Warm, salty breeze drifted through the French windows.
The power in the house was switched off to make sure there was no way Amy could gain access to them.
Their phones were switched off too.
The only weak link was the laptop.
Crystal took a deep breath as the bug uploaded to the program that was Amy.
She hoped the firewall would hold until it did.
Sean paced nervously behind her.
Even Snowball, sensing their mood, seemed jittery.
She knew Sean wasn't really confident this would work. In all honesty, she wasn't a hundred percent sure either.
But trapping Amy, if not destroying it, was the only solution she could think of.
She and Sean had been tracking the news. There were reports of eight to ten suicides every day over the past week, across the country. Hanging, slit wrists, drowning, jumping...
Experts were talking about a suicide epidemic. But none of them checked how many of these victims had Amy installed.
Crystal did. She cross checked each and every name against Amy's user base. Each and every one had Amy installed.
There was also an increase in reports of assault. Too many instances to be justified as typical human behaviour, and too many to cross check.
Here too, experts had a point of view on lifestyle, stress and a lot of psychological mumbo jumbo. No one attributed them to Amy.
There was only one way to contain this. Stop Amy.
"You know you have to get Amy pulled off all App stores, right?" She asked Sean, cautiously.
She knew he didn't want to do that. Given the publicity Amy was given when launched, it would ruin his career to admit his app had caused hurt, madness and death.
Sean muttered something under his breath.
"I'm sorry... what?" She asked, sharply.
"I don't see why I need to do it." He snapped.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "It has caused violence and death. Isn't that reason enough?"
He turned to glare at her. "So that's what we are fixing here, aren't we? We are doing all this to stop her."
"What if this doesn't work?" She demanded.
"Let's cross that bridge once we come to it." He said, harshly.
Crystal gave him a long look. "You know I can report it if you refuse to, right?"
He moved so fast that Crystal didn't get the time to react.
His hands were around her throat before she knew it.
Snowball ran to them and hissed at Sean.
Sean laughed coldly. "Come near me and I will crush you, little kitty."
Crystal dug her nails into his hands, trying to drag them away.
"Why...?" she gasped.
His eyes looked like steel. Emotionless.
"No one gets in my way." He said, softly. "No one."
"I'm sorry..." she had to force the words out against the pressure of his hands. "I won't..."
He grinned at her thinly. "Too late. I don't trust you to shut up."
"But... Amy..." she gasped for air.
"Who do you think killed Amanda?" His laugh sounded maniacal and her flesh rose in goosebumps.
"That girl was always fucked up. Then she got even worse. She was nothing but a drug addicted whore. Kept whining to me about her problems. Kept asking me for money. Dumb bitch! She was nothing but a fucking liability. She didn't deserve to live."
Crystal felt cold terror rush through her body. "You..."
Sean have her a broad grin. "Yes, I was driving that night. No one figured it out."
Snowball was howling by now.
It was getting difficult to breathe. Dark spots began dancing in front of her eyes.
She tried to think desperately. She didn't have long. What could she use as a weapon?
There was nothing on the desk behind her but the laptop. She couldn't maneuver the laptop to hit him from this position.
Damn her control freak, minimilistic living, she thought wryly.
His hands were too strong to pull away.
The dark spots were crowding her vision now. She could feel consciousness ebbing away.
Snowball sounded like he was crying for her already.
There were days in her life when she didn't particularly want to die, but wasn't particularly keen on continuing to live either.
Today was not one of those days.
There was nothing she could do to stop him.
So she did the only thing she could think of.
A/N: Here we go... the quintessential twist in the tale... Would love to hear your thoughts!