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CHAPTER SIX
(tw! vomiting)
"WHO DO YOU WORK for?" The man in front of Oliver — who seemed to be the 'higher-up' — asked, his hands behind his back as he looked at Oliver with dark eyes. Oliver didn't flinch under his gaze. Instead, he looked right back at him with the same look. "I work for the bookstore in the mall." He said. He was a bit anxious, but he could fool people because of how confident he seemed at that moment.
"Who. Do. You. Work. For?" His Russian accent was thick and just a bit menacing. Oliver scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. "The bookstore." He repeated. His voice remained unwavering, but he looked up when the man who had dragged him in here approached him, grabbing a handful of his hair and forcing Oliver to look at the man. "I'll ask you one last time."
"My answers gonna be the same." After he said that, he felt a sharp pain in not only his scalp but right between his ribs. He groaned and doubled over, almost gasping for air because of how strong the punch was. Not even a second later, he felt something warm dripping down the side of his hair. He had scratched his scalp. "Fuck. I fucking told you that I work for the bookstore you fucking bastard." Oliver really wished he could learn how to shut his mouth.
Another punch, except this one just barely missed the right side of his ribcage. "Shit. . ." He muttered, feeling a little bit of blood pooling in his mouth. "Let me ask you one more time." Oliver laughed, tears lining the bottom of his eyes, blurring his vision.
"Who do you work for." Oliver looked up at him, squinting a bit when some of the blood on the side of his face reached his eyebrow. "The bookstore. My ID badge is right here. I'm a teenager. You think I want to plot something evil against you?" He laughed a bit more at how ridiculous this situation was. He couldn't believe he had ended up like this in the middle of summer while waiting for college acceptance letters.
"You must be smart. You know Russian, correct?" Oliver stayed silent, only staring straight at him. "Isn't that right?" The man asked him, except this time in Russian. "What are you trying to do with that machine? Kill everyone? Because that's what will happen if you keep using it." Oliver told him, his American accent was there, but they knew what he was saying.
"And how do you know that?" The man asked him, a sly smirk on his face. Oliver wanted to knock him in the head and knock him out. "I know more than you think." The man's smile fell and he looked at him with the same dark eyes as before. He walked forward and nodded at the guard beside Oliver, who still had a handful of his hair. Oliver was shocked that he wasn't bald at that point. Another punch landed directly on his ribs this time. "And how did you get in, huh? Your friend doesn't seem as smart as you." He already knew he was referring to Steve, and he felt a fire burning inside him. He knew he had probably asked Steve the same question, so he tried to figure out what Steve might've said to that. He could only hope that he understood Steve enough because that seemed to be his only hope.
