CHAPTER 194
"It's… It's Silver." Marcos told them, the three boys stunned in shock as the phone rang in Marcos' hands.
"Answer it!" Robby exclaimed, the first to get over his shock, fearing that if they waited too long, the call would stop ringing. "Maybe he tells us something about where Laura and Sarah are!"
Hearing Sarah's name was enough to snap out of his shock and answer the phone, putting it on speaker phone so both Robby and Miguel could also hear the call.
"What the hell do you want?" Marcos spat into the phone as he greeted Silver. The man on the other side of the line chuckled loudly upon hearing the fury and resentment in Marcos' voice.
"Temper… temper… someone's in a mood." Silver snickered. "What happened? Did someone kidnap your girlfriend or something?"
"So it was you after all. You better not have hurt her." Marcos snapped, a very demanding tone for someone who knew that he had everything in the hands of the elderly sensei.
"I haven't hurt her." Silver reassured him. "Not yet at least. Here, you can talk to her if you want."
Marcos listened as Silver walked through whatever room he was in and over to Sarah.
"Here. Ms. Gledhill, anything to say to your boyfriend? Bear in mind that these could be the last words you ever say to him." Silver commented, his words causing Marcos' blood to boil. However, Marcos' anger seeped out of him in an instant when he heard Sarah's voice.
"Marcos…" Sarah whispered. For someone normally so strong-willed, to hear her sound so broken, so terrified, sent blood-curdling shivers down Marcos' spine. He could hear the tears and immense fright dripping from her voice. "I don't know where I am! They took me and they blindfolded me so I couldn't see! Please find me! I don't want to die! Please! Marcos! Please! Help me!"
"Alright, that's enough. Shut up, bitch." Silver snapped, before a sickening THUD told everyone on the call that Silver had just struck Sarah with an absolutely clobbering blow.
Hearing all of this - first hearing Sarah's voice, then hearing Silver assault her - caused any anger in Marcos' system to immediately shift to terror. He realized just how much this situation was out of his control. How he needed to do anything and everything Silver said, knowing full well that Silver was probably lying and preparing to kill them all anyways, just on the off-chance that Silver let them go.
"Listen up. Unless you want to hear me killing Ms. Gledhill over the phone, you're going to do exactly what I ask you. Understand?" Silver demanded. When Silver took back the phone and began to speak again, Marcos had a whole new tone as he addressed the Cobra Kai sensei.
"Yes. Whatever you want. I swear. Just please don't hurt her. Please. Take me instead. Do whatever you want to me. Just don't hurt her."
"Don't worry, you'll have your time too, Mr. Oliveira, soon enough. After all, a certain mutual friend of ours is particularly eager to get his hands on you." Silver remarked.
"Where's my sister?" Robby snapped, speaking up for the first time during the call. Immediately, the three teenagers heard Silver raucously laughing at them over the phone.
"Ah! Mr. Keene! Thank you!You just saved me a call! Your sister is with Sarah. Safe and unharmed for now. But they won't remain that way for long. Unless you do exactly what I say. Do what I say and your loved ones will be just fine."
"How do we know you're not lying to us and that you're not just going to kill us all anyways? How can we trust you?" Miguel asked. Once again, Miguel's introduction to the call was met with a delighted reaction from the psychotic karate sensei.
"Mr. Diaz is here too! How perfect! Johnny Lawrence, Daniel Larusso and John Kreese's champions, all there, ready to die together." Silver remarked. "In answer to your question… you don't. You don't trust me, but know that if you ever want to see your loved ones alive again, you're going to have to."
Marcos, Miguel and Robby's hearts raced as they waited with baited breath for Silver to reveal what they needed to do to even have a chance at saving Sarah and Laura.
"Sarah and Laura are somewhere far away. Somewhere you probably won't find on your own unless you cooperate with me. Somewhere you definitely won't find in time before I end up killing them." Silver informed them, elevating their fear higher than ever. "If you ever want to see Ms. Gledhill and the child again, you three and the other 4 Miyagi-Do students are going to come to an address that I'll send you later. No weapons. No cops. No adults. If I even so much as smell any of them, I'll kill both Sarah and the baby without a second glance."
"So we go to a location. What do we do there?" Robby asked, already knowing, deep down, what Silver was about to answer.
"You die." Silver replied simply. Marcos, Robby and Miguel all looked at each other, none of them profoundly shocked by this. They always knew that the second Silver was involved, there was a good chance that they weren't going to be walking away from this one alive. And this confirmed it. "That's the deal. Your 7 lives to save the lives of the 2. Sacrifice the 7 of you and I'll let the other 2 go."
"Please. Don't involve the rest of them. Let it just be between you and us. Let it just be the 3 of us." Miguel begged him, his mind flickering to Sam and the other Miyagi-Dos, desperate not to involve them in this. Silver sighed.
"Now that wouldn't be much fun, would it? After all, how would you fight against my entire army with only 3 people?" Silver remarked.
"Sorry? Fight? I thought we were sacrificing us for them. That was the deal." Robby said. Silver chuckled once again.
"Come on! I might not have trained Diaz myself, but I've trained both you and Mr. Oliveira. There's no chance that you two just walk in, hands in the air, and die peacefully. Am I right there?"
Silver had a point, and the teenagers knew it. Fighting was already what the three of them were thinking about and internally preparing for what was about to come. The three were silent for a while as they thought about this, knowing that Silver was right, and fearing what Silver would do with that information. Thankfully, Silver seemed to be in a charitable mood, as he merely chuckled at their discomfort.
"Don't worry. I expected as much. In fact… I banked on it." Silver stated. "This is it. The grand finale. I'm not going to bring you all to me strictly to be executed, because where would the fun be in that? This is my final act, so I'm going to go out with a massive bang. What fun would the game be if there's no chance of you winning too?"
"This coming from the man who has repeatedly paid referees to allow Cobra Kai to win tournaments." Robby remarked.
"Besides… not exactly a huge chance of us winning when you've made the rules yourself." Miguel muttered. Silver nodded.
"You're right. But enough of a chance, I'm sure, to have you all fighting until the very end. For me to be able to call Daniel, Johnny and John and summon them to the location just in time to watch their precious children die before their very eyes. See… this entire plan, it isn't about you. It isn't about any of you. It's about them, and breaking them once and for all."
"Why aren't you challenging them to this fight then?" Robby asked. "Why us?"
"Because, Mr. Keene, I know for a fact that you could beat any of them within an inch of their life and they won't bat an eye. No amount of physical pain will break them in the way that the emotional pain of losing all of you would. Make no mistake… you all are going to die tonight. And then John Kreese, Johnny Lawrence and Daniel Larusso are going to follow soon after. The entire Valley will crumble before me once and for all, and there's not a single person who can stop me."
"Keep thinking that." Marcos growled. "Send us the location. We'll be there. And when I arrive, I'm going to kill you."
"I'm thoroughly looking forward to the challenge, Mr. Oliveira. As I'm sure your father is too." Silver chuckled. "But remember the deal. Come to the location I send you, at the time I send you. No cops. No adults. No weapons. If you even think about bringing weapons, I will never tell the adults about your location and any chance of you surviving past tonight goes right down to 0, as well as any chance of the hostages surviving either. See you all soon."
With that, Silver hung up the phone, leaving Marcos, Miguel and Robby trying to process what they had just been told…
They were in the endgame now. There was no doubt about it. They were on the edge of yet another battle against their enemies, but this time it was a battle that seemed almost impossible to win. They didn't have the support of the other adults to help them through the fight, and Silver had hired enemies from all corners of the world explicitly to beat them. It was going to be 7 teenagers against an army of hardened fighters. Not exactly the best odds, but at this moment, none of them could bring themselves to care.
"So what now?" Marcos asked them.
"Now… now let's call the rest of Miyagi-Do and tell them to meet up urgently." Miguel suggested. "We can tell them about Silver's plan and the fight that's about to happen. It's only fair that we give them the chance to say no if they want to."
"We calling the adults too?" Robby asked.
"No!" Marcos quickly responded. "If you tell the adults, the first thing one of them is going to do is call the police. And if you call the police, you're basically tying the nooses around Sarah and your sister yourselves."
"They deserve to know. Especially if, you know, we end up…" Robby's voice trailed off, unable to even finish the sentence, as the thought was too painful to bear. Just in case they didn't end up coming back from this alive - that was the end of Robby's sentence. Marcos didn't have anyone close to him except Sarah and Kreese. He didn't have any family. No friends either. While for most of his life, that had been a curse, it was now almost a blessing. He didn't feel a fraction of the fear and guilt that Miguel and Robby were, as the brothers pondered the thought that they could never see their parents and other loved ones ever again.
Marcos took a deep breath, but before he could say anything else, Miguel spoke up first.
"Marcos is right." Miguel admitted, glancing at the two other boys, his eyes locking on Marcos as he nodded at him. "We only have one chance at this. If we screw up in any way, Laura and Sarah are dead. They're the ones who matter here. Not us. We need to keep this as private as possible. Let's just call the other students, tell them to meet, and then we can go from there."