Chapter Twenty-Three
George could not help but practically pout as Max's grip tightened on her wrist, the same hand that hovered over the strap of her black bag.
"Do I need to say it a second time, bitch?" growled Max. "Don't make me say it a second time, baby doll," he crooned mockingly, clutching onto the strap of her little black square canvas messenger bag. "I really hate saying it a second time. Let. Go. Or I'll slit your throat and leave your body for the cops to find."
"George!" came Burt's voice, his sounding strained. "Give it to him!" he pleaded, her boyfriend looking like he wanted to intervene, but he knew if he so much as made one step forward, Max would kill George.
The young brunette violently shook her head no, and he let out another low warning growl from the back of his throat, shoving her up against the door of his van even harder.
George winced as he did so, definitely feeling a muscle pull in her back as he shifted his hold on her shoulder, his unnaturally strong grip keeping the girl in her place.
"Let go!" she cried, flinching as she felt the hot searing pain travel down her spine as the pulled muscle near the small of her back sent shooting inflammatory pains throughout her body.
The ache was dull, as if some lazy torturer were standing right behind her, only applying enough pressure to be an annoyance, though in George's case, her assailant was in front of her, not behind. The pain just sat there, just to the right of her shoulder blade towards her spine.
George could imagine it would be like this lying on a large glass marble. "Go to hell and burn!" She didn't know where that little outburst had come from, and she felt the heat speckle along her cheeks as she tried to drown out Burt's anguished moan.
She let out a scream as without a word, he pulled out a miniature mini flame thrower from the back of his white van, his expression void of any kind of emotion, and lit it.
George screamed, immediately shielding her face with her arms, the heat was way too close, this was it, oh, god, she was going to die and get charred until there was nothing left. Then…just as soon as he started, he stopped.
George blearily opened her eyes.
"I can make that happen," he snarled meanly as George shakily lowered her arms, tossing the canister back into the backseat of his van where he'd gotten it, "but I wouldn't wanna go alone, so why I don't drag you down to hell with me when I go? Keep mouthin' off, and you're gonna get your wish, girl."
George flinched as she watched the guy's dark eyes flash in anger, his lips curl upwards into a sneer that gave him a truly twisted and grotesque appearance.
The words had just sort of…slipped out before she could stop herself. If this guy wanted a fight, then she'd sure as hell give him one. She wasn't going to die quietly.
Not without putting up a fight.
Max allowed a dark little chuckle to escape his lips. "Hmm. Feisty little thing, aren't you? I can see why the stupid girl reporter likes you," the villain complimented, reaching up a gloved hand to tuck a wisp of her dark brown pixie cut back into place. "You got spirit. I'll give you that. But I'm afraid it won't keep you and your friend alive once my boss gets what he wants," he growled angrily.
George flinched at the sudden intimacy and surprising gentleness of his gesture as he caressed her cheek.
She almost would have preferred it if the man would just hit her, cut her, choke her, whatever the hell he wanted to do with her and just be done with it, and let them go.
Anything but this. She swallowed nervously past the lump forming in her throat.
She let out a pained and shaking gasp as Max's hand not currently holding onto her arm came up and wrapped around the column of her throat and squeezed, hard.
"George!" Burt's voice screamed from behind them, though he sounded even more muffled and distant before. George could hear the stomping of his footfalls of his shoes from behind, though she wasn't sure what Burt could do to help her get away from this creep.
All it would take was for him to lay a finger so much as on the guy's shoulder, and she didn't doubt Max would either blast a hole right between his eyes or stab him or something.
George flinched as Nancy's stalker's hired man let out a low growl and shoved her hard against the door of his van, and shook her slightly, her panic threatening to totally take over. She opened her mouth and strained her vocals, but nothing came out.
Still, she tried to scream in the hopes that someone—anyone—would call Nancy or the cops and save them.
With every second that passed, she practically could feel the rise of her blood pressure as her heart pounded against her chest, but she knew that was the least of her worries right now.
"Please," George whimpered, lifting her chin slightly, forcing her gaze to lock eyes with Max's, what little of the man's expression she could see in this dim night light. "I'll—I'll give you whatever you want. I—if it's money you want, it's in my wallet. J-just take it and go," she sobbed.
George felt her ironclad grip on the strap of her little black bag slacken, and the guy noticed it with some level of amusement in his cold black eyes.
He threw back his head and let out a short, bark-like laugh. "Oh, sweetheart," he throatily crooned. "It was never about your money. I don't want your stupid money," he laughed, as if the reporter had just told him a joke. "It's you and your little friends I'm after," he breathed, and it was then that George knew she and Burt were in deep trouble.
"If you think I'm gonna—" she started to retort violently, feeling the anger in her chest swell again, but was cut off as a flash of silver danced across the front of her vision as the knife sat precariously on the skin her throat, soft enough not to pierce her skin, but hard enough to enforce the man's intended message: Cooperate. Or else.
The harsh metal should have been cold and raw against the exposed skin of the column of her throat, but all George could feel was a numb, dull acceptance.
This was it. Her and Burt's end, and Nancy and Frank weren't coming to save them.
Her throat held in a silver grasp, and all she could do was stare lifelessly into the dark black eyes that held the blade and a terrifying coldness in a man that she had never seen before and did not know could exist.
She had thought she'd seen the worst of evil during Nancy's Black Lake case when they were dealing with Todd Baines, deranged serial killer, but…this…?
This was worse. Way worse than she had ever imagined. "Babe, please," George whispered, hating the dip and desperation in her voice.
"Wh—what do you want?" Burt asked, trying to keep his voice from dripping with anger. He was angry, of course, but being verbally abusive to Max, a seemingly creepy pyrotechnic who loved setting people and buildings on fire definitely wasn't going to help.
He knew he'd have no other choice but to play nice with this creep until he no longer held the power to end her life with one swift movement.
"Listen man, if you're trying to get Nancy Drew to join up with you or something, she won't. She's not like you," Burt growled defensively, balling his shaking hands into fists, shoving them in his pockets.
Max scoffed and rolled his eyes at Burt's retort. "Well, the bitch better start doing it if she wants her precious little friends back. If you can't help me lure the girl out, then I won't have any qualms about slitting her throat. I want you to give her a call for me. Help me," he grinned, smirking as the young brunette's face went white with shock.
He shook George again, holding her tight against his chest, so she could feel every lithe muscle, which was surprisingly taut and muscular underneath his black sweater that now suddenly smelled like old charred pine wood and smoke, and George coughed once.
George's eyes flung open as she stared at her boyfriend, who could see his girlfriend shaking under Max's unusually strong grip. "W—we can try. C-can't we, Burt?" she pleaded desperately, blinking back tears, biting her lip.
"Yeah," Burt whispered, though it did not stop him from anxiously running his fingers in between his knuckles. "We'll give it a try. Uh, why is it you think Nancy will know where to find us? You kinda broke my girlfriend's phone, asshole…"
"Excellent." Max offered a shaky, quick smile. "You're gonna be the one to call up your little detective friend and let the bitch know who exactly she's got three hours to bring my boss the accounting book from the café, or I'm gonna starting cuttin' up her friends into little pieces. I got a list of all the places the book might be," he growled meanly. "Honey, reach into my front left pocket on my jeans. Go on."
George grimaced, but reached into his pants pocket with shaking fingers, fumbling trying to grasp onto his cell phone and very nearly dropped the device in the process, as well as a folded piece of paper. "Here," she spat, poison dripping from her words as she passed it back.
"Toss it to your boyfriend," he ordered. George hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second as she threw the piece of paper towards Burt's feet, who furrowed his face into a frown as he knelt to pick it up. There were about two locations listed on it. Though the likely place the book would be somewhere in the café itself.
Burt felt his face fall. This wasn't going to work. Nancy was good, but even she wasn't that good. To pull this off, they'd need something short of a miracle. There was no way.
"You just should just leave, sir," he urged, doing his best to ensure his voice remained calm. The last thing they needed to do was provoke this guy even further. "You're pressing your luck as it is. You don't want to go up against Nancy Drew, sir. You will regret it."
Max let out a low growl from the back of his throat, and Burt let out a yelp as the gun he was holding in his hand went off and punctured a hole in the ground by his shoe.
Luckily, nothing harmful, but the message was quite clear. Shut up right now, or else… he swallowed.
"Next round I fire goes in your head, kid," Max snarled. He turned back towards George, whose eyes were wide open, her mouth hung open in a light gasp.
He pressed the tip of his knife against the column of her throat. "Now," he grinned, his smile looking more wolfish and predatory by the minute. "Where were we, baby? Oh. Right," he taunted, his gaze drifting towards her black bag on her shoulder. "Your bag."
George let out a soft little whimper of fear as she heard Burt gasp from a few feet away. She pouted as she glanced towards her boyfriend.
"Burt!" she whispered in a tiny, shaking voice, hoping he'd know what to do in this situation, because she certainly didn't.
One look into the quarterback's eyes was enough. He was terrified.
"Don't you have anything?" she pleaded, still pouting, her gaze fixated on her boyfriend. "Pepper spray? Mace? Something?" she asked, biting her lip hopefully.
He shook his head no, and George felt the bile creep upwards into her throat as the creep's hand drifted downward as he lowered his knife ever so slightly, ensuring that she saw his movements.
She let out a pained gasp as he swiftly drew the blade across her collarbone. A hot stinging sensation jolted across her chest and she heard Burt let out an anguished little moan.
"George!" he called out, and he turned his anger on Max.
"Stay back." Max threatened Burt as he pressed the knife closer to George's neck. "You do anything to tick me off more than I already am, the next time she'll have a pretty red ribbon around this nice white neck of hers," Max growled. "Both of you," he snarled, wrenching open the van's back door and pointing his gun towards Burt first, "get in the back seat. Now." When neither made a move, he let out a roar. "Don't make me ask again! Get in the goddamned back seat, right now, you two!" the man shouted. "NOW! MOVE IT!"
Burt raised his arms above his head in surrender and self-defense, obviously eager to calm the man down from his rage. "Look, buddy, just calm down, sir. We don't want a bloodbath on our hands here, do we?" he snapped, his voice having an obvious edge to it as he attempted to diffuse the situation, but took a step back to honor the guy's request. "Look. Whatever you want with us, we'll—we'll let you have it. Just take her bag and go. We won't fight you on it or call the cops if you just take what you want and get out of here."
George swallowed nervously as she stared up at the pyrotechnic in front of her, wondering what the creep felt or thought (if anything) when he burned his victims alive.
She couldn't ignore the cold feeling of the harsh metal pressing up against her skin.
The cold look reflected in Max's eyes gave George the shudders. His hands were closed tightly around the cold surface of the hilt of his dagger.
This guy seemed to have no sense of humanity, of the difference between right and wrong. Or maybe he did and just didn't care. Max's heart, if he had one at all, was probably made of stone. She knew she would never forget the beady glint in his eyes.
How the murderer and psychopath in front of her had smelled of blood, charred flesh and burnt hair, and danger.
George swallowed and slipped her black bag off her shoulder with shaking hands, unzipping the main compartment and fumbling, trying to find her small compact little rose pink wallet, and it was a miracle she managed to pull it out at all, really.
George let out a shaking breath as she let her bag fall at her feet. She didn't even know if she had any cash in her wallet.
She thought she had spent her and Burt's last five bucks at the McDonald's on the corner of East and Hemingway when they'd gotten lunch.
What was he going to do to her if she didn't any dollar bills on her at all? Kill them?
"Hurry the hell up!" Max screamed, pulling his lighter out of his shirt pocket and flicking it open, holding it dangerously close to her head.
George stifled a gag as she could have sworn she felt a wisp of her hair start to singe and burn, and she jerked away.
"Just— just give me a second, guy!" she shouted, fumbling her wallet with fingers that she could barely control at this point.
She was so scared, and wished they'd taken the car. If they had, they'd probably still be hiding in it, safe and sound, away from…this.
"Don't hurt her, man," Burt pleaded from somewhere off to the side. "We'll give you whatever you want. B-but you don't need to hurt her."
"Shut. Up. A word of advice, asshole. You really don't want to upset me right now," the man growled, squeezing onto George's arm even tighter, and her heart pounded as she finally managed to snap open her wallet now that her fingers had stopped shaking so badly and to her surprise found two twenty dollar bills, one of which she always kept on her person in the event of an emergency.
She furrowed her brows into a frown and bit her lip. Well…this definitely counted as an emergency, since some creepy pyrotechnic goon of Nancy's work's boss was about to kidnap them and do God only knows what to her once they got wherever he wanted to take them. It definitely wasn't much.
Not enough to rob someone at knife-point over, not to mention George didn't like the way he kept groping and fondling her breast.
She let out a gasp as he let go of her arm and practically pawed at her hand, snatching the two twenty dollar bills from her and furrowing his brow into a frown before pocketing it all before chucking the wallet back to her, thrusting it violently into her hands. "That'll do, baby doll. 'Sides, I want you."
Damn. She glanced towards Burt and exhaled a shaking breath through her nose, long and slow and tried to will her body to remain calm, but it just wasn't having it.
With shaking fingers and black spots dancing in front of her vision, she knelt and picked up her bag and plunked her wallet back into the main compartment and zipped up her phone.
"Get in the van and don't make me ask again." He pressed the tip of his blade into the small of George's back, right at the center of her spine. "Go. In the back of the van. Now."
George mutely nodded, afraid if she opened her mouth, she'd throw up. She swallowed past the lump in her throat nervously and reluctantly clambered into the car, Burt right behind her, and was having much more difficulty entering the van, thanks to how tall and kind of stocky he was, but eventually he managed, and sat next to George, wrapping a cold arm around her shoulder and pulling her close.
"Thank God," he breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you all right?" he whispered.
George flinched as Max slammed the door shut and clambered into the driver's seat moments later, and she stifled a half-choked sob as she heard the keys in the ignition turn.
When she did not immediately answer, Burt tried again. "You good?"
A muffled yelp from the furthest backseat caught George's attention, a girl's. George froze as she swiveled around in her seat and her heart lurched up into her throat. "Oh, no," she moaned, feeling tears well in her eyes as she looked at Bess and Nick's terrified faces.
"Y—you okay, Bess?" George croaked hoarsely, blinking back her briny tears. She coughed back a half-choked sob as Bess mutely shook her head back and forth numbly.
No. She wasn't. Bess's eyes were red-rimmed, her irises bloodshot from crying, and the mute boy's face was taut and rigid.
He was looking royally pissed and his hands were balled into fists in his lap and shaking. Thomas Barreau's goons had kidnapped Bess and Nick, and now they'd gotten her.
Nancy was about to be in a serious spot of trouble if they couldn't find a way to warn her.
She turned towards Burt, fresh tears welling in her eyes, stinging, and blurring her vision, and it burned as she swallowed nervously and tried to fight them back.
"No," she whispered. They weren't okay, especially now that Max had them right where he wanted them, and if he had his way, he was going to lure Nancy out into the open, kill George and Burt and Bess and Nick at his earliest chance, and they didn't have a way out. No, she wasn't okay.
Not anywhere close to it.