After an hour of Zara being inside the suffocating trunk of the car.
Darkness surrounded her from every direction, and the oxygen was decreasing.
The blue light of the phone screen showed her thin, sweaty features.
Zara slid her fingers across the worn-out screen, opened the GPS app, and found that they were heading toward North Beverly Park Drive.
Zara furrowed her eyebrows, brought the phone closer, and whispered:
Wait… what?
Why are they going to— "What is that sound?"
Zara gasped and quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
Inside the car, Ethan sat beside Jack, the driver.
Gabriel asked:
Did you hear that, boss?
Gabriel stopped talking to Daniel, turned toward Ethan, and said:
Take your medicine, Ethan. Your hallucinations can hit at any moment. Don't forget that.
Ethan exhaled in annoyance.
He put his hand in his pocket, took out a white pill from a yellow bottle, swallowed it, and muttered:
… Yeah… maybe you're right.
Jack moved his eyes lazily toward Ethan, looked at him taking his pills, and asked:
Uhh… I know it's none of my business, but… why do you take anti-hallucination pills?
Ethan raised his eyebrows, his eyes half-closed with sarcasm, and replied flatly:
Oh, nothing… I take them because they taste delicious.
Are you stupid?!
They're called anti-hallucination pills for a reason!
— Calm down, man.
I was just asking.
In the back, Zara was listening to every word, recording everything on her phone, and asked in a voice barely above a whisper:
Hallucination pills?!
How?
These are starch pills! What the hell is going on here?!
Up front, Jack tightened his grip on the steering wheel, eyes on the road, muttering nervously:
I was just asking, that's all.
Jeez, you don't have to answer like a jerk every time.
Damn it.
How I hate country guys like you.
Ethan's body froze for a moment.
His eyes started to widen, and a nervous smile slowly appeared on his face. He turned his head slowly toward Jack and asked:
What did you just say?
Jack kept his eyes on the road and answered lazily:
I said you don't have to answer like a jerk, you coun— cough.
Ethan grabbed Jack by the neck immediately, squeezing hard on his windpipe and yelling:
I warned you before!
Don't you ever call me that!!
— You psycho!
I can't drive like this!!
The car began swerving left and right on the road, and in that moment it veered fast into the opposite lane. Car horns filled the air as drivers tried to avoid crashing.
Inside, Ethan kept trying to choke Jack, whose saliva started dripping on Ethan's hand as he struggled.
In the back, Gabriel and Daniel looked at the chaos. Daniel immediately put his hand inside his jacket, pulled out a silver .44 Magnum, placed it directly on the back of Ethan's head, and said with a smile:
Ethan… please… control your anger a little, if you don't mind.
The cold metal hit the back of Ethan's head.
He slowly turned toward Daniel while still choking Jack, then looked at Gabriel, who seemed even calmer than usual, then at the chaos he caused.
When Ethan realized what he was doing, he slowly let go of Jack, went back to his seat, crossed his arms, and muttered:
He started it.
Daniel smiled until his eyes narrowed, twirled the gun around his finger, slid it back into his jacket, and said:
Much better… now be polite until we finish this filthy meeting.
Jack quickly put his hands back on the wheel to straighten the car and shouted while struggling to breathe:
COUGH—COUGH!! — You — COUGH — bastard!
You almost killed me!
Ethan looked at him angrily and said through his teeth:
I wasn't "almost." I was going to do it.
Consider yourself lucky today.
Jack tried to hold in his anger as his face turned redder by the second, veins showing on his forehead, until he shouted:
You useless filthy country freak!
My life isn't a game for you to treat it like one!!
The corner of Ethan's mouth lifted, enjoying Jack's rage, and he said playfully:
Yeah, it is~.
Jack bit his lip in anger until a thin line of blood ran down his chin. He took a deep breath, exhaled hard, and muttered:
Why did I end up as a driver for these people?!
God, how I hate that Elena woman!
Suddenly… Gabriel's eyes widened for a moment, his smile vanished, and he quickly moved toward Jack. He placed his hand on a barely visible dash cam at the front, pulled it out fast, held it between his hands, and threw it out the car window.
Jack froze, blinked twice slowly, turned around toward Gabriel, and asked:
What the f*k?!
Gabriel smiled calmly, half-warning and half-mocking:
Employees have no right to say Elena's name under any circumstance.
Don't forget that.
Jack:
— Wait, why?!
Daniel smiled sarcastically, enjoying Jack's reaction, and said:
Gabriel… remind me, what did that crazy woman do last time?
Gabriel's mouth curved as if remembering something funny, and he replied:
Hmm— she made her guard run like a scared rabbit while she and her friends tried to hunt him…
Not gonna lie, I joined in too.
Jack swallowed hard, turned his eyes back to the road while his neck trembled, and whispered:
And… what you threw just now was?
— Yeah, you were being recorded the whole time, so… you're welcome.
PffftHAHAHAHAAA!
Ethan burst into hysterical laughter, pointing aggressively at Jack, who was trembling, shouting loudly:
OH GOD!!
Look at yourself — HEHHAAHHA!
Jack ignored Ethan, gripping the wheel tightly as cold chills ran down his spine, muttering:
That wasn't mentioned in the contract…
In the back, breathing became harder for Zara. She slowly turned until she lay on her back, raised her phone to see the battery at 13%.
Oh no no no…
I didn't record enough yet, please hold on till the end.
While Zara went through her phone saving everything into backups, the car stopped.
Zara shook her head from dizziness, opened the GPS again, and saw they were at
Château Noctura.
This mansion sits at the top of North Beverly Park Drive at the highest point of the neighborhood, where the hills wrap around it like a shield of silent trees that isolate it naturally without needing guards outside.
The sound of car doors opening hit her ears. Zara put the phone in her worn-out jacket pocket, pressed her ear to the wall of the trunk as her heartbeat grew louder… and once she heard the footsteps of everyone getting out one by one…
She let out a long exhale, her heart calming with it.
But before Zara could celebrate surviving…
Someone began opening the trunk where she was.
And right before it opened…