Pawns & Enemies: A Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys Mystery

15. Nancy

    "Don't you try ta jump too!" Kyan growls. He locks every single, stinking door in the car. 

Oh no! Now that I have realized who the criminal is it's too late. I turn in my seat to see Frank and Joe rolling on the road. And then was absolutely nothing I could do. The doors were locked, the Hardys were gone and I was alone with Kyan Millians, a criminal who has threatened to take my life and almost succeeded twice. Wow, my day's going just great! Not. Why on earth does this dude want to kill me? I may as well ask, after all, how much worse could my situation get?

    "Hey Kyan, what's the deal with trying to kill me?" 

    "Well beautiful, you're not the one who I'm trying to get rid of. I am really trying to kill off the Hardys and bankrupt A.T.A.C. You dying, that will just make the others easier to kill. You see, they are good for nothing. They do little things in little circumstances. Your daddy too. Not really helping out at all, just making a mess. My dad and I could run a detective agency so much better than Fenton Hardy. I never really liked my boss, Mr. H. and I hate A.T.A.C. and everyone there. They feed me lies, like the fact that I get to choose who goes where and where they serve. But, no, all I get to do is create fake, training missions for all the new kids under their restrictions. So I decided to do something about it. I created my own missions, using clueless teenagers to ruin A.T.A.C. without ever knowing who sent them out.

    "The easy part was giving the Hardy Boys," he said it like the name poisoned his mouth, "one of my famous fake missions using you, my darling. I got everyone at A.T.A.C. to believe that you were some kind of evil villain doing everything that in reality, I was setting you up. So I left A.T.A.C. headquarters in chaos and worked at a different angle. I showed your father all those bad things that I had sent the A.T.A.C. agents to do. And he wanted them caught so desperately." Kyan gave a dark laugh. "I guess he can't have teenage detectives in a negative light considering his daughter is one. My plan finally had its finishing touches when Drew sent you to search for, ta da, the founder's sons.

    "Only you and the Hardys easily resolved your misunderstanding. So now I have to kill all three of you to get to your fathers which is," Kyan sighs, "regrettable. It is easier said than done, you guys couldn't just die when the plane caught on fire. I thought for sure you would be dumb enough to kill yourselves, but no." 

 This whole time I sit thinking about his plan. I frown whenever he throws in a flirty word like we are in love and this is all just a big game. He is taking lives in his hands and laughing and sighing because it didn't work out the way he planned. I need more evidence, more information to incriminate him but by now we had pulled up to a small white house. He parks the car and gets out. He opens up my door like he is a perfect gentleman but that's when I saw the gun and all my plans of running blew out the door, literally. It was a small gun, but it was definitely enough to do the job.

    "Get out," he orders. 

He walks me, gun in hand, to the house and hustles me inside. Once inside he brings me to a bedroom (his?) and tells me to sit in a computer chair near the bed. I obey and he grabs my arms, yanking them behind the chair, and starts tying them together.

    "It's okay," he coos. "Once the Hardys get here, you will again be just a pawn I use to get to them. All you have to do is lure them here. With what I read about them, it shouldn't be long before they come to the rescue." He grabs my ankles and pulls them back to the chair in a position they were never meant to be in. The rope he is using to tie them burns and stings and my muscles already hurt. I fight back a tear. A cry of pain rouses in my throat but I am afraid to make a sound with that gun in his hand. 

    "Oh," Kyan adds. "All the window are boarded up or locked." He smiles eerily. 

 I need more information before he leaves me alone. "Are you responsible for everything that happened to me and the Hardys?"