Chapter Nineteen

I had been kidnapped. That was the only thought that was running through my mind at the moment. I had woken up with my head in Axl's lap, blinking blearily up at him as I regained consciousness.

"Axl?" My voice came out hushed and cracked, a blinding pain shot through my head as I did so. I winced and tried to lift a hand up but I noticed that my hands had been tied together. "What's going on?"

He opened his mouth to reply but before he could do so, the door opened. I squinted at the bright light, only now noticing that we were in a room. Footsteps sounded and a figure appeared in the doorway, a shadow cast over the floor which enabled me to open my eyes slightly.

"Get up." The command came swiftly but neither of us moved. Axl's arms came around me protectively. There was a beat of silence. "I said get up'" The voice sounded angry now, footsteps pounded over and a hand grabbed Axl pulling him away from me. More footsteps sounded and another set of hands grabbed me.

"Let go of us!" Axl shouted, I could see him reaching for me before someone knocked him over the head which caused blood to rush from a newly opened cut. I whimpered in fear as we were dragged out of the room and into another.

I noticed as we were walking that there were a set of pictures that had been taken of me, ever since I'd moved to town. I knew this because as the pictures progressed Axl became a more prominent feature in my life as we spent most of our time together. A range of questions flew through my mind, why were we here? Where were we? Where did these pictures come from?

I stumbled over an uneven tile and was roughly pulled back up by the man holding me. "Hurry up!" I tried my best to keep up but managed to stumble a few more times, my head was spinning from recently being unconscious and as such I felt ill. I felt myself begin to sweat from nerves and thought I was about to be sick before we came to a stop.

The man holding me opened the door and we were pushed inside. I felt my eyes adjust to the new level of lighting and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw who was at the head of the table. No longer looking like a geek, with his suspenders and taped glasses, sat there was that guy whose name I couldn't remember but he went to our school.

I looked at Axl and he didn't seem to recognise him either. I didn't know if that made me feel better or worse. Sat next to him at the table was the man from the pool! I would have scoffed at the thought of those two teaming up if it wasn't such a serious situation. Axl and I were shoved down on separate chairs facing them both.

The nerd stood up first and came to stand in front of us. He grinned and I wanted nothing more than to smack it off his face and one glance at Axl told me he was thinking the same thing.

"I'm sure you know who I am." He began, I winced and turned away not wanting to get hurt because I didn't know his name. His arms, which he had spread in an attempt to look grand slowly lowered when neither of us answered him. He huffed and looked back at the other guy. After receiving a reassuring nod he coughed embarrassedly before continuing on.

"My name is Peter Gunzo, and this is my friend Steven Potts." Steven did not move. Peter didn't seem bothered by this and carried on. 'I'm sure you know why you're here."

Once again Axl and I didn't answer, this time Peter's face went a bright red, apparently not being taken seriously was something he was not fond of. "You are here because we need to make an example out of you. You may think that nothing bad happens in Indiana and you would be right. But that's all going to change." He took a gun out of his pocket and casually put it on the table.

My eyes went wide in fear and I had to hold in tears. We were going to die.

"Why are you doing this, man?" Axl asked, his eyes hard as he stared hatefully ahead of him.

"Because I'm sick of being ignored." He laughed as he looked down at us. "And now no one will ignore me again." He picked the gun back up and went to back to his seat. "But not right now, my friend wants to talk to you first." He turned away as Steven got up and grabbed Axl by the collar, dragging him out of the room.

"Axl!" I shouted after him, trying to leave my seat but I was grabbed by the shoulders and forced to stay where I was. I felt the tears that I'd been trying so hard to keep at bay begin to slowly drip down my face. I turned to look at Peter who was now inspecting his fingernails.

"Please don't do this. We didn't do anything to you, just let us go." I wasn't ashamed to admit that I was begging. I had seen the damage that was inflicted on Steven's girlfriend, and if he did that to someone he vaguely liked I didn't want to know what he was going to do to Axl.

Peter's eyes flashed to mine and he started laughing. "You haven't done anything to me?!" He laughed even harder before he came back over to me. His hand reached over and he cupped my cheek even though I tried my best to keep distance between us. His laughter died down as he crouched in front of me. "That's the problem."

He kept his hand where it was and I felt distinctly uncomfortable. "I don't understand."

"No one helped me." He let go of me and started pacing in front of me. "Do you know what I went through this year? My entire school career has been a mockery, I have been made a fool of and I have had enough!" He slammed his hand down on the table as he passed it. He stayed there, breathing heavily as he turned to look at me. "And now I'm going to make you all pay."

He reached over the table to grab something and then he opened it up. Blueprints were held up to me and I gasped as I realised his plan.

He smirked wickedly and walked behind me, I shivered in disgust as he bent down to whisper in my ear. "I'm going to blow up the school."