut off by a loud 'BAM!'. No... no, no, no...
The other customers stare and gape. They quickly get turn to me, those of them that know me, and the woman who the man had been choking earlier ratted me out, out of anger for the trouble I've caused.
"Ah, so there's the million dollar boy." he looks at me and grins. He steps out of a pool of blood to walk over to me. Now I can't move again... He looks back at everyone in the room and repeats, "Call the police, you die." He looks back at me. "And, as for you..." the man pulls a cloth out of his pocket and puts it to my nose and mouth. It's not long before I pass out from whatever was on it.
I wake up, bound by ropes to a chair. To make it worse, there's also a gun being poked into the side of my head. I groan with drowsiness and wish I could fall back to sleep and wake up from this nightmare. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and pretend I'm still asleep. This, sadly, doesn't work. A man smacks my forehead with the gun and tells me to get up. Well, not literally of course.
I stare at the man with anger. "Why don't you just take that gun and shove it up your--"
"Hel-lo!" the man from the diner bursts through the door of the room and greets me and the other man. Very cheerful... "Look who's awake! Finally I can get some answers." I can tell by this man's cheerfulness that he is insane. Which was already evident.
"Answers to what?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. I lean my head back as if I were bored.
"The thing that cost your family their lives." the man says with a grin. "Well, that and your dad's stupidity. I mean if he would've just sold me the schematics in the first place, all this coulda been avoided." My eyes widen. Did he just say what I think he said. H-he's the one? No way...
I try to speak without making my voice waver. "Well, you're out of luck. I'm not telling you anything. Besides, how would I know?"
"Word gets around, y'know? I've heard of your little ability. Remembering every detail of everything you see must be useful, huh? Well, then again, at times it may be a burden. Like when something...bad happens." Ms. Finnis. This guy may be a phychopath, but that may mean he's skilled at phychological torture.
"You're not going to get much information if you kill me, you know that?" I remark.
"You don't miss a thing, do you?" the scar-faced man chuckles and takes the gun from the other man. He waves him out the door. "So...if it was another person's life at stake--" he snaps his fingers and the man comes back in the room holding a seemingly lifeless person by the arms. I'm not sure who it is, considering the burlap bag on his head. "-- Would you be willing to talk if I killed him?"
When the man pulls the burlap bag off of the person's head I feel like I've been struck by lightning. It may seem cliched but it really is like I'm looking in a mirror. I can't believe it. My brother is alive.


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YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING, DID YOU?!?!?!? MWAHAHAHAHAAA!!! Actually, it was probably inevitable that that would happen... Whatev's


-Dem