As Edward sat quietly and intimately in the car, he had already assessed the situation around him.
There were two other similar cars on the road, sandwiching the one he was in in the middle—one behind and one in front—driving through the eerily familiar forest that he could almost bet to be Ngong Road Forest, yet again he wasn't sure, and he didn't know why.
He looked around inside the car and recaptured the sight of the men seated in it with him: the Caucasian one, and two other Negros—Kenyan, perhaps—both at the front, with one of them driving and the other just… there.
He had noticed all the men in the car with him, and even the ones in the other cars—considering he had turned and seen the driver and co-driver of the pursuing one—had a similar build. He even got an intoxicating, alluring presence from the ones with him. Almost as if they weren't from this world, or from the same existence as him. As if they were—
"Supernatural?" the man beside him chimed in, his tuxedo shining faintly at the brief flash of sunlight.
He leaned in closer. Edward recoiled, heart hammering.
"It's because we're, darling," he flattered, a haunting smile showcasing on his features. It was so unsettling that Edward felt sick to his stomach. The man retracted slightly. "We are, darling," he repeated.
His tease felt more like a silent promise of heart-wrenching horrors, intensified by the impact of his accent.
Shivers crept underneath Edward's skin from head to toe.
He didn't even know what had caused his kidnapping, who these people were—apart from being werewolves who read minds—
The man beside him rolled his eyes.
—or what they wanted with him. Edward didn't mean to be presumptuous, but he kept feeling like things just kept on circling around him with every turn they took. He hated that. Hated everything as it was.
He could have easily guessed what the kidnappers were after if they were but ordinary people. It would have been so obvious. Almost as obvious as the fact that his dad had known the likelihood of his abduction from a young age—an unapologetically ordinary scenario for the wealthy who lived among the hungry: hungry for power, hungry for money. He could have outsmarted them if that were the case. But he couldn't—not in the situation he was in, not without his powers.
"This, this. That, that," the man beside him grumbled. He turned to Edward. "What's really wrong with you, huh? Either daddy this, daddy that, or if things were like this and if things were like that." He adjusted himself closer to Edward. "Why do you paint yourself and your father as the most pious father-son duo, when you know just as well as I do that that isn't true?"
Edward didn't need it said to affirm his suspicion of having been followed and spied on by these people before his abduction—it was quite obvious. "Stay out of my head," he condemned, a disdainful lick at the tip of his tongue. He retreated backward, cautious. "Stay out of my fucking head." His eyes brimmed with both indignation and fear, his hands resting helplessly on his lap as the rigid feel of the cuffs bit firmly and deeper into his wrists.
The man leaned closer to his face, his eyes now returning to that familiarly scary and intimidating look. He sneered, then suddenly grabbed Edward by the neck. Edward tried to tap at his rock-hard, titanic arm, his breathing suffocated.
"I am not reading your mind. I am not digging through your mind. I am not rummaging your fucking mind." The man tightened his grip, and Edward's eyes widened in response. His mouth could barely draw in a gasp, his eyes soaked with horrified tears, his toes curling in an urgent need for escape.
"Don't get cocky with me, boy. My ears are simply picking up what your mind can't keep to itself—"
"Please," Edward croaked desperately with the little air he had left in his lungs. His hands were almost giving out from the continuous patting.
The man leaned closer to Edward's ear, slow and deliberate. "Be very careful, boy." He pulled back and looked into Edward's eyes. "Especially with how you talk to me." And with that, he let go with a shove, shaking off the teardrop that had slipped onto his hand, sheer disgust evident.
Edward's head bumped against the hard, smooth window from the shove, his lungs greedily sucking in every bit of air they could—his tracheal tract relishing the feel of it.
"Know your mates," the man spat in a cautionary tone. But Edward was too busy rubbing the swollen place on his neck to care.
Just as the man was about to advance toward him again, a taunt at the tip of his tongue, he felt something thwart him at the chest—a similarly strong and insufferable hand.
Jengra.
He looked toward the passenger seat. "Get your hand off me."
"Leave the boy alone," Jengra warned calmly.
The man was speechless. He tried to say something, but it stuck in his throat. He felt extremely offended.
Edward, hands paused at his neck, looked between the two gladiators tentatively, not letting much thought slip through with the remembrance of their lack of indiscretion. Hectic.
The man supposedly called Jengra turned to him.
Edward flinched, jolting backward, suddenly taken aback. The man was oddly ethereal, just like the one seated beside him, and there was something about his eyes—captivating yet terrifying, intense in a soul-haunting manner—that left one breathless. It made Edward uneasy.
Tap.
He abruptly felt something hit the back of his head.
He winced, crouching forward and encasing his head.
The man beside him chuckled.
Jengra promptly spun to him. "Mace, you're testing my patience now."
"What? Can't we have a little fun with the guy at least? He's gonna die after all."
Time stopped.
Edward slowly looked up, trembling, his whole body instantly cold.
"I'm gonna wh—" he tried to ask, but the man cut him short.
"You're gonna die. Yes," he affirmed, a little too happily for a sane abductor. His smile danced with mischief and darkness—one that loomed more to the soul than to the mind.
Edward couldn't possibly get more frightened. His heart already ached more than he thought it ever could, and his senses struggled to stay intact. He felt himself slip into a place he never once knew existed—a place worse than despair.
"Oh. Not so brave now?" The man leaned down and looked up at Edward. Satisfied by his disheveled state, he sat back up straight, adjusting his coat. "Don't worry," he continued in a mockingly comforting voice. "It will be quick and of less pain." He turned to the defeated, quiet Jengra. "Isn't that what you'd say?"
"Why?" Edward suddenly asked, looking up with teary eyes.
Jengra and Mace exchanged glances—Mace indifferent—and just as he was about to speak, Jengra beat him to it. "Because it's just how it is, kid." He sighed. "You were born to die for a reason, okay?" He placed a heavy hand on Edward's shoulder. "That's the purpose of your life."
But just as he finished speaking, Edward suddenly pulled his legs into a fold, threw his cuffed hands over them, hugged them, and instantly spun to the side so that his whole body sat on the couch.
Before the two men could make sense of what was happening, a solid something cut through the car in half—hard and sharp. It severed the lingering hand of Jengra and the resting legs of Mace before rolling onto the other side of the road and lodging itself into the stem of a tree.
"Ahhhhhh!" Mace's shrilling scream, blood spurting profusely from the amputated parts of his legs—or rather what remained of them—hitched Edward back into reality.
He realised the half of the car he had remained in was leaning forward against the road, scratching against it as it spun continuously and dizzily toward a tree on the other side.
It was the end of him. He knew it. His life flashing repeatedly before his eyes felt like a taunt—keeping him in thrill before the shattering clash and death. His seatbelt played its part in the tease too, preventing his flying-and-dying option, preserving him for the foreseen death.
(Sigh.) How exciting. Nothing like a demise seen coming.
Feeling defeated and extremely dizzy, Edward let go of all his worries and troubles and let peace flow through him in a final, fulfilling moment.
He gave up strength and looked down at the sparks dancing between the scraping part of the car and the murram.
But just as he stared, he heard something crush and wreck amid the screeching sounds of the other two cars. He guessed it to be the other half of the car—the impact was light.
One of the other cars stopped screeching and crashed into a tree too—not so lightly. The other? Toppled over. Mm-hmm. And rolled severely before eventually stopping with a defeated creak.
Edward could now see they were close to the edge of the road. Death was almost there—just a few feet away.
But suddenly: uplift. Sudden stop to the spinning. Propulsion forward by inertia. Snapping cut of the seatbelt. Panic and terror while head-diving toward the welcoming coarse murram. Complete disarray and halfway acceptance of death—and then, suddenly… saving.
Quick and precise.
He was tackled by someone zooming across the road and to the other side.
And just like that…
Edward had been saved and escaped impending death.
Classic.
------------------
Back at Ngong High School, Miridald, Jenevive, Renee, and a man—probably in his thirties, dressed in a black leather jacket, T-shirt, and trousers—walked into the main entrance hallway alongside Anita and Mdachi.
Miridald kept the phone pressed to her ear. "It's ringing," she stated, looking about the place as if she would miraculously see Edward passing by or seated somewhere.
Nothing. Just as empty and desolate as when Edward had been there. The sun had dipped halfway into the horizon, its rays a gentle, slightly heavy orange. The atmosphere gave off the feeling of a retired, strenuous day.
Miridald turned to Anita and Mdachi. "Do you know where he might be?"
Their eyes lit up. "Yeah," Anita chimed. "I think we do." She turned to Mdachi, then back to Miridald. "We'll get there right away."
Anita pulled Mdachi by the arm and hurtled on their way when Miridald spoke up again.
"Hey…"
They looked back at her.
She hesitated.
"What, Miridald?" Renee queried softly.
Miridald tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. "Um…" she trailed off in hesitation again.
The man stared cluelessly between her and the two friends.
Jenevive was too self-absorbed to care about another of Miridald's sentimental talks. She stared down in thought, fidgeting with her fingers.
"Umm. Just tell him—I mean, you guys should come and meet up with us at the garden. The atrium one? Once you find him. Okay?"
"Okay." They went on their way.
"So what are we gonna do now?" Renee asked, resting her hands on her hips. "Or should we round up at the garden and wait for them?"
"Yeah, sure," Miridald agreed awkwardly. She dialed Edward's number again and started off into another hallway when the man suddenly spoke up.
"Um—and are you sure that he's here?" he asked rather apprehensively, standing in his usual one-hand-on-waist posture.
He was a middle-built man with Indian features and fantastic hair.
Renee rolled her eyes and sighed before walking off. She had heard something somewhat familiar in the adjacent hallway and needed to check it out. Plus, she couldn't stand the guts of the overly suspicious detective, from since he had shown up the previous day at the doorfront after Edward and the others' departure.
She signaled Miridald before leaving.
Miridald acknowledged it, then turned back to the detective, phone ringing in hand.
"Yes, we are, Detective," she answered calmly and assertively. "That's what the GPS says. And you know teenagers—always carrying their gadgets wherever they go. So he has to be here, Detective. He has to be."
The detective was about to speak again when Miridald beat him to it. "Otherwise, I would have to need your help… and I don't want it to come to that. Not with him. Not now."
The call ended. Her phone stopped ringing.
The man looked into her eyes and saw the palpable fear in them. With his arms crossed, he nodded in understanding.
Miridald nodded back—quickly—flashing him a brief, nervous smile before wiping away the tears that threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes.
"Thank you," she muttered.
"Miridald," Renee suddenly called, emerging behind her.
Miridald spun. "Yes?" she answered.
"I found something."
Jenevive looked up from her phone.
"What?" Miridald asked, walking toward her.
Renee displayed Edward's phone. There was a crack at the top-left corner of the screen.
Jenevive frowned.
Miridald looked up in horror.
"Something definitely happened," Renee muttered.