Chapter Sixteen

James stared at the monitor, which showed the camera from outside at that moment. “Where are they?” He turned to stare at Stacey, “Where’d they go?”

“Hopefully to get the men in the white coats. And maybe they’ll have one with special sleeves just for you.” That gained her another smack in the face with the gun, a protruding bit ripped her cheek slightly, and blood slowly began to seep down her face.

“One more smart remark and I’ll actually shoot you!” James told her. Stacey leaned back in her chair, she didn’t seem too bothered by that.

“I had a good run.”

“You’re sixteen,” Matt reminded her.

“Had you been held at gunpoint by the time you were sixteen? Almost been killed? Helped out the police? Got a tattoo? ‘Cause I’ve done all of them more than once.” She thought for a moment, “You ever been locked in shark tank? That was fun…”

“Shut up!” James commanded, pressing the gun to her forehead again.

*          *          *          *          *

“She has a tattoo?” Phillip whispered. “Cali doesn’t. Unless it’s on her ass or something, she never lets me see that.”

“You’re the gay best friend too; you’d think she would’ve told you…” Brendan sympathised. He listened for a moment, his ear pressed up against the metal of the door. “He’s clearly unstable. We can’t just run in there, he’ll shoot one of them.”

“Well, what’re we going to do? We stand out here whispering all night, he’ll shoot them anyway. Stacey’s bound to take it too far sometime, not that it’s her fault she’s a sarcastic bitch by nature...”

*          *          *          *          *

“Stand up,” James said suddenly.

“What? Why?”

“Because I’ve decided that I’m going to kill you know.”

“What? Just like that?”

“Matt’s convinced that I can’t shoot him, Mackenzie. So I’m going to kill you to prove it.”

“Hm… What sounds weird about that plan…?” Stacey mused. “Let’s see now… I’m not Matt. I’m a girl. You hate my guts. You call me by my surname while you call Matt by his first. It’s not the same.”

“SHUT UP!!!!”

“See what I mean? You’d never speak like that to Matt. All this is going to prove to Matt is that you’re a physco who can kill someone who messed up one of his plans before,” she said as James motioned her into a corner.

“The council was going to give us what we wanted! Until you ruined it all!”

“It was a doomed operation from the start. You should’ve made sure that the council were the only people in the building. Don’t you watch the movies; it’s always the randoms that save the day… Then you made another mistake by dropping the driver’s license, which is why it was named The ‘James Bourne’ incident.” James was shaking with silent fury. Stacey decided to send the boat out. “All Phogolini things are a disaster. You’ve already messed up this one. They’re going to find out, you know. After you’ve done this, you can run and hide, but they’ll find you. Your own are the only people you can kill successfully.”

“YOU LIAR!!” A shot went off.

*          *          *          *          *

The door slid open, and they all peered in. Bourne was standing, one gun in each hand, one pointed at Stacey, one at Matt. “YOU LIAR!!” Bourne screeched. Cali acted fast; she shot a powerful jet of water into the room. It hit Bourne in the small of the back, making him lurch forward, a bullet slammed into the ground about a metre away from Stacey’s foot. Bourne snapped round as they all ran in. He grabbed Matt round the neck. “Back off, or I’ll shoot him.”

“You were going to shoot him anyway…” Cali muttered, but they backed off nonetheless. Bourne moved to the doorway, still holding Matt by the neck, a gun cocked to the brunette’s head. Cali brought back her hands to create a freeze beam. Bourne noticed this. He let go of Matt and disappeared. As Raymond made sure Matt was still breathing, Cali and Andrea ran into the hallway. There was no sign of Bourne.

“Shit.”