Ned walked up to his front door and went for the door knob and pulled. He gave it a good tug but it wasn’t budging, he forgot he locked it before leaving. He reached down in his back pocket for his house keys, but it wasn’t there. He started panicking and searched every single pocket in his pants, but didn’t find them. He searched through his backpack, pulling out all of his notebooks and folders like rummaging through garbage. Yet, no luck in finding it whatsoever.
“I’d had to have dropped it during the fight and some asshole stole it.” Ned speculated to himself as he put his supplies back in the bag. “Son of a bitch, I’m already dealing with so much.”
Getting his stuff back in order he knocked on the door and called out to his mom.
No answer.
He knocked again, but even louder and shouted.
No answer.
“Dammit.” He said to himself. “She must still be asleep.” He walked around the side of the house, with a brown and white gate. He opened it and walked around the back, through the dirty patio that is littered with old junk that hasn't been moved in years. The stained glass sliding door was left unlocked.
Ned entered the house and headed over to the couch to check up on his mom. To his surprise, she wasn’t there at all. Her usual mess still lingered there for him to pick up, but she was gone. He looked around him before setting his backpack down.
“Mom!” He called out. “You home?”
He heard some heavy footsteps coming from upstairs, they came closer and closer to the landing. Sandra came stumbling down the stairs, almost losing her balance as she came down.
“Hello there honey.” She greeted him with a little bit of a slur, like she had been heavily drinking. “How was school?”
“Terrible.” He responded.
“Why? What happened sweetie?”
“I got into a fight.”
She gasped. “Oh my god really?”
“Yeah, the school called you but you didn’t pick up.”
She came running down the stairs and hugged him. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. Are you hurt at all?”
“No.” He said as he was smothered in her arms, the stench of a weird mustard smell oozed from here.
“That’s good at the very least.” She let go of him and patted him on the head. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, how's that Chris kid doing?”
“Good.” He turned around and grabbed his backpack. ‘She didn’t even ask who attacked me.’ Ned said in his head.
“That’s great.” She went into the kitchen and opened a cabinet that was filled to the brim with liquor. “Do you have any homework?”
“I don’t know, since I wasn’t there today.”
“You weren’t? What happened?”
“The fight mom, remember?”
“Oh right, you were just talking about that.”
Ned sighed and placed one foot on the stairs. “I’m gonna go up.”
“Ok honey, I’ll go get ready for my work shift.” She took a swig of beer from a bottle, some of it dribbled down her chin.
“Are you going to work all night again?”
She burped. “Yep, a very long shift today.”
“Ok.” He took one more glance at her before going up, knowing it’ll be the last time he’ll see her today.
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“You have some nerve, young man!” Bob berraded Chris. “Talking back to the principle like that, hell even swearing.”
Chris sulked in the barstool chair that he sat on at the kitchen counter. “It’s not like it made my punishment even worse.”
“Oh my god don’t even get me started on that.” Bob started storming around the room. “One whole month, a whole month of school missed out on.”
“It’s better than getting expelled.”
“That doesn’t matter!” He slammed down on the table, which made Chris startled as he quickly fixed his posture.
Pamela came up from behind and started rubbing his shoulder. “Calm down Bob, don’t be too rough on him.”
“It’s very hard not to.” He tried to calm himself down. He took a deep breath before speaking again. “Look, I’m not mad at you for stepping in and stopping him. I’m mad that you did it in such an extreme manner that got you suspended.”
“Well it didn’t seem like that was the reason back then.” Chris said.
“I know that, I was just putting on an act for the principal. Didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire.”
“Honey,” Pamela butted in. “I’m very proud of you for stepping up for your friend. Next time just don’t let your emotions get out of control. Ok?”
Chris pouted. “Ok.”
“Good.” She reached out her hand and grabbed Chris’s. “I love you sweetie.”
“Love you too mom.”
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The sunrise set on a beautiful ocean that glistened in the bright orange glow of the sky. Peering over it was a giant construction crane that towered over near a harbor. Vanesa and David are camping outside the walls of a storage facility, one of the many bases the girl point agency has.
Vanesa was passed out while David laid down in the driver’s seat. An alarm on David’s phone goes off, both of them being startled by it. He quickly dismissed the alarm and looked out at the sun rising.
He yawned. “Time to get to work.” He looked over his shoulder at Vanesa. “You stay here alright?”
“Fuck you.” She said,
He looked at her disappointingly. “Come on now, I’m doing you a huge favor here.” He opened up the glove box and grabbed his gun and a little button device. He placed it on the seat beside her. “That’s a listening device that’ll record everything I hear in this earpiece.” He held it up to her face and put it in his left ear, and parted his hair down to cover it. “I’ll talk to the boss and try to convince him to give me the information, ok? You just sit here and I’ll do all the work.”
She didn’t respond
He took a deep breath and prepared himself as he ran his fingers through his hair, and he walked out of the car. Once he was ready he walked in a proud stride as he turned the corner of the street he hid out on. Waltzing on up to the front gate where a guard is standing there.
“Hey!” David waved at him.
The guard looked over at him. “Oh David, haven’t seen you in a week.” They both shook hands. “Where’ve you been?”
“Just taking a break really, trying to get out there and enjoy my life more.”
“Good, glad you’re able to do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Come on through, you’ll probably need to report to Thomas.”
“Is he here?”
“Yeah, he’s just meeting up with that Jason guy, you know the one that lost his eye?”
“Yeah I know him.”
The guard leaned over to whisper in David’s ear. “Don’t tell anyone else this but,” He looked around. “I heard he is ready to be the next CEO of this whole biz.”
“Really? That buffoon?” He whispered back.
“I know right, a guy who let two teens get away.” He leaned back and patted David on the shoulder. “Go, I’m sure he’ll need more men to hut Vanesa down.”
“Ok.”
The guard opened the gate and David walked on through the parking lot where tons of girl point thugs were hanging out. A couple of men working at a bench, disassembling all different types of guns and modifying them. Some of the men wave at David as he walks by and into the warehouse.
Inside are workers moving shipping containers, operating heavy machinery as the smell of burnt coal haunts the air. He walks by and no one even pays attention to him. An instructor kept yelling orders on top of a catwalk, holding a clipboard with miniature blueprints. David walks up a metal grate stairway that leads to an office block, where the leader of this section Thomas spends most of his time here.
When he enters the office, he overheard a distant argument he assumed had to be Jason. Walking by a receptionist he continued on through the carpeted office with the yellow walls that were illuminated by the hanging ceiling lighting to the door at the end of the hallway that connected to other cubicles. He knocked on it before letting himself in.
Jason scowled at him, an eyepatch covering his right eye. “What the hell do you want?”
“Calm down Jason.” Thomas said as he looked at David. “Come in David.”
He walked inside and closed the door behind him.
“Thomas please I need more men in this case!” He leaned over on the wooden desk and into the face of Thomas as he leaned back in the leather chair, the crinkling from it being unusually loud.
“I already told you that’s not going to happen, we have our plates filled with other shit.” He said. “Besides you act like these stupid fucking kids are going to do anything to us? They’re sixteen or fifteen at the least, what in the world will they do, they barely even know what kind of damage they’ve done. I say we just let them go.”
“Let them go?”
“Yes, and they're not even a big threat. Now Vanesa however, that’s a whole different story.”
“Look at what they did to my eye?” He opened up his eyepatch, a scar etched onto his eyelids, his eye being permanently shut. “You expect me to sit here and let them go on their merry way. Fuck that.”
“Jason we’ll continue this later because right now this conversation is going nowhere.”
He looked at him scornfully. “Whatever.” He rumbled, turning around and heading towards the door. “Just you wait Thomas, It’ll be me next time calling you into my office. In just one month man, one month.” He slammed the door.
“Sorry about that David.” He cleared his throat. “I see that you're back from your break.”
“Yep, it was a well needed one.” He said.
“Glad to hear that.” He paused. “Is there something you need? You rarely come into my office.”
“Yes actually.”
“What is it?”
“This may seem strange to ask but I was just curious.”
“I won’t judge, ask.”
“Ok, so you know about that Vanesa girl? What do you think she’s after?”
Thomas took a sip from his flask that was sitting on his desk. “Hm, I'm not sure. Maybe she wants to bring down the company. Because I see no other reason why she would hold all of those girl points for herself, they're essentially useless outside of our circle.”
“But how would she even do that? This company is basically almost too big to fail.”
“It may seem like that on the outside, especially for someone at your level. But it’s not as strong as you think.”
“How so?”
“This company is the embodiment of putting your eggs into one basket. Our main shareholder is the CEO of this company but they are expected to step down in a month and as you probably heard from Jason, he’ll get that position.” He checked his watch on his wrist before he continued. “That person is the main crux of this whole company, they’re the one that provides the funding, if they were to be taken out this whole thing will fall apart.”
“Who’re they?”
“Now that is something I don’t know.”
“I thought you did.”
“No, that is only something a few people at the top know, hell even Jason doesn’t know that.”
“So do we have a main HQ then? Like where the most important leaders meet?”
“Obviously.”
“Where is that?”
Thomas looked up at him with suspicion. “Sorry, I can’t divulge that information to someone at your position.”
“Why?”
“It’s just policy David. I’m sure you understand.”
David laughed. “Yeah, I understand completely.” He reached into his back pocket and whipped out a gun and pointed it at Thomas in a swift motion.
“David what the fuck are you doing!?” He pushed his legs off the ground and rolled the chair back.
“You know exactly what I’m doing, give me the location now!” He jerked the gun towards him.
“No!”
“Give me it right now or I’ll blow your head off, I’m not fucking around.”
“You’re not gonna kill me David, you’re not that kind of guy.”
“Obviously you don’t fucking know me, and stop pretending like you do. Give me the location right fucking now.”
Thomas’s fear started to grow and it showed in his eyes and mannerisms, he started to breathe more heavily. “Wait, if you kill me you’ll never leave here alive. What would even do if I gave you the info? Just walk out of here and not kill me? I know you’re not that stupid.”
“Guess you’re right.” David lowered his gun a bit. “But let’s make a deal. You give me the location and I’ll let you live and I’ll give you my whole paycheck this week. No strings attached. Will that make you quiet?”
“Maybe.” He gulped.
“Ok then, give me it.”
“Alright, alright. The big building, all the way down in the main square of Wickerson. That’s where the HQ is.”
“Thank you, that wasn’t so hard now was it?” David put the gun down to his side. “I’ll keep to my promise.” He started to walk out of the room, but turned around at the last second. “On second thought.” He pulled out the gun again. “Too much of a risk.”
“No! Guards-” Were the last words Thomas spoke as David shot him in the head, killing him immediately.
David went running out of the office and past the receptionist who heard the gunshot and asked him what happened, but David went running by. The receptionist ran over to Thomas’s office and shrieked.
He was now full on sprinting through the warehouse and the people who were ignoring him before were now looking at him run out the door. Going through the parking lot in the same fashion until he ran into the front guard again.
“Wait David what happened?” He stepped in front of him and put his arm on his shoulder. “Why are you running?”
“I’m sorry about this.” He pulled out the gun again and shot the guard in the leg.
He screamed and fell to the ground as David rushed around the corner and booked it. His heart dropped as he turned and didn’t see the van there. He panicked and started looking around frantically.
“Vanesa where the fuck are you, there’s no way they caught her right?” He heard a huge group of patrollers looking for him and hid in an alleyway, and waited for them to pass. “Dammit, don’t fucking tell me you drove off. You fucking son of a bitch, I go through all this fucking trouble to get you that information and you ditch me!?"210Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNBfo9SnMSw
