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    Chapter 22

    tab “Goodness, Chad, you look rather shocked! Have my words baffled you speechless?” “Rather shocked”…Either this guy was an idiot, or he was just trying to get on my nerves. Again.
    tab “Stop messing with me, John! I don’t know why you did it, but I’m going to--”
    tab “Oh, would you stop going on about your vengefulness? It’s getting pretty annoying.” He shook his head, and went on,
    tab “As I said before, what are you going to do about it?” I was getting extremely tired of his calm and collective attitude, which led me to more anger issues. Stuff like that was happening a lot.
    tab “What am I going to do?! Oh, that should be obvious! I’m going to reveal the note to public, and then everyone will know--” I was interrupted once again by the ever cool headed John,
    tab “I’m sorry, you wouldn’t happen to be talking about this note?” Shoot. Me and my big mouth. He took up the note on the desk, and held it down with tense fingers that frankly scared me. Then, out of his pocket came a small, two inch lighter. Quickly, my feet reacted to the easy-to-predict conclusion of this turn of events.
    tab The hard, thick bones of John’s fist bashing against my skull suggested that I should’ve thought my ingenious plan through a little more thoroughly. I collapsed to the ground, looking up to see the swirling image of two John’s smiling down at me. Then, the “tink” noise of the lighter’s ignition rang in my head, which cued the inevitable burning.
    tab The short, five second span that it all happened in felt like a torturing life time. John tossed the oxidizing slip of paper into the trash, leaving me only to look over the sad scene. The slowly flickering fire spread like a disease until the note eventually became an unreadable, blackened crust. John turned to me with that smug look still planted on his face, and asked rhetorically,
    tab “Now, you were saying?” The more I got to know this guy, the more I found he had a striking similarity to an evil mastermind in those cartoon shows. Minus the mastermind part. I refused to believe he was a genius. Yet.
    tab “You’re the devil. And I’m going kill you. Kill you, like you killed…” Abruptly, he cut in to my sentence, again…again.
    tab “Again with the vengefulness! Honestly, is there anything else that can come out of your mouth besides something to do with your wife’s death?”
    tab “Quiet! Tell me everything that you know. Why you killed my wife. Why you didn’t kill me after that. Who the heck you even are!”
    tab “Oh, I’d love to tell you. Frankly, though, there’s someone else that wants to tell you much more. And if I explained things here, it would just spoil everything else!” I heard the noise before I actually saw the source. By the time I noticed the gun in his hand, my leg was already gushing with fresh blood. It was the worst physical pain I had gone through, and through the gnashing of my teeth and the agonizing pain of it all, I saw and heard one last thing before my eyes closed. John leaned over, and whispered,
    tab “You’re not going to die. Not yet. Not until you meet Kyle.” And then, the world went black.

    tab John looked at the hunched, bleeding body on the ground. There was a certain amount of guilt that shrouded him. He was going to get money from this, of course. Lots of money. But…it all seemed so meaningless. One person dying after the other…
    tab John’s doubts lingered in his head, and right there he was faced with a strange decision. “Strange” because it probably wouldn’t come across any other cold blooded killer.
    tab He actually considered the choice of following the plan, or skewing the plan to save Chad’s life.
    tab He fell to the ground, bowing his head down and shutting his eyes tight. He couldn’t just turn from duty. On the other hand, if something wasn’t done, Chad would be the third death of that week.
    tab A final verdict was rendered in his head. He pulled out his cell phone, and began to dial.