There is strength in madness. It means you do not limit yourself to the possibilities of what is acceptable, even if at times, you do not believe in your success as well.
Number Five
The cliff! They just passed by the warning sign. They were really heading for the cliff!
Abcidee wanted to punch her companion and shake some sense into his obviously empty head. As it was, her control was at its limit, and it had plenty to do with the gut-wrenching, roller coaster ride she's having. The intensity of her glare could have scorched the skin off his devilishly handsome face. He's lucky she wasn't blessed with laser beams as her eyes.
"Step on the brakes!" she screamed. "Stop this car!"
Krad caught her hand before she pulled the hand brake. "Are you planning to kill us? The car will flip!"
"You crazy bastard! You are the one trying to kill us! I thought you’re bringing me to my dad alive. Oh my god! Stop this car this instant!"
Krad was unnaturally strong, she realized, when all it took for him to keep her in place was a single arm. He wasn't buff like the two men who took her from Denver, but his arm muscles were compact and solid. She couldn't even budge his arm an inch. It was like she was fighting against a bar of steel.
"Let me out of here!" she yelled, her anger causing her eyes to form tears, "Please! I'll rather be captured again --"
"You don't know what the Light has in mind for you," Krad growled.
"And I didn't come with you to commit double suicide!" She gritted her teeth. Never had she felt this much desire to throttle a man. "Let. Me. Out. Now."
A smirk formed on his thin lips. The nerve of the man! He was clearly enjoying this!
"You didn't come with me," he pointed out with a mischievous grin. "I forced you to come with me. I think there's a huge difference between those two."
Before she could bite his arm -- what he was sure she would do -- a whistling sound broke through his concentration, and it snapped him back to his senses. She gave out a girlish squeal of fright when he dangerously maneuvered the car out of the road. Still going at more than a hundred miles per hour, the car was nearly tossed to the side. The rugged, patchy ground shook their brains like maracas as they bounced inside the car.
"What are you doing?!" she cried, her arms gripping her seat in a vise-like hold. Her cheek was pressed against the head support, her eyes wide with alarm. "Aren't we even going to make it to the cliff? Do you want to die that badly?"
He pulled back his right arm and blindly searched under his seat for something. "So little trust in me, huh?"
"I do not trust you."
Another whistling sound came, and this time, Krad wasn't fast enough to avoid it. The glass around them shattered into fragments, stinging their skins with tiny crisscrossing cuts. Fortunately, the bullet merely grazed his right shoulder.
"That," he snarled, angry at himself for getting distracted, "is what I was trying to avoid."
Her eyes widened at the sight. The blood was quickly spreading though his sleeves. "You're bleeding!"
Trust her to state the obvious. Her gaze flew back to their pursuers. "Can't we get any faster? They're behind us."
Of course, they are behind us. "Weren't you telling me to stop just a few seconds ago?"
"This is no time to be playing games! Our lives are in the line."
He snorted as he rummaged through his glove compartment. There were a lot of papers and wires insides. Ah, there it is. He quickly tossed the grenade to her small hands. "As if that wasn't a daily thing."
Her eyes grew to the size of saucers. "A-A, why are you…? Is this-is this real?"
She was really acting weird. "Of course, what else could it be?"
"What do I do with this?" she squeaked.
He raised a brow. "You have to pull the pin and then throw it at them."
"B-But… they will die."
"And if you don't throw that, they'll kill us instead."
"I don't – I don't…"
Shaking his head, Krad yanked the grenade from her with his right hand and pulled the pin with his teeth. With only a brief glance at the side mirror, he threw the grenade backwards.
The force tore through the air in the explosion. Dust and debris flew in all directions.
There wasn't even a chance for their pursuers to shout before their police car burst into flames, causing the SUV behind them to be caught in the tangle. Abcidee's ears rang, causing her eyes to burn and her head to pound. It was nothing like she'd ever experienced before.
"There are still three cars left," her companion mused thoughtfully, like throwing grenades and killing people was an everyday thing. To him, perhaps, it really was. A sudden chill enveloped her body.
What on earth possessed her to feel safe with this cold-hearted killer?
She was a fool to think he's her savior. Perhaps he did know her from her past, but that didn't mean they worked for the same side.
It was ridiculous to imagine her to be friends with someone like Krad.
He had no heart. No conscience. She could see the satisfaction in his expression. She wouldn't be surprised if he would pull a gun on her right now. To him, this must be a game. A twisted game of how many he could kill before he ended her life. After all, that was how his men described him. She remembered them talking in the van when they thought she was unconscious. They feared Krad, more than they feared the one they call Falcon. She remembered them talking about their young boss and his cruel, sadistic ways, his dark bloodthirsty nature.
What if this was some elaborate plan for him to have fun?
To pretend that he was helping her, only to mock and torture her in the end?
As long as she was dead, Krad's mission would be a success. It didn't matter if he killed others as well to satisfy his craving for slaughter. And he didn't care whether it was his allies he was targeting.
She could see it in his eyes now. The chase, the danger… he was wanted this. He purposely took her so that his men would chase them. He deliberately led them towards this part of the land, even though any normal man would have stuck to the high way.
The cliff was only a minute or so away. Even from afar, she could see it was huge. The type that would be impossible to survive. They were heading – no, accelerating, straight to the giant gorge, and there was no way to escape her death. But why would Krad join her? He had to be mentally unstable. Did it matter? They were both going to die. If he stopped the car, those behind them would still kill her.
This must be the lesser of two evils. At least this way, Kreuz and Arashi wouldn't have a body to grieve on. They could still believe that she was alive somewhere. But Krad had made her call her dad. He would keep on waiting, then he would realize something went wrong when they didn’t come…
She couldn't guess Krad's reasons for bringing her here, but at the end of all this madness, her death was guaranteed. Inevitable. She could imagine her bloody self, her insides splattered on the ground, her bones broken beyond recognition. Abcidee's shoulders sagged as she pressed her hands to her face in defeat.
Krad lied to her.
There was a listening device inside the car, just under her seat, one so small no one would have noticed it. It was the latest model, and it was specifically made to send a signal of a different frequency so that it would not to be detected by any bug tracker.
It was part of his plan.
He knew the Light would be listening. He made a show of checking and scanning the car so that they would not doubt his ignorance. As a former Equation, he knew that he was going to be monitored, ever move, every breath, every person he interacted with. They had the right to suspect him, though they were fools to think that they were doing so stealthily.
Kreuz Creed had trained him rigorously as a child. The Master made sure that his senses were sharpened akin to that of a wild animal's. He could hear their heartbeats, feel their presences, and sniff their scents, whenever they tail him.
They knew he was a spy. He knew that they knew he was a spy.
Krad didn't mind as long as he could get Faye away from them. He anticipated the hunt, deliberately making himself a prey.
It was all part of his plan.
Everything was going on smoothly. After four years of waiting, he could finally free Faye from the Light. This was where all his sleepless nights and sacrifices boiled down to.
Her death.
He had thought about it, hard, day and night, both awake and in his dreams. There was only one way to release her from the curse of being an Equation, from being the daughter of Kreuz Creed.
Faye Summers had to die.
It was the only way out of the loop.
Krad pulled her to him the moment the car tipped at the edge, and with his strong legs, leaped off the car with her shaking form in his arms. She hated the sensation of falling, and this was ten times worse than she imagined. She couldn't even make herself close her eyes.
They were falling head first.
Her heart stopped beating.
It lodged in her throat.
She let out a silent scream.
She could see the car over Krad's shoulders. Once they reach the ground, if by some miracle they lived despite their broken bodies, the burning machine would make sure they die a painful, burning death.
Desperate, terrified, cold, she clutched Krad closer to her, and they spiraled down to the darkness.
The car exploded mid-air.