Chapter Eighteen

It was a moment before Matt realised he had forgotten to breathe. His chest hurt. He gulped in air quickly and it settled down. He had to stay calm. Sure, he was on his own in the dark with a knocked out partner and his psychotic best friend was on the loose, but what were the positives of this situation…? Someone grabbed him from behind. “Surprise…” they whispered in his ear before dragging him backwards into the room.

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Matt stared straight at James, who was- once again- pointing that gun at him. The room he had dragged Matt into had a window, so it was filled with however much natural light it could be at half six in early Spring. “I have to finish what I came here to do! I can’t leave until I do!” James said, moving further towards him. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what? Sorry for putting a bullet in me, or sorry for making me wait so long before you got it over with? Sorry for playing with my head this whole time, or sorry for being caught? Sorry for lying to me since we met, or sorry that you couldn’t tell me straight out and kill me then, rather than making me think of you as my best friend first?!” Matt had no idea where all this anger was coming from, but it must be coming from somewhere. “Sorry for what, James?”

“Everything. It wasn’t meant to go like this. I was meant to get in, kill you, get out. That’s what I was meant to do. But Georgio wanted you to suffer, so they told me to get close, so when you died you’d be killed by a really good friend, and you’d know you’d been betrayed. I didn’t want to do it. But I was already in by that stage and they wouldn’t let me back out.” He adjusted the gun, “I have to kill you. If I don’t, they’ll kill me.”

“Are you so scared of them that you won’t stand up to them? Tell them you don’t want to? It’s obvious you don’t, or I’d be dead already. There’s no-one here to stop you then, shoot me. Fulfil your mission. I don’t give a damn anymore. I’m not going to try to talk you out of it. I’d just be wasting my breath. It’s like they have you brainwashed. If they told you to jump off a cliff, you’d do it, just to stop them from killing you. And you’d only realise as you fell that you’re going to die this way to. They have you exactly where they want you.”