The Criminal Diaries

      But as it turned out, Helene does not lose consciousness and still realizes what’s happening. The girl lies on her stomach with her head turned to the side for a few seconds, opening her eyes or closing them and seeing the fire spreads rapidly throughout the whole room, and it’s getting harder to see something due to the smoke that clouds everything. But then she moves all the parts of her body slowly and starts to sit up. Her vision gets kind of worse, the pain keeps squeezing her head, a sense of nausea keeps torturing her, and the weakness makes her wish to lie down and fall asleep deeply.       Nevertheless, Helene braces herself by force and gets up, but almost falls immediately since her legs get immediately weak, and she shakes from side to side due to her dizziness. After looking around, she takes the smartphone from the floor and tries to use it somehow. But it does not give her any result because it dies, not giving the girl a chance to try to contact someone and ask for help.       “God, no…” Helene whispers under her nose in a shaking voice, trying to turn on the smartphone with a lack of air by pressing all the buttons she finds. “No, please… Not this… No…”       Understanding that this thing cannot help her anymore, Helene throws the smartphone aside and starts wandering around in search of any salvation. But the fire ring is getting tighter every second and pushing her into a trap, from which there is no way out. The uncontrolled fire closed any path to the closed door, and burning boards and pieces of heavy concrete keep falling off the ceiling. At some moment, the smartphone she threw aside explodes right a few meters away from her after being caught by the bright red tongues of fire.       “My God, what do I do?” Helene wonders. “What do I do? How do I get out of here? I don’t wanna die! I don’t!”       Helene starts suffering from a much stronger cough that echoes painfully in her whole body as long as she breathes in the smell of the smoke. She starts lacking air catastrophically, and something is pressing on her chest and giving her great discomfort.       “Someone… Please… Help me… Please! Don’t leave me here! Please…”       Helene takes a few steps aside with tears in her eyes, but then she jumps sharply with a deafening shout since the tongues of the bright fire burn the thin skin on her arm slightly. She eventually gets a red spot, touching which makes her feel pain. After she looks around again, the girl barely comes to the bed that has not been destroyed by the fire, takes the blanket smelling of dampness from it, and tries to make a way with this. But it does not help her a lot because it turns out to be too thin. As well as the sheet with yellow spots that burns when it barely touches the fire.       “No, please…” Helene begs desperately, choking from tears and the cough caused by the smoke she breathes in. “No… I don’t want to die… I don’t want… I want to live…”       Helen screams hysterically and puts her head on her shoulders when a burning board falls on the bed from the ceiling along with a cellophane film hanging on the wall. Due to the acrid smoke, her eyes start hurting a lot, and it feels like a woodpecker is drumming against her temples determinedly and monotonously. In despair, she is ready to try to get through the only small window and break two or three bones after falling from the height, but the path to it is already closed by this moment. Understanding that her situation is hopeless, the girl screams heartbreakingly, grabbing her hair with both hands and watching the fire destroying everything on its way rapidly and getting closer to her like an enemy to take revenge for some tricks.       At some moment, she even stops trying to do something and does not hope that someone will save her. Helene just cries bitterly, suffers from a sense of nausea and dizziness, and understands that she can barely stand on her weak legs. Saying goodbye to all her close people in her mind and asking for forgiveness from those she has ever hurt, the girl walks from side to side in slow steps and embraces herself with both arms with a wish not just to talk to someone via a video call but to hug them tightly. To feel someone’s warmth and hear all the worst things are over, and she is safe now. Now she feels like a little, scared girl more than ever as she is locked in this small, dark, and cold room caught in the fire. Nobody has come to save her. Nobody sees her bitter tears. Nobody hears her screams breaking her heart in pieces and not being good for her vocal cords. Nobody sees that she is in a half-dead condition after everything she has had to get through over the past week.       After a short walk on the little part of the room that has not been set on fire yet, Helene falls to the floor powerlessly on the side, setting her dead eyes into the distance. To be clear, the fire that is destroying everything it meets in its way with no mercy. She recalls some memories connected with her close people and the moments that gave her happiness. The times she spent with her grandmother and grandfather, whom she is madly ashamed of, because of protecting and fighting with them over their attempts to limit her in some way. The girl cannot say she has always been sweet and obedient. She cannot call her the one any parent dreams about. There are many moments she wants to fix and forget. So many moments that she did not regret back then, but cannot even remember now.       Helene also recalls the way she harmed people who did nothing bad to her for a long time. When she was under the influence of a bad company, and did everything to impress them. She did not do some kind of harmless tricks back then. She did serious things that led to horrible consequences for all of her unhappy victims. Thinking about it, the girl feels that her heart squeezes painfully, and tears come to her eyes by themselves due to the shame that is eating her inside. Though when she was caught on one of the attempts to harm another innocent person and tried to be ashamed, she did not have any kind of regret and did not even think of apologizing for her behavior. Neither her victims nor Scarlett and Roger, who had to be ashamed because of their granddaughter and asked themselves which mistake they made and when everything went wrong.       Helene apologizes silently to every person who has ever suffered because of her and hopes some of them will find the courage to forget everything and forgive her now, when it’s been many enough years. Just like Raquelle, Natalia, and Anna, whom she asks for forgiveness again for all the bad things she did. The brunette would have never thought they would be her closest friends after everything that happened. But it happened. Thanks to Daniel, Edward, Terrence, and Peter, whom she also asks for forgiveness for all the bad things she might have done. The memories of the wonderful time she was lucky to spend with these people became the best in her life. She feels so good and warm as she thinks about it all before her death that she cannot avoid.       All this time, Helene keeps lying powerlessly on the ground and breathing in the smell of the thick smoke that spreads throughout the whole room and deprived her of any opportunity to see anything. The headache becomes unbearable and kind of squeezes her brain, it’s getting harder to exhale and inhale, weakness gets stronger and makes her wish to fall asleep, her throat hurts due to the permanent cough, and her eyes hurt and water. After her first attempt to sit up and get up, she falls to the floor again, and she cannot find the strength to try to do it again. So, the brunette just lies on the floor like paralyzed. She does not get motivated, even by the fact that the fire is getting closer and closer to her. Marshall tries to keep her eyes open when they wants to close, but she is less able to control it every second. The picture before her eyes gets more unclear, the sounds get more muted, and the crazy beat of her heart echoes painfully in her head, which tears apart from pain.       At some moment, looking closely at the bright fire with a blurry vision, Helene starts seeing some hallucinations. For example, she sees a black, blurry figure that tries to get to her through the fire and then literally melts in the air. Or she hears the voices of unknown people that may be too close or too far away and then disappear. The girl does not react and keeps struggling with a wish to fall into a deep sleep when a middle-sized stone falls over her head and rolls aside, getting caught by the hellish fire in the end. Her eyes roll slowly, while her nose keeps breathing in the thick smell of smoke that is poisoning her organism inside at the wind’s speed.       “H-h-hwlmv…” Helene whispers unclearly under her nose when she sees a black, blurry figure again. “I don’t w-w-want to d-die…”       The weakness reaches its peak some time later, and Helene gives up on fighting it, after all. She sees something else exploding from afar and hears a defeating sound before her eyes start closing slowly. When her eyelids lower, the exhausted and powerless girl gives up to the infinite darkness and silence that takes her determinedly into its arms without a fight, putting an end to all these tortures, after which she had no chance to survive. Marshall held on until the very end, but a lack of hope for help and the trap she could not find a way out of made her give up and fall into the deep, endless sleep.       By this moment, the fire has already caught the ceiling, from which boards and pieces of concrete start falling much more often with a crash. Some of them pin down the body of the unconscious Helene and even leave the burns on the open parts of her skin. A few meters to go before the fire comes to her and does everything for the girl to turn into a charred skeleton. And little things falling not far from her may burn her chest-length hair at any time while the strands of it are lying on her pale face covered with scars, bruises, and soot. Even if she is alive yet and has a little chance to survive, she has a little time before the worst nightmare of her friends and close people comes true and leaves them in a long, unbearable grief.       

***

      At first, Peter, Daniel, Terrence, and Edward could hear the sounds of the fire and Helene’s quiet, painful moans after she let go of the smartphone and fell on the floor. But at some moment, the signal gets lost. It happens when it burns a lot from the fire and turns off due to a too high temperature it cannot handle.       “Helene! Helene!” Peter pronounces with horror in his widely open eyes and starts slapping the lid of the laptop with both hands. “Helene, answer! Can you hear me?”       “The connection is lost,” Edward announces. “The videocall is over.”       “Let’s try to call again,” Daniel suggests and uses the touchpad with his fingers. “Here! This user was on the line the last time! It must be Elijah!”       But after Daniel tries to call the necessary user again via a video call, he sees the message that says he is not able to do this a few seconds later.       “Call again!” Terrence insists. “Call!”       The second and third attempts to contact Helene do not lead to any result, and the message of not being able to call the user shows up on the screen.       “It’s worthless!” Edward pronounces in despair. “Don’t even try!”       “I think so…” Daniel agrees. “Some shit hit Helene on the head and knocked her out, and the phone probably died. It’s probably burned to the fuck.”       “Fuck, shit!” Terrence swears, clapping his hand on the table. “Damn, damn, damn!”       “It cannot be the truth!” Peter exclaims, breathing heavily enough and looking at his friends with widely open eyes. “It cannot be happening! I DO NOT BELIEVE IT! HELENE CANNOT DIE!”       Peter grabs his hair for a second, choking from a strong lack of air.       “What are you waiting for?” Peter shouts, “Do something! DO SOMETHING! DON’T STAND LIKE COLUMNS!”       After Edward, Daniel, and Terrence look at each other tensely, Peter takes the last one by the shoulders and shakes him, looking into his eyes with a glance full of despair and begging.       “SAVE HER! I CANNOT LOSE HER!”       Now Peter shakes Daniel, while Terrence looks at Edward with sadness in his eyes, and then hugs his brother swallowing nervously by the shoulders.       “DON’T TELL ME SHE’S DEAD!” Peter keeps racking his vocal cords. “DON’T TELL ME WE CAN DO NOTHING NOW!”       Thinking words can hardly change something in this situation, Daniel inclines his head silently, putting it on his shoulders, and moves his sad eyes to his locked hands.       “WHY ARE YOU SILENT?” Peter explodes with tears coming to his wet eyes. “TELL ME SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING! DON’T STAND LIKE FUCKING COLUMNS! Helene IS ABOUT TO DIE, BUT I CAN’T LET IT HAPPEN! I CANNOT THE FUCK LET!”                 “Your friends have just finally understood that they can change nothing,” Marcus replies quietly with his head proudly raised, taking two steps forward. “The gal is doomed, and she has very little time.”       “Bastard… Fucking cockroach…”       Peter moves off sharply and comes to Marcus, clenching his hands tightly into fists with a heavy breath,       “Stop it all now! Hear me!” Peter grabs Marcus by the collar and shakes him strongly. “PUT AN END TO THIS RIGHT NOW! DON’T LET HER DIE!”       “Don’t worry, sonny, I shall surely put an end to this,” Marcus promises. “I mean, I have done it. So, you can say goodbye to your sweetheart.”       “NO! DON’T LET HER DIE! DON’T DARE! HELENE CANNOT DIE! SHE CANNOT!”       “Don’t scream, Rose, my head hurts from your screams,” Ronald winces, massaging his temple with his fingers. “And you are going to scare the neighbors of the lord.”       “If my girlfriend dies now, I shall do my best for THE ENTIRE CITY TO KNOW WHAT THIS OLD BASTARD DID! I SHALL NOT BE SILENT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO HELENE!”       “It has already happened, Theodore, it has done,” Luther smiles innocently.       “Set the girl free right now, bastards!” Daniel demands determinedly, coming to Marcus determinedly. “She is guilty of nothing and doesn’t deserve everything you have done to her.”       “I hope you had enough time to tell her something and hear something from her,” Marcus expresses hope. “And now, when Ms. Marshall has no place to run, we should just wait a while. Wait for the fire to swallow her fully and leave her no chance.”       “You must be instead of her!” Edward states. “You and all these bastards! The girl is dying for nothing. She did nothing bad to deserve this end.”       “You are much worse than those we’ve had a deal with before!” Terrence exclaims. “Sick bastards, for whom prison would be a too soft punishment.”       “You are next, assholes,” Marcus replies determinedly. “The gal is defeated, and now it’s time to deal with the friends of my sonny, who is going to suffer a lot before I kill him personally.”       “Oh, no, jackass, I shall not give you the guys to you,” Peter hisses through his teeth. “You didn’t let me save Helene, but I shall not let you come close to Daniel, Edward, and Terrence. Don’t even dare to touch them with a finger. I shall kill you, bastard, if ONE FUCKING HAIR FALLS FROM THE HEAD OF ONE OF THEM. I SHALL BE FUCKING ANGRY IN THIS CASE, BASTARD!”       “By the way, it’s alright that we lost the connection with Elijah’s phone,” Bob says with a sly smile, checking something on his phone. “We saw what was happening inside it, but now, thanks to Darren and David, you have a chance to see the live translation of what’s happening outside.”       With these words, Bob turns the screen of his smartphone on Peter, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence, who come to them. They can see a small wooden house caught in the uncontrolled fire and smoke that gets higher and higher into the gray sky. The fire spreads rapidly throughout the places that were not under a threat of destruction, and a couple of explosions happen at some moment.       “Oh, shit…” Terrence swears, closing his mouth with a hand.       “You see, the fire has destroyed almost the whole house,” Marcus says quietly. “So, even if the gal manages to escape one trap, she is going to get into another.”       “And she will not have too much time to jump there like a goat,” Luther adds, crossing his arms over his chest. “She is going to get poisoned by carbon monoxide and pass out.”       “And then the fire will do its business,” Ronald puts his hand on his hips. “First, it will skin her alive and then burn her bones to the core.”       “Uh-huh, and the cops will be looking for her remains among the ashes,” Bob sneers evilly. “Though c’mon… It goes without saying that they will find nothing. Nothing will be left of the gal. Even the ashes.”       “I hope you’ve already written a will,” Edward says in a rude, low voice. “Because we will not close our eyes to this and will make you pay for this.”       “You all will pay for what happened to our friend,” Daniel states. “You will! And nothing will help you avoid our revenge!”       “Don’t be nervous, guys,” Marcus replies with calm that’s typical for him. “Relax. Enjoy the show. Watch your friend die.”       “Yeah, where’s the proof of Helene being in this house?” Terrence asks. “What if you burned down a random house, but told us that’s the place our friend is?”       “I want to disappoint you, MacClife, but that’s the house Marshal spent her last days,” David says, turning the camera on himself and Darren as both of them are wearing masks to protect themselves from carbon monoxide poisoning.”       “Uh-huh, we used several canisters of kerosene to burn it down,” Darren confesses. “And we used just one box of matches to start the fire.”       “Good job, men!” Marcus nods in approval. “I am so happy with you. You did what I asked.”       “Enjoy the show, sir! Enjoy the way the girlfriend of your son dies with no chance for salvation.”       “Yea-a-a-ah… I’ve been dreaming of it for so long…”       While Marcus watches the burning house with an evil gloss in his widely open eyes and a wide smile on his face, Peter gets literally green from the anger he is obsessed with and starts breathing heavily, tensing every single muscle of his body strongly to the pain and clenching his nails into his palms so strongly that he gets bright red tracks on them. Edward, Terrence, and Daniel look at each other with horror in their eyes, feeling disgusting because they can do nothing and have to watch their close friend die.       “Oh, it’s burning so well!” Marcus pronounces with enjoyment. “So bright and beautiful!”       “The gal is probably lying unconscious there after breathing in the smoke,” Darren assumes.       “And the fire burned her beautiful hair,” David adds. “And clothes…”       “I will miss the moments when I clenched her boobs and ass…” Luther confesses. “When my dick was in her ass…”       “Me too…” Ronald sighs quietly.       At some moment, Peter loses his patience and turns aside sharply not to see what makes him feel the pain in his heart. But Marcus rushes to him, grabs him by the collar, and turns his head sharply on the camera, saying:       “No, my boy, watch until the end! Watch, I said!” Marcus squeezes Peter’s jaw tightly and makes much more effort to make him watch the burning house. “And do not close your fucking eyes! You must watch it, bastard! FROM START TO END!”       “Stop, please…” Peter begs in despair. “I feel fucking bad…”       “Do not turn aside! WATCH! WATCH, I SAID!”       “Stop the fuck torturing him!” Daniel explodes and moves off sharply.       “Get back, freak!” Luther roars, pushing Daniel aside as strongly as he can to the side of Edward and Terrence, who take him under his arms when he almost falls. “Get ready to die next!”       “I wish you died, old bastard,” Peter hisses through his teeth with a heavy breath. “I WISH YOU THE FUCK DIED!”       When Peter gives Marcus a slap in the face and wants to attack him with fists, Ronald and Bon run to him shortly and start holding the guy tightly, while Luther takes Mr. Longbottom aside, taking him by the shoulders.       “Hold him, guys, hold,” Marcus insists. “Make him watch! He must become a witness to the death of his sweetheart.”       “Bastards, he feels bad, but you mock him much more!” Terrence horrifies. “Stop it all right now!”       “Shut up there, idiots!” Bob exclaims. “And get ready for the same!”       “Never!” Edward cuts off sharply. “We will be fighting! For ourselves, for each other, and for Peter!”       “You only have to say beautiful words when your ass is naked, and you’ve been caught in a trap,” Marcus laughs contemptuously. “When you understand you can do nothing and are in a hopeless situation. However, a mouse gives up on a cat early or late. So, you, pretty boys, will not run away, either.”       “I shall not let you take more lives!” Peter screams. “I SHALL NOT! YOU ARE DEAD, BASTARD!”       “By the way, did we tell you we prepared another little surprise that would not give any chance to the gal to survive?” David smiles mysteriously.       “Oh, yeah…” Darren pronounces with enjoyment and shows a small black gadget with a button in the middle to the camera. “A self-made bomb. Freaking powerful. It works immediately. One press of the button before this house explodes, as well as the cutie.”       “DO NOT DARE!” Peter racks his cords, while Ronald and Bob are holding him under his arms tightly. “DO NOT DARE! I SHALL DESTROY YOU! DESTROY, BASTARDS! DESTROY!”       “Sorry, Theodore Longbottom, but it’s too late,” David smiles innocently. “The gal’s fate is chosen.”       “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!” Peter screams when Darren puts his finger on the button.       Marcus raises his head with an evil smile and looks at Luther, Ronald, and Bon smugly. And Darren presses the button on the gadget with absolute calm when Daniel, Terrence, and Edward come to everyone quickly.       “No-o-o-o-o!” Edward, Terrence, and Daniel scream at the same time.       It takes less than one second for everyone to see the powerful explosion happen in the full house set on fire. Pieces of concrete, boards, and stones get thrown in the air, and the fire wave catches the big part of the territory, which David and Darren barely manage to escape from not to suffer.       “HELE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-ENE!” Peter screams at the top of his lungs, not caring about his vocal cords.       The widely open eyes of Peter getting sharply pale are filled with horror mixed with fear and despair. All the muscles are tense with the pain, and the throat is kind of squeezed by invisible hands, so that the man cannot breathe. The crazy beat of the heart echoes in the temples painfully, and strong dizziness gets into the head sharply, while he catches the air greedily, not being able to move since he is literally paralyzed.       Standing near, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence are deeply shocked by what happened, literally stopping to breathe when they set their widely open eyes to the screen of the smartphone. The first one shakes his head, the second one closes his mouth tightly with his hands, and the third one grabs his hair tightly. They see multiple explosions happen in the three-level house set on fire, after which the construction collapses for several seconds and keeps burning. After this, they no longer doubt that Helene is dead, and they did not manage to save her.       “No…” Daniel pronounces in a shaking, hoarse voice, barely moving his lips. “N-no, it cannot be the truth… No… No…”       “Fucking shit…” Edward steps back and puts his hand on his throat with the feeling of a fast heartbeat and a lack of air. “Helene…”       “She is not dead…” Terrence shakes his head determinedly and grabs his stomach tightly as he suddenly feels a sharp pain. “No… Helene is alive…”       Edward, Daniel, and Terrence shake sharply when Marcus starts laughing hysterically and evilly, not even going to hide his happiness over Helene’s death that she could not avoid, as he said.       “YEA-A-A-A-A-A-AH!” Marcus whoops happily at the top of his lungs. “SHE IS DEAD! HELENE MARSHALL IS DEAD! DEAD!”       While Bob, Ronald, and Luther smile slyly, being happy that Marcus’ plan works and look at each other with their heads proudly raised, Peter keeps looking closely into the distance with widely open eyes that water from tears, stepping back slightly. The sounds around him reach him like through the deaf wall, and tension in his whole body is so strong that moving his shaking fingers is a hard mission for him. At some moment, the weak legs stop holding the weight of the guy, who eventually falls powerlessly to his knees, while tears roll slowly down his pale cheeks, and he leans on the floor with both hands.       Terrence, Daniel, and Edward stand in their places like frozen, refusing to believe what happened and thinking they are in a nightmare that cannot end. But then Perkins becomes the first one to find the strength to take a step, comes to Peter sitting on his knees on his weak legs, and puts his hand on his shoulder. But the blond does not react to this. To be clear, Rose does – he starts screaming heartbreakingly, not caring that he may lose his voice and not feeling the pain, while his nails get deeply into his palms that start to bleed because of this.       Not understanding how to behave in this situation, Peter’s friends look at each other. Though they know for sure that none of their words can help them comfort the deeply shocked guy looking into the distance with dead eyes, not hiding his tears of despair and pain, and screaming hysterically at times. And they know that there is a threat of losing their friend due to Helene’s death because he cannot handle the loss of the one who got him out of the deep hole after making an unbelievable effort.       “The plan works like magic,” Marcus says confidently with his head proudly raised, getting the attention of the three men. “I am getting closer to my main goal – to take revenge for Julia’s death – slowly but determinedly.”       Laughing evilly, Marcus comes to Peter crying bitterly, looking at him from the bottom up with red eyes, and looking like a little, unprotected child in front of the bad adult man.       “That’s how I imagined you after the death of the gal.” Marcus raises Peter’s chin. “I was sure you would be lying at my feet like this and suffering. Suffering as well as I did when I was told about the death of my beloved Julia.”       Marcus squeezes Peter’s throat tightly, while Ronald, Bob, and Luther immediately prevent any attempts of Edward, Terrence, and Daniel to help him, pulling them aside by force and starting to hold them tightly.       “I felt all the same when it happened. I was lying at the feet of the doctor and crying. Crying like a weak fucking girl. I was enraged. I was ready to destroy the hospital to the fuck. I wanted to break into the place where nurses watched you and KILL you. I hated my own child because he killed my wife. HE RUINED MY WHOLE LIFE!”       But Peter does not react to Marcus’ words and the way he strangles him tightly since he chokes from a lack of air and hears nothing but the beat of his own heart and his own sobs.       “ARE YOU HAPPY, ASSHOLE?” Marcus explodes, grabs Peter rudely by the hair, and pulls it strongly. “ARE YOU HAPPY TO RUIN MY LIFE? BY TAKING THE MOST VALUABLE THING I HAD! ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY?”       Marcus hits Peter strongly in the face, while the blond keeps crying bitterly like a child and denying Helene’s death even after seeing it with his own eyes. Even if the house with the girl locked in it burned and exploded right before his eyes.       “Now you can feel all the same feelings! YOU will be in my place! You will understand what happened to me when you KILLED my fucking wife! Killed THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!” Marcus hits Peter in the face from the other side again. “AND DON’T DARE TO SAY YOU ARE SORRY! YOU ARE NOT FUCKING SORRY! AND I AM NOT SORRY FOR YOU NOW, WHILE YOU ARE CRYING OVER THE DEATH OF THE GAL!”       Marcus strikes Peter down with a strong hit in the jaw and beats him cruelly for some time with hands and feet, while the blond does not react to this, however.       “KILLER! KILLER! ASSHOLE! FUCKING BASTARD! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” Marcus hits his foot against Peter’s nose, from which a thin flow of blood starts getting. “How long I was waiting for this moment! How I wanted to beat you like this and take revenge for all my pain! The pain I’ve been keeping inside for MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS! THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN EATING ME INSIDE! I SHALL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THAT, HEAR ME! NEVER! EVEN WHEN YOU DIE! THE DEATH OF YOUR MOTHER WILL ALWAYS BE YOUR FAULT!”       Not holding himself down, Marcus keeps screaming at the top of his lungs and beating Peter heartlessly with his feet and hands. After these actions, the guy gets bright bruises and blood tracks on his whole body, but he literally stops feeling any kind of pain. And now he is shaking, crying, and screaming at times because of this. All his thoughts are about losing his beloved girl and any meaning of existing in this world that has become his enemy. Even if it still has his close friends.       After getting sick of watching Marcus beating Peter shamelessly to half-death, Daniel hits his elbow against the nose of Ronald holding him under his arms with an irritated growl, smashes his fist against his jaw and groin, and strikes him down with a hit on the solar plexus. Then he runs to Marcus shortly, squeezes his neck with his elbow from behind, and starts a fight with the man who is not super furious.       Terrence and Edward do not stay aside and rush to help their friends. The first one hits Luther in the solar plexus with his elbow, smashes his foot against his patella, and knocks him out with a hit on the head with a metallic crowbar. And the second one grabs Bob’s arm with his teeth painfully enough when the opponent uses a chokehold on him, twists it so that the man cannot hold down his loud shout, throws the villain easily over his shoulder, and throws him to the floor. Then the older of the MacClife brothers joins Perkins’ fight with Longbottom, and the younger one rushes to Peter, gets down to his knees in front of them, and tries to ask him how he is feeling, putting his hand on his shoulder. But the blond does not react to this and keeps bleeding and crying bitterly over the beloved person’s death.       “So, freaks, did you think I was bluffing all this time?” Marcus sneers evilly, clenching his hands into fists tightly with a heavy breath. “Did you think I would not do this?”       “Killer!” Daniel shouts. “You killed the innocent girl! Helene did nothing bad to you! She didn’t deserve it!”       “She is not so innocent, mate. She committed tons of sins that she decided to be silent about because she was ashamed of you.”       “Whatever that was, you do not have to do with it!” Terrence says rudely.       “Anyway, I have opened the score in this game. One point for me. The puck hit the bullseye.”       “How do bastards like you dare to live in this world? Why do bastards like you live as if NOTHING HAPPENS? AS IF IT ALL SHOULD HAPPEN!”       “You should have been in that house!” Daniel exclaims. “Instead of Helene! You should have been torn apart after that fucking explosion! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A FAIR PUNISHMENT FOR EVERYTHING YOU HAD DONE!”       “It’s too late to say something and shout,” Marcus shrugs with an innocent smile. “Your friend is dead. Helene Marshall has burned in the fire. And you saw and heard it all clearly.”       “You will pay for this! Pay for what you did! For giving so much pain to Peter!”       “That’s what I wanted to get. I wanted to see Peter in the condition he is in now. I wanted to see him break down after watching his girlfriend die before his eyes.”       “And are you fucking HAPPY now?” Edward explodes, caressing Peter still crying bitterly on the head and shoulder. “Are you happy to deprive the guy of the beloved person? Are you happy to harm your own son?”       “My son is a killer. He killed his own mother. And by killing Helene Marshall, I showed this bastard what I felt when he made me a widower.”       “Don't dare to call Peter a killer! He is guilty of nothing! Not guilty of you not thinking of getting your penis out in time, and your wife being too stubborn and deciding to give birth, but knowing what might have happened to her.”       “HE IS GUILTY!” Marcus screams. “GUILTY! This bastard killed my Julia, and he turned out to be absolutely healthy and not ugly!”       “You must be the fuck happy”! Terrence throws rudely. “So many people give birth to ill children! So many people spend a lot of money to cure them! And how many children have to live with their illness due to the lack of ability to get therapy or a lack of money!”       “Exactly!” Daniel agrees. “Your wife gave birth to a healthy and beautiful child, but you, bastard, tried to sell him like a little thing, and now you are giving him pain and wishing to kill him.”       Daniel points at Peter, who sits up and leans on one of the columns with the help of Edward.       “Look at Peter!” Daniel raises his voice, while Peter bends his legs at his knees, puts his hands on them, and hides his face in them, not even thinking to hold down the tears, while Edward caresses his back softly. “Look what you’ve done to him! Look at his condition! The guy is crying and can’t stop! He is shocked! Because he lost his beloved girl! Who barely got him out of the afterlife!”       “This is his pay for murdering Julia,” Marcus says rudely. “I was sitting on the floor of the hospital, while the doctor was comforting me, just like your mat is doing this now. All the same! I could not stop crying! I wanted to strangle myself! I wanted to hear it wasn’t the truth! Julia was alive! She did not die on the operating table!”       “Julia, Julia, Julia!” Edward jabs, hugging Peter tightly, while the blond leans on his shoulder with his forehead, cries bitterly, and shouts at times. “You only think of Julia! All your talks are about her! Have you ever thought of your child? Did you really give a fuck about what was happening to him? Did you give a fuck when the doctors told you about him?”       “YES, I GAVE A FUCK! Because I never wanted to have children! And if this bastard had died back then, I wouldn’t have shed a tear! I would’ve thanked heaven for saving me from this burden.”       “Yeah, did you think of your wife?” Terrence resents. “Did you think about what would happen to her if her child died? It’s clear her wish to become a mother was too strong since she decided to risk consciously and give birth. What would she have felt if she’d known you barely tolerated your son?”       “If she hadn’t died, I would’ve tolerated my son for her and done my duty as I should’ve done it. I was ready to do this for Julia. But when I stayed alone with this child after my wife’s death, I could not even look at him. I wanted to run away, but I had nobody to leave him with. Everyone could the fuck work their tongues! But NOBODY was near to help!”       “It’s a shame that you didn't get your balls cut when you were in your mother’s uterus,” Daniel says in a low, rude voice. “It’s a shame that nature gave you the ability to multiply. While good and decent people could spend years trying to make a baby with no success.”       “I wouldn’t mind it. Anyway, today, I shall finally end all of this and fix the mistake. Helene Marshall died, and Theodore felt all these feelings himself. Though his suffering will not be over after this. Yes, he is now broken and unhappy. But it’s not enough. I do want to exhaust him so that he begs me to kill him.”       “People have wanted to torture and kill him all his life!” Edward breaks into a cry, gets up sharply, and runs to Marcus. “Every fucking asshole thought they should’ve given him pain! They have done it SINCE HE WAS BORN! Everyone has been bullying Peter since he was born! Everyone has been USING him! Everyone has been using him like a rag! Everyone has been trying to KILL him!”       “The universe rejects Peter just like a human’s organism gets rid of a foreign object. Nobody needs him. He is trash that everyone wants to get rid of. A sore you want to scratch. A pimple with pus that does want to be popped.”       “If you don’t need Peter, it doesn’t mean nobody needs him!” Daniel exclaims determinedly.       “Oh, yeah, you cannot literally live without him!”       “We cannot! For me, he’s the best man I’ve ever met! A wonderful friend who’s never betrayed, lied, or left in trouble. And I am madly grateful to be lucky enough to meet him. Peter is the first one I would come to if I needed help or felt bad.”       “Excellent then!” Marcus shrugs. “Since you’re so united and ready to go through fire and water for each other, I shall be happy to help you.”       “We will!” Terrence states with his head proudly raised, hugging Daniel and Edward by the shoulders. “Do not doubt!”       “It was decided a long time ago. Because you are next in the queue after Helene Marshall.” Marcus glances aside. “Guys, stop lying with your stomach up! Get your asses up now! And call David, Darren, and Elijah! So they come here shortly! So these bastards have no little chance.”       “We won’t give up on you so easily!” Daniel exclaims, clenching his hands into fists tightly. “We will be fighting until the very end!”       “Now kicking your asses is going to be a matter of honesty and justice,” Edward adds. “Since you dared to kill our friend, we will be taking revenge for her.”       “Maybe, Helene could not make it, but these nuts aren’t so tough for us,” Terrence says. “Besides, there are more of us. We are stronger together. Unity is the key that opens any door.”       “Don’t be happy in advance, bastards,” Luther states, coming to Marcus along with Ronald and Bob. “Now the powerful reinforcement will come here. And you will be dead for sure.”       “So, doesn’t this old bastard want to deal with us?” Edward surprises. “His pants are too wet to attack three tough guys, who are super enraged and can make a cutlet out of him?”       “I am not interested in dealing with you,” Marcus confesses. “Because all my thoughts are about how to deal with my sonny quickly and easily. He is my main goal. And I want to kill him personally.”       “Over our dead bodies!” Daniel, Edward, and Terrence roar at the same time.       “No other way! We will turn you to dust first, and then it will be the time of Theodore.”       “Don’t worry, sir,” Ronald smiles slyly. “These bastards will be swallowing dust now.”       “Yeah, we will be happy to break their skulls,” Bob clenches his hands into fists.       “Yeah, you can suck an old bastard for a lot of money,” Daniel sneers evilly. “So that his eyes are popped out.”       “Hey, ass-naked chicken, are you fucking crazy?” Luther gets enraged, getting green from anger. “Haven’t you had your face beaten for ages?”       “Isn’t it true?” Edward surprises falsely, putting his hands on his hips. “Your daddies licked the ass of this holder of genes of schizophrenic, killer, and psycho, but now you accepted the baton and decided to outshine him in all cases.”       “When we reach you, the first thing you will lose is your tongue,” Bob threatens. “Your fucking long tongue. And then we will cut your arms and legs. Make your so-called worst nightmare come true, so to speak.”       “M-m-m, wow…” Terrence crosses his arms over his chest. “As it turned out, you are so weak that you should cut something. You can kill someone in this way. And your hits are so weak that a man would give a fuck.”       “Mr. Longbottom just asked us kindly not to beat you strongly,” Ronald states. “Not to kill you in advance. But when he gives an order, we will turn you to dust immediately.”       “Now you can do anything you want to them,” Marcus says with his head proudly raised. “Use all the tricks you can do. Boxing, karate, judo, taekwondo… I want you to start another incredible show, in which these three bastards die without a chance to survive.”       “I shall show them all my power,” Luther states determinedly, clenching his hands into fists and striking a fighting position.       “I shall use everything I have learned from street fights,” Ronald adds.       “Count on me, men!” Bob exclaims.       “Let’s go then!” Marcus exclaims and pushes Luther and Bob forward. “Stop the fuck wasting time on talks! MOVE ON, FREAKS!”       Marcus pushes Ronald forward so rudely that the man runs into Edward, who jumps aside immediately and stands in a fighting position. Then the guy starts a hand-in-hand fight with the opponent, being very determinedly, dogging all the hits, and giving them back. Luther does not miss a chance to show his brilliant skills of karate, but Terrence holds on pretty well and answers this person with powerful attacks in a jump, in a standing position, on his knees, and in a lying position. And Daniel does not fear Bob, from whom he protects himself so hard with hands and feet and heavy things that he sees in his way.       “Come on, assholes, catch them!” Marcus roars. “What’s hard with it? A couple of hits on the balls, twist their arms, strike them down, and hit them strongly on the head so they pass out!”       “Don’t worry, sir, everything is under control,” Luther assures, trying to give a hit with his foot in a jump with a full twist against the face of Terrence squatting down and putting a crowbar under his feet, falls to the floor with a crunch, and rubs his tailbone. “Erm… Almost…”       “It’s alright, the more they jump like goats, the sooner they will die,” Ronald states, falls to the floor after Edward’s hit on his jaw, and covers his head and face with both hands while the guy beats them heartlessly with fists as he is sitting over him. “Ar-r-r, bastard…”       “Don’t give up, boys, don’t give up, we must win it!” Bob encourages, grabs a glassy ashtray from one of the shelves, and throws it at Daniel jumping aside, hitting him strongly on the spine with a metal chain, grabbing his shouting opponent by the hair, and striking him down with a hit against the wall with his forehead. “Oh, fuck…”       “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Marcus gets enraged. “DID YOU FORGET HOW TO FIGHT? PUT YOURSELF TOGETHER NOW!”       While Marcus gets mad because the luck is on the side of Edward, Terrence, and Daniel, who fight Ronald, Bob, and Luther amazingly easily, even after all the horrible tortures they had to get through, the anger possesses Peter’s mind. The invisible power that whispers something in his ear takes control of him more and more. At some moment, he gets straight slowly, wipes tears off his eyes with a shape movement of his hand, and looks aside for some time as if he listens to someone closely or watches something, while his nostrils inflate from a loud, heavy breath. His eyes are now full of true anger and hatred that pushes him to the wish to take revenge. To take revenge on his father for Helene’s death. To take revenge for the years he has had to suffer. For the years of insults, humiliations, pain, and loneliness.       Peter moves his eyes to Marcus shouting and waving his hands and growls irritably as he gets up. His fingers clench into his palms covered with little blood tracks from the pain, his face gets crimson, and every single muscle starts shaking from strong tension. It seems like everything turns upside down inside. Again and again, he sees the pictures of Helene getting a hit on the head with something and the powerful explosions that happen in the house set on fire, giving her no chance to survive. It makes him much more enraged and becomes the reason for the condition, in which the guy cannot see the good things from the bad. In which murdering a person does not seem such a bad and sinful idea to him.       After looking around quickly, Peter takes the crowbar from the floor with the thought that it’s perfect for such a desired revenge. Then he comes to Marcus in a low, little shaking walk with no hesitation, not stopping to look at him coldly. So coldly and contemptuously that the old man shakes and steps back in fear, even if he hides it so hard and keeps his head proudly raised and his shoulders spread.       “Oh, my crying sonny has come!” Marcus surprises falsely. “So what, are you starting to understand it’s reality, not a dream?”       Peter says nothing and comes determinedly and very closely to Marcus, who feels uncomfortable at the close, heavy glance of the guy.       “Whoa, whoa, easy, boy, easy!” Marcus raises his hands in front of himself. “Breathe deeper, don’t be nervous.”       “Bastard…” Peter pronounces frowningly in a hoarse, low voice that does not sound like his own. “Nasty asshole…”       “Get ready, your time is about to come. Now your friends will go after your sweetheart, and then you will do.”       “You will pay me…” Peter squeezes the crowbar tightly in his hand with an irritated growl, starting to breathe heavily enough and tensing all his muscles in the pain. “You will pay me for what you just did.”       “What would you do to me, cowardly freak?” Marcus sneers evilly. “What could do such a worthless bastard like you?”       “Do not worry, daddy. You will see everything now. You will feel it all on your old fucking skin. I shall kill you, bastard. I SHALL KILL!”       Screaming at the top of his lungs, Peter squeezes the crowbar tightly with both hands and wants to give Marcus a powerful hit on the head. The old man dodges it magically, but the guy runs to the opponent as fast as lightning and tries to do the same again. And he keeps chasing the man, who is really afraid of the one who is now more than just determined.       “Hey, hey, hey, hear me, get off me!” Marcus jabs in a high from scare voice, running away from Peter losing his mind. “Get off me, I said!”       “Come here, bastard!” Peter throws rudely. “COME HERE, I SAID!”       “Are you fucking crazy? Stop walking after me!”       “Yes, I AM CRAZY! BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU, BASTARD, DID! BECAUSE YOU KILLED MY GIRLFRIEND!”       When he is close enough to him, Peter tries to give Marcus a hit on the head with the crowbar again, but the man dodges it again.       “AND I SHALL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THAT! NEVER, HEAR ME!”       “Calm down, Theodore, calm down,” Marcus pronounces tensely. “Calm down!”       “I SHALL CALM ONLY WHEN I KILL YOU! WHEN I BURY YOU IN THE GROUND PERSONALLY!”       Peter manages to give a painful enough hit on the spine of Marcus, who screams hysterically after this, bending his back backward.       “I SHALL NOT CALM DOWN UNTIL YOU ARE LYING ON THE FLOOR AND BLEEDING!” Peter gets the edge of the crowbar into Marcus’s kidney and hits him on the back of his head with it. “AND NOTHING CAN THE FUCK STOP ME!”       At some moment, Peter throws the crowbar aside and gives a few strong hits on Marcus’ face with his fists, showing the cruelty that is not typical for him and not even thinking to stop not to harm the man.       “KILLER!” Peter screams hysterically, hits his foot against Marcus’s solar plexus, and twists his arm so that the old man screams hysterically. “FUCKING KILLER YOU KILLED MY GIRLFRIEND! YOU DID!”       Peter grabs Marcus by the hair and hits him on the head against the floor two or three times, letting the anger control his mind fully, breathing like a furious bull, and screaming at the top of his lungs at times.       “Don’t think you will get away from this so easily. I shall take revenge on you. Take revenge for all the sufferings of Helene. For everything your fucking friends did. For the way SHE DIED IN THAT FUCKING FIRE! RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES!”       Again, Peter gives Marcus several slaps in the face with hysterical screams and smashes his fist against his jaw once.       “I HATE YOU, MARCUS LONGBOTTOM! I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU DIED! I HATE YOU! I HATE! BURN IN FUCKING HELL!”       Peter grabs a plate from one of the shelves and breaks it against Marcus’ head, while the old man has his face covered with thick, bright red blood and bruises and little puffy after such a cruel beating.       “I SHALL KILL YOU, HEAR ME! YOU WILL DIE! I SHALL NOT LET YOU LIVE! I SHALL KILL YOU! KILL YOU!”       By giving him one slap in the face, Peter not being able to control himself strikes Marcus down easily. Then he lies over the helpless man with a heavy breath and squeezes his throat with both hands, being determined to kill him and setting his eyes that are bloodshot from anger into the widely open eyes of his opponent that are full of fear and surprise.       “You think I’m fucking bluffing?” Peter hisses through his teeth, ignoring the fact that Marcus hits him on his arms as he chokes from a lack of air. “YOU THINK I JUST WANT TO SCARE YOU AND LET YOU GO? NOT THE FUCK AT ALL!”       Peter closes Marcus’ nose and mouth tightly, while the old man starts moaning quietly as he tries unsuccessfully to get rid of the guy, who looks like a real psycho now.       “So, are your pants fucking wet? You have a tail between your legs as you are pressed to the wall? BUT WHEN YOU WERE KILLING PEOPLE, YOU FELT GOOD! WHEN HELENE WAS IN THE TRAP AND COULD NOT GET OUT OF THE FIRE! YOU KILLED HER! YOU! YOU ARE A MURDERER! THE MURDERER, WHO SHOULD’VE BEEN STRUCK BY THE TRAIN!”       At first sight, it seems that Marcus starts to regret getting in touch with all of this. He was not definitely ready for Peter going so crazy and turning into an evil monster that is ready to destroy everything in its way. He would not have thought he would be struck down like this and have to cling to any opportunity to catch some air that he lacks catastrophically now.       “Do not hope, scum, I shall not let you go,” Peter threatens in a low, evil voice, while little drops of sweat show up on his forehead from this kind of anger. “No way… I shall be strangling you until you pass out. Until I grab a knife or any other blade and get it into your heart. ALL OF IT!”       “H-h-help…” Marcus pronounces faintly and hits Peter on his arms with a quiet cough as he feels dizzy and lacks air. “G-g-guys…”       “Don’t worry, they will not help you. If they show up here, I shall immediately put the dicks of those bastards around their necks. NOW NOBODY CAN STOP ME! BECAUSE YOU WOKE UP AN ANIMAL INSIDE ME! IT WILL FALL ASLEEP IN ONE CASE – WHEN YOU BECOME A CORPSE!”       At some moment, Luther runs to Peter as fast as a bullet from nowhere and tries to pull him far from Marcus, grabbing him by the hair and pulling him by it painfully.       “Hey, bastard, are you fucking insane?” Luther hisses through his teeth and strikes Peter down after he pulls him away from Marcus, who starts coughing loudly and strongly. “Are you fucking crazy?”       Peter pushes Luther off himself with an irritated growl, with a powerful hit of his feet against his groin, gets up in a jump, and strikes his opponent down by smashing his fist against his jaw.       “Come here, you, fucking jackass!” Luther gets enraged.       After getting up sharply, Luther attacks Peter with fists, but he starts losing to him from the first minutes because the blond takes the initiative and beats his opponent with feet and hands with an unusual cruelty so that the man gets blood tracks and bright bruises.       “So, your balls squeeze from fear?” Peter smirks evilly and hits Luther with his foot against his nose, causing a thin flow of blood to start getting out. “YOUR PANTS ARE FUCKING WET! AND EYES ARE FULL OF FEAR!”       “Hey, hey, hey, Rose, are ya fucking insane?” Luther dismounts, raising his hands in front of himself and looking at Peter with widely open eyes full of horror. “Are you out of your mind?”       “I AM! BECAUSE ONE KILLED MY FUCKING GIRLFRIEND, AND HIS PALS GOT THEIR GENITALS INTO HER AND GOT AN ORGASM BY ONE!”       Luther screams hysterically and doubles over when Peter gives him a strong hit of the fist to his groin.       “I shall never forget the way you drooled over her.” Peter folds his hands together, hits Luther determinedly on his spine, and twists both of his arms sharply, to the unbearable pain. “NEVER! I SHALL KILL YOU, BASTARD! KILL! KILL EVERYONE! EVERYONE, WHO IS HERE!”       “Ar-r-r-r, guys, help me!” Luther demands with a tormenting moan. “BOYS, FUCK!”       Bob and Ronald start getting closer determinedly to Peter and want to pull him aside from their friend. But they immediately run into the furious resistance of the guy, who lost control of himself and started to give slaps to all of them generously. He beats his opponents all alone so that they get blood, bruises, and even some deformations on their faces and whole bodies, making them terrified to death with his bloodthirst, put their heads on their shoulders, and feel like scared rabbits.       “Hey, man, stop, stop, enough!” Bob jabs with a scare in his eyes, breathing heavily enough, covering his head with both arms when Peter tries to hit him with fists. “Calm down!”       “I did warn you, bastards, DO NOT WAKE UP AN ANIMAL INSIDE ME!” Peter screams and hits Bob with his fist in the chest so that he cannot breathe. “DID I SAY IT OR NOT? DID I SAY IT OR NOT?”       “And you say something about your father,” Ronald tries to show off and screams hysterically when Peter twists his arm sharply behind his back and turns it sharply. “But you, bastard, are much more bloodthirsty and heartless, as it turned out.”       “I did not start it all.” Peter throws Ronald over his shoulder with incredible ease, strikes him down cruelly enough, and beats him with his feet a little. “I DID NOT! YOU MADE ME LIKE THIS! PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PROVOKING ME ALL MY LIFE! I HAVE BEEN TAKING IT ALL FOR TOO LONG! TOO LONG! I AM SICK OF FEARING AND BEING SILENT! YOU WILL ALL PAY ME FOR MY SUFFERING! FOR THE SUFFERING OF THE INNOCENT HELENE, WHO DIED RIGHT BEFORE MY FUCKING EYES!”       Noticing Bob trying to hit him with the ashtray on the head behind himself, Peter takes it and breaks it against the back of the opponent’s head with a heartbreaking scream. That’s why the man falls to the floor, holding the painful area. Then the blond takes the wooden shovel in the corner, hits Ronald and Luther on the back, and strikes them down with a powerful hit on the face. Then he does not stop and keeps beating his bleeding opponents, who try to cover their vulnerable areas with their arms and creep away from the one who catches them anyway.       A little later, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence show up out of nowhere, breathing a little heavily, freeze, and shout with widely open eyes when they see Peter beating the three men with hatred and cruelty all alone and not thinking of pitying them, even though they are already beaten black and blue.       “Oh, shit, what bit him?” Edward horrifies.       “He is out of his mind!” Daniel exclaims. “You just look at what Rose is doing to them. All alone.”       “I guess the guy lost control of himself and doesn’t understand what he’s doing and saying,” Terrence assumes.       “Hey, Peter is gonna kill them now!” Edward warns loudly. “These bastards are lying all in blood and trying to get out while they’re alive.”       “Damn, what do we do?” Daniel wonders. “How do we stop him before he does stupid things? Though I’m worried that he won’t pity us in this condition.”       “Right, the blond may be extremely strong in anger,” Terrence adds. “We may not deal with him even as a trio.”       “Now I don’t even know who’s more dangerous: Marcus and his gang or Rose,” Edward replies tensely. “These bastards are losing in all senses and…”       Edward does not speak his mind because he, Daniel, and Terrence step back sharply and grab each other’s hands in fear when Peter gets the edge of the shovel into Luther’s throat and presses him to the wall, and then throws it aside, smashes his fist against the opponent’s groin, and hits him in the solar plexus in a jump. Then he hits Bob in the stomach with the crowbar when he tries to use a chokehold on him from behind and strikes him down with a strong slap in the face. And the guy breathing heavily hits Ronald in the face multiple times with his fists covered with blood, not understanding that he has gone too far with his wish to take revenge on his enemies for Helene’s death.       All this time, Edward, Terrence, and Daniel just watch their friend, who has literally become a heartless and bloodthirsty monster that destroys everything in his way. The guys are a little afraid to get in touch with the man, who does not control himself, so that the criminals themselves shake in front of him. But they understand they cannot stand aside when they see Rose throw heavy and big things he sees in his way at the three men, while his opponents try to neutralize him somehow. When he takes scissors from the glass on the shelf and tries to get them into the neck of Luther, the arm of Bob, or the stomach of Ronald with an irritated scream.       “Peter, no!” Terrence screams. “Stop it now!”       “Take this psycho off us, bastards!” Luther jabs scarily in a high, loud voice. “He is out of his mind!”       “Peter, wake up!” Edward demands. “You are about to kill them now!”       “A-a-a-a, help me, someone!” Bob squeaks like a girl. “I no longer wanna have a deal with him! I don’t want!”       “Peter, please, take control of yourself!” Daniel begs. “Don’t do any more stupid things!”       “He won’t calm down until he kills us,” Ronald explodes. “Until he makes a cutlet out of us!”       “Did you think you would get away from this so easily?” Peter keeps being enraged, grabs Ronald by the collar, and throws him strongly against the wall so that the man hits his head and slips down the one sharply. “YOU THOUGHT I WOULD PRETEND THAT NOTHING HAPPENED AFTER YOU KILLED MY GIRLFRIEND?”       “We understand it, buddy, but you’ve gone too far,” Daniel tries to say quietly. “It’s wrong!”       “What’s wrong? Is it wrong to pretend that IT ALL SHOULD’VE HAPPENED LIKE THIS?” Peter strikes Bob rudely down with a hit on the head with the crowbar that he takes from the floor. “HELENE SHOULD HAVE BURNED IN THE FIRE AND EXPLODED?”       “Don’t become someone like your father!” Terrence exclaims. “He is a killer, you are not. You are not the same as him! You will regret everything you are doing now!”       “Oh, no, I shall not regret,” Peter replies in a low, rude voice, grabs the horizontal bar in a jump, and hits Luther so powerfully with his feet that he gets thrown two meters away and falls to the floor. “I shall not regret killing and burying in the ground those to be the reason HELENE HAS BECOME A VICTIM!”       “Don’t do this, Pete, we’re begging you,” Edward says excitedly. “You’re making a huge mistake. Don’t make it worse.”       “Worse? WORSE? I COULD NOT FEEL FUCKING WORSE NOW!”       Peter rolls aside on the floor, grabs the knife, gets up on his feet, and looks around with a heavy breath as he wraps this thing in his hand.       “MY GIRLFRIEND IS DEAD! FUCKING DEAD! FIRST, SHE WAS RAPED SHAMELESSLY, BUT NOW THEY KILLED HER HEARTLESSLY!”       “Listen, we know how hurt you feel now,” Terrence replies quietly. “But it’s not a reason to lose your mind and harm everyone.”       “If you don’t close your fucking mouths, I swear you will have to REGRET IT A LOT,” Peter threatens, setting his eyes full of hatred and anger on his friends. “YOU WILL BE THE NEXT ONES IN MY FUCKING LIST!”       “Calm down, Peter, don’t get so excited,” Daniel pronounces hesitantly. “It’s okay…”       “I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!”       With these words, Peter points the knife sharply at Daniel, Edward, and Terrence, who step back with a quiet ooh, setting their widely open eyes on their friend.       “Gosh, Peter, c’mon…” Edward horrifies in a little shaking voice.       “I SHALL KILL YOU! KILL ANYONE TO STAND IN MY WAY! DESTROY THIS WHOLE FUCKING WORLD TO THE FUCK! KILL! KILL! KI-I-I-I-I-I-I-IL!”       Breathing heavily and loudly, Daniel and Edward press themselves against Terrence standing like a column with a shake in their whole bodies and grab him under his arms as if they hope on protection and help from their older companion. While the man himself is also scared to death by the aggressive behavior of Peter going crazy from grief and ready to destroy everything and everyone in his way. In the other cases, they would come to the blond and try to comfort him with words and hugs. But now something kind of holds them down. As if it says the guys will pay a lot if they take one more step. And it does not matter that they are his close friends. Because this man is now in a hysterical condition, does not know what he is doing, and is hardly going to stop it all somehow.       “M-m-m-m, wow…” Marcus pronounces behind everyone with a sly smile. “As it turned out, my boy does have claws.  He really does!”       “You’re still alive, bastard?” Peter hisses through his teeth frowningly, squeezing the knife tightly in his hand. “NOT DEAD YET?”       “Now I can see you are really my son. You woke up with a thirst for blood and revenge. A thirst for killing and harming.” Marcus sneers evilly. “I should’ve just killed your gal. And you’ve become different. Heartless. Ruthless. Insane.”       “Even if you can’t be killed with anything, the fight is still on. I shall not calm down until your bloody body is lying at my feet. I SHALL NOT! I SHALL KILL YOU, BASTARD! I SHALL KILL!”       When Peter wants to attack Marcus and get the knife into him on the run, the old man takes the pistol from behind and takes a couple of shots determinedly. The guy dodges the bullets with no problems, jumping from one side to another. Then the blond throws the knife at his father, who manages to go aside and takes a couple of shots, which nearly wound Daniel, who saves him by squatting down. He, Edward, and Terrence run aside, sit on the floor, press their backs against one of the half-ruined walls, and look at each other with horror in their eyes at some moment, getting confused and not knowing what to do and how to get out of this hard situation.       “Do you naively think I am scared?” Marcus surprises truly, coming to Peter determinedly with the gun pointed at him. “You think I am so scared after your tricks and cannot shoot at your forehead?”       “Not time to show off, daddy,” Peter smirks contemptuously and squats down after another attempt by Marcus to shoot him. “I do already feel the smell of fear. The fear of dying in torture. THE ONE MY GIRLFRIEND DIED IN!”       “It’s too late to wave your wings, sonny.” Marcus shoots at Peter again, while the blond tries to get close to him. “The ash is the only thing left of Helene. And the story of her fall will be added to the pages of my diaries soon.”       “If I had my own diary, your story would be added to the first pages. WITH ALL FUCKING DETAILS!”       When he is close enough to Marcus, Peter strikes the pistol out of his hand with a powerful hit of the foot so that it gets thrown in the air. And when the guy catches it in a jump after stepping back, he falls to the floor, rolls beautifully on his back between his opponent’s spread legs, and, ending up behind him, gets up sharply.       “And this moment will happen RIGHT NOW!” Peter states in a low, rude, evil voice, squeezing the pistol tightly with both hands and pointing it at Marcus with no hesitation.       “No, Peter, don’t dare!” Daniel shouts, leaving the hideaway along with Edward and Terrence. “Don’t dare to shoot!”       “Are you fucking crazy, Rose?” Edward horrifies. “Think of what you’re doing!”       “Yes, this old bastard deserves death,” Terrence adds. “But you can’t do this by yourself!”       “Relax, bastards, this boy will not listen to you,” Marcus replies with a calm that’s typical for him.       “You noticed it right,” Peter sneers evilly. “I shall listen to NOBODY. I shall NOT give up on my wish to take revenge. Especially, I have such a wonderful chance to catch too many rabbits at once.”       “Move the pistol down, idiot!” Danie demands determinedly. “Don’t make it worse! Don’t make your life worse!”       “IT CANNOT BE WORSE! IT CANNOT! I HAVE FUCKING NOTHING TO LOSE ANYMORE!”       “Oh, yay, I felt all the same on the day of Julia’s death,” Marcus nods confidently. “The thirst of blood and revenge possessed me. It was eating me inside. I could not hold myself down from going to haunt new victims. Whom there were many more than ever. Because killing one or two wasn’t enough for me. But even after killing tens of people, I did not feel better. I wanted to kill more. But you were the one I wanted to kill much more. The one who took the most important thing I had.”       “YOU ALSO TOOK THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I HAD!” Peter screams hysterically, breathing heavily enough and tensing all his muscles from the pain and shake. “HELENE WAS THE BEST THING THAT HAD EVER HAPPENED IN MY LIFE! I LIVED FOR HER ONLY! SHE LET ME KNOW I WAS STILL LOVED AND NEEDED! NOT THE WHOLE WORLD TURNED AGAINST ME! BUT YOU, OLD BASTARD, TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME!”       “And I do not regret it at all. I do not regret killing that gal. Just like I don’t regret killing others. And I still don’t think I did a bad thing. I shall never regret it. Even if I’m caught and sentenced. Even when I have two minutes to live.”       “I give you two minutes to say goodbye to those you know. Because you will die then. I SHALL NOT KEEP YOU ALIVE AFTER WHAT YOU DID! I SHALL NOT!”       “Oh, yay, I do recognize myself in you!” Marcus exclaims happily. “I do! It could not happen that an absolutely healthy child without any illness was born in a family where most members have some psychological illness.”       “I AM ALRIGHT!” Peter roars with widely open, bloodshot eyes. “I AM ABSOLUTELY HEALTHY!”       “Uh-huh, how could someone be healthy when they try to kill themselves? And go so crazy that they are ready to kill even their own friends!”       “SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH DOWN!”       “You took a whole bunch of mental issues from your family, Theodore. A heartless demon has lived inside you all your life, but you tried to kill it so badly. You wanted to be normal for everyone, but it was not always your real side. And now you set it free and got rid of the sweet boy people around you knew.”       “Stop talking bullshit, honorable!” Terrence resents. “Peter is acting like this because he lost his beloved girl. The girl, who was the meaning of his life. But you, bastard, killed her with no shame!”       “Trust me, idiots, if your friend grew up with me all his life, he would be the one he is supposed to be. But since he lived with Cornelia, who gave him a new name and kind of grew up a different persona inside him, Theo tried to pretend to be healthy and nice.”       “You know nothing about him!” Edward exclaims. “You do not know who he really is! And if Peter were really a heartless bastard, we would never befriend him. Someone else would be instead of him.”       “You know Peter Rose well, but you know nothing about Theodore Longbottom. His real identity that he has supposed to live with since birth.”       “You know nothing about either of them!” Daniel throws coldly. “Just because you’re a nasty bastard does not mean your son must be the same. Bastards aren’t born, for your information. They are made bastards. If parents educate their child well, they become normal.”       “But who raised Peter-Theodore? Nobody! He was left on his own! He was rejected by everyone around! Your friend was someone who could not find a place in this world. But now everything is in its place. Peter has met Theodore, and they’ve become one piece. He has become himself.”       “Alright, stop working your tongues for nothing!” Peter throws rudely. “I am sick of all of this shit you are trying to tell me. IT’S TIME TO END ALL OF THIS!”       Peter points the pistol at Marcus again since he lowered it before.       “Stop, Peter, enough!” Terrence demands loudly. “Don’t do stupid things!”       “Wake up, buddy!” Daniel exclaims. “It’s not you! You’re not the Peter we know!”       “Do you really wanna go to prison because of this bastard?” Edward wonders. “It’s not worth it!”       “SHUT UP THERE!” Peter roars, pointing the pistol sharply at Daniel, Edward, and Terrence by one. “OTHERWISE YOU ALL WILL GET A BULLET IN YOUR FOREHEAD!”       “You would do me a favor if you deal with your pals,” Marcus smiles slyly, crossing his arms over his chest. “So I have less work.”       “I shall deal with them later. But now you are on the hook, bastard. The bastard, who is the reason why I LOST THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!”       “JUST LIKE I LOST MINE BECAUSE OF YOU!”       “I shall kill you, Marcus Longbottom… You will pay me a lot for this… You will not hide from me. You will not run. YOU WILL NOT BEHIND THE BACKS OF THOSE ASSHOLES THAT LICK YOUR ASS!”       Feeling that someone is standing behind him somehow, Peter hits his elbow against Luther’s chest and hits Bob on the ankle with his foot. Then he turns on Ronald and knocks the opponent out by hitting the sharp edge of his hand against his opponent’s carotid artery on the neck. Understanding that they cannot stand aside like cowards anymore, Edward, Daniel, and Terrence look at each other and come determinedly to their friend. But when MacClife, Jr. grabs the pistol with both hands and tries to take it by force, Rose being obsessed with hatred and anger pushes him so rudely off himself that the guy keeps his balance magically. His brother also meets a failure when he uses a chokehold on him from behind, but doubles over after a painful hit on his chest with an elbow. And Perkins does nothing at all because he immediately gets a powerful hit of the fist against his jaw from the blond and falls to the floor with a burning pain in his groin, which Rose hits with his foot.       “So what, who wants more kicks?” Peter asks in a low, hoarse voice, looking around with an icy look. “WHO HASN’T GOTTEN ENOUGH?”       Stopping his eyes on Marcus, Peter squints a little and tries to hit him in the eye on the run with the handle of the pistol. But the old man grabs his hands tightly enough and tries to twist them a little, showing his contemptuous grin and growing quietly at times.       “So, bastard, you are scared?” Peter smirks evilly, fighting Marcus hand in hand. “Afraid to understand that your death is close?”       “Your aggression is just a mask,” Marcus states, coming toward Peter like a tank. “You are just trying to hide your cowardice in this way.”       “I saw how you peed your pants. How you started to call your henchmen for help. Understanding you can do nothing because you are old and helpless.”       “Don’t worry, I have enough strength to take the pistol and shoot at your head. And I shall do this with great pleasure!”       Marcus strikes Peter down by pushing him strongly off himself. Using the fact that the blond loses the pistol when falling, the old man grabs it and points it sharply at the guy lying on the floor. However, it does not scare him at all and makes him much madder.       “You are about to lose, Theodore,” Marcus says confidently, squeezing the pistol with both hands. “You didn’t spend a lot of time beating everyone’s faces and showing off. I shall kill you, bastard.”       But when Marcus barely takes a shot, Peter strikes the pistol out of his hand with his foot, rolls aside quickly, takes the gun, and points it at the man, who is getting closer to him determinedly.       “We will see it, bastard,” Peter throws rudely.       “Relax, Theo, you will meet your sweetheart in the afterlife soon,” Marcus assures. “She will tell you how she was dying in the fire. How hard she was trying to get out of the trap she ended up in.”       “I AM NOT THEODORE! I AM PETER! PETER ROSE! I WAS BORN THE ONE AND WILL BE THE ONE UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!”       Not hesitating a second, Peter presses the trigger determinedly, releasing the bullet that is about to hit Marcus. Who jumps aside at the last moment and looks surprisingly at the guy, not expecting that he would decide to do this.       “Wow!” Marcus throws contemptuously. “I thought you were bluffing!”       “DO NOT THINK NOW!” Peter explodes. “WHEN I PROMISE TO DO SOMETHING, I SHALL DO IT SURELY!”       Again, Peter shoots Marcus, who avoids the gun wound by hiding behind one of the walls. And when he barely shows up, the guy starts shooting him determinedly, releasing the bullets at his opponent nonstop and getting more enraged every time he meets a failure. While Daniel, Terrence, and Edward standing aside and coming to themselves more or less watch what’s happening with widely open eyes and even shout when their friend shot the person, not expecting he would really do this.       “Did you see it?” Edward opens his eyes widely. “Peter shot at Marcus!”       “He is fucking out of his mind…” Daniel horrifies. “He is about to become someone like his father and step on the same path.”       “I don’t know what about you, guys, but I’m afraid of him,” Terrence confesses hesitantly. “Pete is really acting like a crazy folk!”       “We must stop him immediately before he goes too far.”       “Yeah, but how?” Edward throws his hands up. “We can’t get close to him at all! Rose literally feels your breath on his back and hits you in the face or balls without words.”       “Anyway, his hysteria won't be too long,” Terrence notices. “Early or late, he will come to himself.”       “Uh-huh, after he kills all of us to the fuck!” Daniel exclaims excitedly.       “LIE DOWN!”       Terrence squeaks down shortly and pulls Daniel and Edward after himself, putting his hands on the top of their heads and lowering their heads down since Marcus runs in front of them, and Peter is chasing his goal determinedly, shooting him hard, and not caring about the threat of seriously wounding someone.       “Fucking shit!” Edward shouts. “He is more dangerous now than all these freaks! Who have their pants peed from fear!”       When Daniel wants to get up, he has to fall to the floor again because another bullet almost gets into his shoulder.       “Fuck, it’s insane!” Daniel exclaims. “The madness that isn’t going to end!”       “It seems like we’re taken hostage by a terrorist,” Edward notices and rolls aside sharply. “Who is about to shoot everyone down!”       “Anyway, we must stop Rose,” Terrence states determinedly, inclines his head, and covers it with both arms when something glassy gets into the wall and breaks into little pieces. “Otherwise, some of us are gonna die.”       “You have any ideas?” Edward hides behind the wall with a heavy breath after he gets up on his feet. “Any ideas of getting closer to the blond so that he doesn’t get a bullet into our foreheads?”       “One thing is clear – persuading and saying good words won’t work,” Daniel says confidently, and jumps aside sharply when a plate gets into the wall near him. “No matter how much we don’t want it, we have to act cruelly.”       “I will try to get his attention on me, but you try to take the pistol from him,” Terrence replies quietly. “If he doesn’t calm down, we’ll tie him up. In the worst case, we’ll have to knock him out with something heavy.”       Waiting for a good moment, Terrence leaves his hideaway and gets under the shooting Peter keeps him and Marcus under, while the old man does not know where to hide because he can be found anywhere. But he exhales with relief and stays in a more or less safe place when the guy pays his attention to his friend, who throws several high glasses at him to protect himself, breaking them against the wall. Then the blond shoots unsuccessfully at the one, who manages to get close to him when he recharges the pistol with the bullets he finds on one of the tables.       “So, MacClife, are you sassy, as I can see?” Peter sneers evilly. “You think you can fight me?”       “Stop it, Peter,” Terrence says with a heavy breath. “Don’t make it worse.”       “I shall decide what’s better for me!”       “Wake up, dude! It’s me, Terrence! Your friend. Do you understand what you’re doing now?”       “COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND!”       “Listen, we all understand your feelings. We feel your wish to end Marcus and his whole gang. But what’s our fault? What did Edward, Daniel, and I do to you?”       “Who knows…” Peter points the pistol slowly but confidently at Terrence with his head proudly raised. “Maybe you are really my enemies. Maybe the whole world is really against me. Maybe everyone wants to erase me from this world.”       “Please, buddy, wake up and don’t do stupid things.”       “SHUT THE FUCK UP! CLOSE YOUR MOUTH!”       “Keep yourself together and stop acting like a psycho. You don’t control yourself and…”       “I SAID SHUT UP!”       When Peter presses the trigger, Edward runs to him from behind and raises his hand sharply to the ceiling so that the pistol shoots it in the end. Then he grabs the blond’s hand immediately and twists it sharply when his friend wants to slap him in the face. When he finds a good moment when Rose winces in pain, MacClife, Jr. smashes his fist against his jaw and strikes the pistol out of his hand in a jump with a twist with no problems. Daniel catches it in the end, discharges it for several seconds by taking all the bullets out, and runs aside to hide the gun where nobody can find it.       “So, you think I shall not kill you with my own hands?” Peter sneers contemptuously. “YOU THINK YOU DISARMED ME?”       “Anger clouded your mind at all,” Edward states, avoiding all the hits in the face that Peter tries to give him. “You don’t know who is who! Who your friend is, who your enemy is!”       “The whole world is my enemy! THIS WHOLE FUCKING WORLD!”       “If the girls or the boys and I died, we would also go crazy and wanted to kill everyone and destroy everything in our way.”       “DO NOT PRETEND THAT YOU ARE SORRY!” Peter uses a chokehold on Edward from behind, but the guy sets himself free quickly enough by hitting the blond on the ankle with his feet. “DO NOT ACT AS IF NOTHING HAPPENED!”       “Whatever happens, we will always be near,” Edward assures, dodges a couple of hits in the face, grabs Peter’s hand during his third attempt to hit him, and twists it strongly. “Your friends will never leave and betray you.”       “I DON’T NEED YOUR FUCKING PITY! I NEED NOBODY! I WANT EVERYONE TO LEAVE ME ALONE! AND STOP HARMING ME AGAIN AND AGAIN!”       Peter screaming hysterically sets free his hand from Edward’s grip and gives him a strong slap in the face. Then the black-haired man hits him in the chest with his knee, fights with him hand in hand for some time, throws the blond over his shoulder easily enough, and lays him down. However, Rose gets up on his feet quickly and keeps fighting with Terrence, who also dodges all the attempts to hit him in the face, stomach, groin, and other areas. Even if all the attacks are read, the MacClife brother still remember they are fighting their close friend and try not to harm him seriously. However, Rose himself does not appreciate this noble thing and forgot that he is standing in front of those who risked their lives at their wish by deciding to come here.       “So, freaks, you peed your pants from fear, too?” Peter sneers contemptuously and tries to hit Edward in the jaw with his fist and then Terrence in the chest with his foot. “Just like this old bastard and his gang of bastards!”       “You can provoke us as much as you want, we will not harm you,” Terrence states confidently.       “Oh, what a fucking noble! Should I appreciate it, in your opinion?”       “You should wake up and realize what you are doing now!” Edward exclaims. “You should take control of yourself and remember who is standing in front of you!”       “I completely understand what I am doing! Completely understand that I must take revenge for my girlfriend’s death. I must KILL THOSE WHO HAVE TO DO WITH IT!”       After taking a heavy chain from the floor, Peter tries to hit Terence and Edward, but both of them manage to jump aside and squat down when he comes to them. The younger of the MacClife brothers jumps aside, grabs a small bottle from the box placed under one of the tables, gets up, runs to Rose, and sprays it right into his face. The blond doubles over with a painful moan and starts coughing loudly and choking from the pungent smell of the unknown spray.       Meanwhile, Terrence finds, grabs the electric gun from the floor, puts it against the area under the chest of Peter and holds the button for a second or two to release the electric wave through his body. All his muscles tense, he holds his breath, and his heartbeat fastens two times more. Then the guy falls to the floor like a stone and starts rolling from one side to another, holding his stomach and literally choking from the pain in every single tense muscle of the body. While MacClife, Sr. breathing heavily looks at the tired Edward, Daniel comes to then a little hesitantly, looking scarily at the brothers and then his friend lying on the floor.       “So what, we did it?” Daniel asks quietly.       Daniel, Terrence, and Edward watch Peter breathing heavily for a few seconds with a tense glance. But at some moment, the blond moves his eyes full of anger at them so that they can feel a slight frost on the skin and put their heads on their shoulders.       “Or we didn’t…” Daniel gets confused, taking two steps back.       “Oh, yeah, Theodore, it was a wonderful show!” Marcus exclaims with his head proudly raised, coming closer to Peter. “You almost beat the faces of those who tried to save you all this time so heroically. Bravo! Just Bravo!”       “He is not Theodore!” Edward throws rudely.       “So, stupid idiots, are you still ready to kick asses for this piece of shit that paid for all the things you did like this?”       “We will always be ready!” Terrence raises his head proudly. “Because we know who he really is. And we want to remind him of that.”       “Ha, they know…” Peter blunts under his nose in a low voice, getting up slowly with painful moans. “You know the fuck nothing…”       “Don’t stop, my boy!” Marcus encourages, taking Peter being full of anger by the tense shoulders. “Let your anger get out and guide you. Don’t hold it down. That’s how you can do me a favor by killing these two bastards, who ruined my plans for getting rid of the killer of Julia quietly.”       “Don’t worry, daddy…”       Peter turns sharply on Marcus and comes to him determinedly, setting his heavy glance full of coldness and fear on him.       “I shall pity nobody to be here. Nobody, because of whom my fucking life was a piece of shit. Nobody, who took THE LAST THING I HAD! I SHALL THE FUCK KILL EVERYONE!”       “No, Theo, your main goal is to deal with them,” Marcus replies quietly and turns Peter on Terrence, Daniel, and Edward. “The gal died because of them. Because they could not figure out where she was.  Where your beloved girl spend her last days.”       “Don’t listen to him, Peter, he’s trying to wash your brains!” Daniel protests determinedly. “He killed Helene! She died in the fire because of him!”       “Besides, you keep suffering because of them. Because of them, you are still living in this world that hates you so badly. They try so hard to change what was decided a long time ago.”       “Although his mother was an alcoholic, we must praise her,” Edward says confidently. “She literally saved Peter from falling into the abyss of evil, hatred, and revenge when she agreed to take him with her.”       “Theodore’s mother was not an alcoholic!” Marcus explodes. “IT WAS MY WIFE JULIA, WHO WAS KILLED BY HER OWN SON!”       “Fuck, first, it’s Peter, then it’s Theodore!” Peter shouts. “WHEN WILL YOU STOP? I DON’T THE FUCK KNOW WHO I REALLY AM!”       “You are Theodore, my sweetheart. Theodore Longbottom.”       “No, you are Peter Rose!” Terrence protests.       “Oh, I give a fuck!” Peter throws with an evil smile. “The important thing is that I know who you are. I know I must destroy all of you.”       After looking at everyone with an evil glance, Peter turns his head from one side to another so that everyone can hear his bones crack. Then he grabs the old knife from the table and tries to get it into the shoulder of Marcus, whatever it takes, with an aggressive growl, while the old man resists it so hard, squeezing the hand with the gun with both hands. In the end, the guy does not get it into the opponent’s arm but, holding it tightly, runs the blade over the skin. That’s why it gets a long, bright red wound, from which blood starts getting out, and some drops of it splash on different sides and end up on the face of the blond, who watches the criminal wince from pain and barely holds his hysterical scream with a frightening indifference. And at some moment, the anxious Luther, Ronald, and Bob rush to him.       “Damn it, Mr. Longbottom!” Luther pronounces with horror in his eyes, looking at Marcus’ arm.       “You must treat the wound now!” Bob exclaims.       “You must stop the blood!” Ronald jabs. “You must not waste time!”       “Ar-r-r, I shall do this!” Marcus growls irritably, glancing at his bleeding hand that is shaking slightly. “But you deal with this psycho.”       “What?” Bob squeaks loudly. “With him?”       Bob chuckles nervously, Ronald steps back, and Luther’s eye starts shaking when they look scarily at Peter wrapping the bloody knife in his hand with a quiet, evil laugh.       “N-n-no, s-s-sir…” Ronald refuses in a shaking voice. “Not t-t-this… I f-f-fear him…”       “Uh-huh, Rose is i-i-insane!” Luther throws excitedly. “I can barely keep up with his tricks!”       “He is now out of his mind!” Bob exclaims. “I d-d-don’t wanna get in touch with him…”       “What?” Marcus explodes in a loud bass voice. “Are you fucking CRAZY? YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND, I SEE?”       “We’d do anything for you, my lord, but not this… This psycho bastard is gonna kill us surely!”       “M-m-m, look, the sassy boys peed their pants and put their tails between their legs from fear,” Peter says in a low, rude voice, coming determinedly to Ronald, Luther, and Bob, who step back and hide behind Marcus’s back with widely open eyes. “They’ve just gotten a couple of hits on the balls. What is going to happen to you if I settle up a real chaos here so you do not get out of it?”       Peter takes a lighter from the pocket of his denim jacket and holds the button to release a little flame, the sight of which makes the criminals go pale and put their heads on their shoulders. Just like Edward, Daniel, and Terrence opening their eyes widely and stepping back with a quiet ooh.       “This little flame can kill all of you for a short time. Kill you as well as you killed Helene.”       “Don’t do stupid things, Peter!” Edward demands loudly. “Wake up! Don’t do what you’re gonna regret later!”       “Don’t worry, guys,” Peter pronounces coldly, looking evilly at Edward, Terrence, and Daniel. “You have a little time to torture. A little time to see how you lose your skin.”       “Peter, please, don’t scare us,” Daniel begs in a little shaking from excitement voice, breathing heavily enough. “These bastards provoke you, but you succumb to them.”       “M-m-m, I do smell the smell of fear in the air… I feel like all of you are afraid to die here and never see the world again.”       Peter brings the burning flame close enough to the faces of Daniel, Terrence, and Edward, who step back, breathing heavily with a shake, and looking closely at their friend, who is out of his mind.       “And you know, I liked this feeling.” Peter starts walking in circles in front of those who feel like mice caught in a corner. “I liked to feel that everyone feared you. When everyone shakes in fear, runs from you, hides, presses to each other… When everyone guesses what to expect from you. You don’t feel like a victim everyone uses for their own dirty goals as fuck. I do literally get orgasms as I feel like a king in this situation.”       Peter runs to Marcus, Luther, Ronald, and Bob and threatens them with a knife, feeling satisfied when they step aside with a shout, while Terrence hugs Daniel and Edward tightly, succumbing to the instinct that encourages him to protect the younger guys in the dangerous situation.       “M-m-mr. L-l-longbottom, p-p-please, do s-s-something…” Luther begs in a shaking voice, grabbing Marcus’ arm tightly. “He is about to kill all of us here now.”       “Oh, the karateka boy that doesn’t know where to put his fucking dick peed his pants…” Peter laughs contemptuously. “It’s fucking hilarious!”       “It’s insane, sir!” Ronald shouts. “He’s literally taken us hostage!”       “Do what you want, men, but I give up,” Bob states scarily. “I’m going to live many years, not to become a victim of this psycho.”       “I don’t want to fight with him, either.”       “Agree!” Luther exclaims. “Fuck him! My life is more important to me!”       “Are you all FUCKING KIDDING ME?” Marcus gets enraged. “YOU HAVE NO SHAME, FREAKS?”       “The boy is out of his mind now! He is about to defeat all of us!”       “Let’s wait for the other pals of yours to come here,” Peter says coldly. “Wait for them to come here, being fucking sassy and self-confident with the thought that they will knock me out quickly. And then I shall burn this fucking house to the ground and watch you all die here.”       “Stop, Peter, enough!” Terrence demands loudly and determinedly. “Wake the fuck up! Don’t become the same as your father! He is sick! A mental hospital is waiting for him! He must be the fuck executed! Or put him in a gas chamber!”       “If someone thinks naively they can get out of here, you are deeply wrong. I shall lock all of you in this basement after I burn everything here. Moreover, I saw a couple of canisters of kerosene here. If I don’t pour it everywhere, they will just explode. And real chaos will start here.”       Peter comes slowly but confidently to the transparent film hanging on the wall with a wish to burn it with a lighter. And while Edward, Daniel, and Terrence go aside and look at each other with horror in their eyes, refusing to believe they are about to become victims of their close friend, Marcus glances gloomily at the pale Luther, Ronald, and Bob, who are shaking from fear.       “WHY ARE YOU THE FUCK WHINING LIKE COWARDLY DOGS?” Marcus roars. “GRAB YOUR ASSES AND CATCH THIS FREAK NOW!”       “P-p-p-lease, m-m-mr. L-longbottom…” Ronald tries to take a word confidently.       “DO NOT MUMBLE! I AM GIVING ORDERS HERE! MOVE ON, SCUMS!”       With these words, Marcus pushes Bob, Ronald, and Luther rudely forward, no matter how hard they resist.       “IF I DO NOT SEE THE DEAD BODY OF MY SON IN FIVE MINUTES, YOU WILL HAVE TO REGRET IT!”       “Right, will,” Peter pronounces in a low voice, clicking the button of the lighter so that it may irritate. “Have to regret what you did to Helene. ALL OF YOU! NO MERCY FOR YOU!”       “FASTER! Otherwise, I shall deal with you if you do not obey my orders! NOW!”       After pushing his accomplices again, Marcus moves off sharply, gets upstairs quickly, and closes the door that leads to the living room. Scared to death, Bob, Luther, and Ronald try to run after him, shouting out the name of their boss desperately, and knock at the locked door, while he ignores it. Then they look at each other with widely open eyes and then, breathing heavily, look down where Peter is waiting for them and cracking his neck by inclining his head to one or another side.       “Das Spiel beginnt, Arschlöcher,” Peter says determinedly, squeezing the knife tightly in his hand and holding the button on the lighter with his thumb. “Ich werde Sie nicht verschonen!”       When he gets upstairs in a quick step, Peter attacks Bob with a knife and tries to wound him. But the opponent gets down with hysterical shouts, rolling painfully down the stairs at some moment when the blond pushes him in the spine with his foot. Luther and Ronald run on different sides and start looking for something to fight off Rose, who is chasing them determinedly. Later, Rose manages to catch Ronald and even wound him a little by leaving a mild cut on his arm, and Luther gets a little scar on his face.       “Don’t run, bastards, you will not hide from me,” Peter says confidently, puts the lighter in the pocket, throws the knife at Bob, who dodges aside in time, and grabs the baton from the floor. “And do not think you are smart. I know all your actions ahead. Wherever you go, I SHALL GET YOU!”       Peter tries to hit Luther on the back of the head on the run, while the opponent, Ronald, and Bob knock on the reserved door that is also locked. And after a failed attempt, he starts waving the fun with a defeating shout and tries to catch someone. But the blond runs into failures all the time because the criminals run around the whole basement with the thought that they are hiding something. But they do not manage to hide in the closet, under the table, or behind the walls because Rose catches them, gets them out by the collar, and beats all of them cruelly, answering their attempts to attack him from behind and stand by their friends.       Meanwhile, not less scared, Daniel, Terrence, and Edward breathing heavily are sitting in the corner, watching what’s happening with widely open eyes, and not hiding that they are deeply shocked by Peter’s cruelty and his readiness to turn to dust anyone who stands in his way. They are shocked by how easily he beats his opponents, who can barely creep and bleed, and gives them wounds that are mild so far.       “It seems like Rose ain’t gonna stop,” Daniel expresses anxiety. “He keeps beating all of them with no regret.”       “Yeah, he went fucking crazy after Helene died,” Edward says thoughtfully.       “I’ve got a feeling that we can do nothing now. No talks with him will help us. And we can’t fight him and run away from him forever.”       “Imagine if the police come here, but this pretty boy is running wild with knives, lighters, and batons in his hands, threatening to kill everyone, and not pitying even his own friends,” Daniel adds.       “Uh-huh, and then he’s gonna regret it and creep on his knees as he apologizes again and again,” Edward throws gloomily. “When the police put handcuffs on him and put him in jail alongside this gang.”       “Since these assholes have put their tails between their legs and are running from the blond like crazy, the case is more serious than we thought.”       “If they don’t deal with him, they’ll deal with us,” Terrence assumes. “But now many more bastards, who burned the house down with Helene in it, and it’s gonna get much worse.”       “I give a fuck about these deadbeats!” Edward exclaims. “We must stop Peter before he really kills someone.”       “But how? Rose has been running here for a long time, and he isn’t even sweating! He isn’t choking! No hint at him getting tired of playing an evil man and waking up.”       “No matter how hurtful it is to say, but we have to fight our best friend,” Daniel says with sadness. “Fight cruelly. Not to pretend, to really fight.”       “No matter what, I don’t wanna hurt him,” Terrence says with sadness in his eyes. “Pete is my close friend. Who is now getting through such a great grief.”       “You think I want it? You think I wanna beat the face of the one I consider my brother? Of course, not! But we have no choice! Because we must survive. Survive in this hell and get out of here alive.”       “You’re right, Dan…” Edward agrees. “I don’t want this, either, but we are forced. We have to be cruel and fight fire.”       “Maybe, we should try to agree peacefully?” Terrence suggests.       “Agree peacefully on something with the one who grabbed the axe and started to run after the three men at the same time?” Daniel opens his eyes widely, glancing at Peter waving the axe in front of Ronald, Luther, and Bob. “Think you’re dead in this case!”       “I don’t wanna help these assholes, but we can’t let Peter kill them anyway,” Edward says thoughtfully.       “I give a fuck about them,” Terrence throws gloomily. “I wanna save my friend! I wanna save him from the dark version of himself. And we really have to protect ourselves. Otherwise, we’ll all die here.”       “Deal with them, guys,” Daniel says quietly but determinedly. “But I will deal with Rose.”       “What?” Edward opens his eyes widely. “With Rose? Face to face?”       “He’s gonna turn you to dust!” Terrence horrifies. “Look at him! He doesn’t control himself! He probably doesn’t understand who’s standing in front of him and doesn’t know who he is.”       “We will see it,” Daniel raises his head proudly. “Since Peter wants war, I shall make him think it’s begun. Though it’s going to be an attempt to save him from making the mistakes he will regret one hundred percent.”       “Don’t do this, Perkins, don’t make it worse,” Edward shakes his head. “If you hope naively you can talk him into and calm him down, your tricks won’t work this time.”       “No, I will choose a different tactic this time. I don’t want this so much, but I have no choice. I have to be freaking cruel. Maybe even as cruel as I've never been before.”       “You won’t deal with him while he’s in this condition, Daniel,” Terrence replies, taking Daniel by the shoulders. “We can do nothing even if there are three of us.”       “We’ve gotta try everything. We can’t be stuck here like cowards forever and watch the blond go crazy and wanna start a real stabbing and settle up a hellish fire.”       “We’d deal with these three folks and Marcus sooner than one Peter!” Edward exclaims.       “You deal with them, but I shall deal with this pretty boy. When you do this, you can join me.”       Exhaling sharply, Daniel goes determinedly to the side where Peter is getting closer to Luther, Bob, and Ronald sitting on the floor, pressing themselves to the corner and embracing each other as they look at the one to make them shake like cowardly bunnies with horror in their widely open eyes.       “Daniel, stop!” Terrence exclaims. “Where are you gonna, idiot?”       “Don’t do stupid things, Perkins!” Edward demands. “Stop! Stop!”       But Daniel ignores his friends’ words and does not even turn on them, taking a shovel on the way and squeezing the handle tightly with his fingers. He silently tells his pity and sympathy to go to hell not to regret anything that is going to happen now, even if it’s extremely hard for him. But after making himself think he is doing this for the best of his friend, the man comes confidently to Rose when the blond wants to hit Bob in the face with a crowbar.       “Hey, Rose, aren’t you tired of jumping here like a monkey?” Daniel raises his voice loudly and determinedly.       “Oh, look, the sassy boy decided to become a hero,” Peter sneers evilly. “To have something to tell his sweetheart.”       “Alright, you won! If you want war and blood, it will happen. Moreover, I am fucking sick of all this shit, too. And I AM FUCKING SICK OF YOUR HYSTERICS!”       Peter does not get to react because Daniel hits him in the face with the shovel with a loud, irritated scream. Then the blond falls to the floor like a stone, shouting from the pain echoing in his whole body when he hits his elbow painfully.       “Hey, why are you lying, pretty boy?” Daniel asks surprisingly and hits Peter with his foot against his rib. “Get up now! Go for a battle! Show your irresistible power!”       “Yo, are ya too brave and bold?” Peter sneers evilly, wiping blood under his nose. “You wanna me to cut your wings right now?”       “Try.” Daniel hits Peter on the spine with the shovel. “COME ON, BASTARD, GET UP! BE A FUCKING MAN! LET’S SOLVE IT NOW!”       “You’re dead, bastard…” Peter spits blood out of his mouth on the floor contemptuously. “YOU WILL DIE FIRST, ASSHOLE!”       Peter pushes Daniel off rudely with a hit of his foot in the groin and gets up in a jump when the brunet keeps his balance magically. Then Rose runs to Perkins with a loud, irritated shout and wants to hit him on the head with the crowbar. But the brunet gets the blade of the shovel into the opponent’s stomach and hits him with the same part in the jaw so that his head turns back sharply by inertia.       “So, didn’t ya expect this surprise?” Daniel asks evilly and hits off the crowbar that Peter wants to hit him with. “You thought you’d keep beating everyone with no shame and getting away from this?”       “Don’t be arrogant, freak, nothing will help you,” Peter throws, still fighting the shovel in Daniel’s hands with the crowbar. “You will die as well as this whole gang.”       “You really want it?”       “I AM DREAMING!”       “Our dreams are fucking mutual now!”       Again, Daniel hits Peter in the face with the shovel, and the blond spits some blood on the floor after this.       “I want to kill you, too! BECAUSE YOU ARE FUCKING UNBEARABLE! YOU ARE FUCKING ARROGANT!”       “You think you’re the strongest and sassiest one?” Peter surprises and tries unsuccessfully to get the handle of the crowbar into Daniel’s stomach. “You think you can defeat me?”       “You think you can strike me?”       “You ain’t my opponent! I am much stronger than you!”       “I won’t let you, bastard, beat me and remain unpunished. I shall never stand aside when some bastards dare to attack me. My friends and I.”       “Who left you because they peed their pants.”       “They will be happy to join me later, after they deal with the company of the men, whom you beat to half-death.”       “You can see what’s waiting for you.”       “If you don’t shut your mouth down and stop waving your wings like a psycho, something worse is going to happen to you.”       After throwing the shovel aside, Daniel hits Peter in the chest with his foot in a jump, squats down when the blond wants to hit him with the crowbar, grabs his foot and pulls it sharply on himself, making the blond fall to the floor and let go of the gun. Perkins sits over Rose and gives him several strong hits of the fist in the face, being much more determinedly and cruel than his friend had been before.       “So, bastard, you like it?” Daniel asks and hits Peter strongly against the floor with the back of his head, grabbing him by the collar. “YOU LIKE IT, I AM ASKING?”       When he gets a hit in the chest, Peter is unable to breathe for some, rolls on the side and doubles over, while Daniel keeps following his plan and remains very cruel, grabbing the blond by the hair, turning his head back sharply, and burning the skin on his arm with a lighter that he takes from the pocket on his friend’s jacket. And he ignores the fact that Rose starts screaming hysterically and trying to get out of the trap so hard.       “I’m not happy to do this, I’m going to be honest,” Daniel says in a low, rude voice. “But since you don’t understand any other language except the power one, we have to wake you up in such a radical way.”       Peter’s scream gets much louder when Daniel burns the skin on his neck so that he leaves a slight red spot.       “Why did ya stop being so sassy? Are your pants wet? Starting to come to yourself? Or pretending to attack us when we don’t expect it?”       After putting the lighter in the pocket of his jeans, Daniel uses a chokehold, squeezing his neck in his elbow tightly enough and not even thinking to let go of the guy, even if he starts choking and hitting him painfully on his arms in the hope of getting out.       “Don’t worry, Rose, I’m not going to kill you. I don’t want to live with a hard sin for the rest of my life. But I shall not miss a chance to kick your ass fucking hard and hit your head against the wall a couple of times. So, you, bastard, FINALLY WAKE UP AND UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING!”       “But I have nothing to lose…” Peter pronounces barely and coughs quietly. “I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT EVERYTHING AFTER MY GIRLFRIEND DIED!”       Peter gets out of the trap easily by hitting Daniel strongly enough in the chest with his elbow. While the brunet cannot breathe, the blond strikes him down to the floor with a strong slap in the face, sits over him, and gives him a couple of hits in the face with a fist before the opponent grabs his arms and starts resisting hard. However, it does not last for too long because Perkins presses on Rose’s eyes with his fingers at some moment, pushes him off himself with a hit of the knee in the groin, and gets up on his feet easily. But the blond, rubbing his eyes, stands up and literally kills him with his furious glance for two seconds with a heavy breath before he decides to attack him and beat him strongly with his hands and feet.       “You are dead, bastard,” Peter hisses through his teeth, gives Daniel several slaps in the face, makes him double over after a hit against his stomach with a fist, and twists his arm sharply when he is behind him. “YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD!”       “Don’t be happy in advance, psycho!” Daniel protests, hits his foot against Peter’s ankle, sets himself free from the grip, and gives him a hit on his spine with his locked hands. “I haven’t washed your face enough in the dirt yet.”       Grabbing Peter by the hair, Daniel hits him against the wall with the face, smashes his fist against the gut, twists his arm, throws him over his shoulder, and lies him on his scapula. Then he grabs the shovel from the floor and presses the handle of it against the blond’s neck for a few seconds. Though the blond does not get confused and hits his opponent against the temple with a small stick that he feels up near himself. Then he gets it deeply into the stomach of Perkins, who winces strongly and barely holds down a loud shout. However, the brunet himself grabs it tightly with both hands at some moment and makes a great effort to get the stick sharply in the solar plexus of the guy literally obsessed with an evil spirit.       “Ar-r-r-r, you’re a fucking jackass…” Daniel throws with an irritated growl, gets up sharply, and hits Peter in the nose with his foot. “You aren’t fucking tired!”       “Look who’s talking, bastard!” Peter laughs evilly, stands up, grabs the shovel from the floor, and waves it aggressively, hoping to hit Daniel strongly. “You always get away from anything! YOU GET AWAY FROM EVERYONE ALL THE TIME! ALL THE TIME!”       “Oh, yeah, let’s talk about all my sins!” Daniel takes the shovel sharply from Peter and hits the blond’s fist powerfully with it when he wants to smash it against his face. “Remember why we fought! Remember why I had to do with it!”       “You do have!” Peter hits Daniel against his solar plexus with his foot in a jump. “YOU made me wish to die! YOU MADE ME WISH TO KILL MYSELF!”       “Come on, seriously?”       “Your fucking jokes! I wanted to BREAK YOUR NECK FUCKING BADLY when I heard them! WHEN YOU BRAGGED HOW FUCKING LUCKY YOU WERE TO DATE A COOL GIRL!”       “When you come back to normal, I will be happy to talk to you about it. But now be nice, SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH UP!”       When he ends up behind Peter by doing a couple of easy movements, Daniel squeezes his neck with his elbow and puts the knife against his throat, which he found and put in the pocket of his coat some time ago.       “I have a wonderful idea how to close your fucking mouth quickly,” Peter states evilly. “How to stop wasting time on the shit I am sick of.”       Peter grabs the knife sharply, gets out of the trap by hitting Daniel in the ankle with his foot, grabs him by the throat with a free hand, and presses him rudely to the wall, while the brunet chokes from a lack of air.       “Oh, how powerless you are…” Peter laughs with mockery and squeezes his fingers on Daniel’s throat much tighter, while the brunet tries to move them off by force. “Is it hard to do something when you can’t breathe, huh?”       “Don’t do this…” Daniel pronounces barely and coughs quietly. “You’re gonna regret this…”       “Pity prevents you from a good life. People don’t deserve to be fucking loved, forgiven, and excused.”       “It’s not you… I don’t recognize you… You’re not Peter…”       “No, I’m not Peter… I am Theodore… Theodore Longbottom…”       “Wake up, bastard!” Daniel breaks into a cry. “See what you are doing! A little bit before you become a killer! Just like your father!”       “I have done nothing yet. But everything is ahead…”       After taking his hand off Daniel’s throat, Peter raises his face by the chin with the edge of the knife. Perkins coughs loudly and catches the air greedily, and Rose gets him horrified with his icy glance.       “First, I shall cut your throat and then deal with the MacClife brothers. I can also defeat that gang of cowards. And I prepared a special dish for Marcus Longbottom.”       “Our friends and I aren’t guilty of Helene’s death!” Daniel states. “If we could, we would’ve come to save her shortly!”       “Oh, yeah! I got it!”       Daniel grabs Peter’s hand when the blond tries to get the edge of the blade into the hole on his throat and holds it strongly.       “Peter…” Daniel pronounces. “Peter, stop it now! Stop! Enough!”       “I have said when I shall calm down. I have no time to repeat all the same things.”       “It’s okay you wanna deal with Marcus Longbottom and these assholes. But what did Terrence, Edward, and I do to you? Why do you treat us like this? Why are the fuck trying to kill us?”       “If you’d stayed home, nothing would’ve happened to you. Since you did not, be nice to pay for this.”       “You speak in the same way Marcus does!”       “Alright, empty-headed woodpecker, shut up, your verbal diarrhea gives me a headache,” Peter winces strongly.       “Alright, if you want, kill us then!” Daniel breaks into a shaking cry. “Come on, Rose, come on! Cut us! Shoot! Beat! Do what you want!”       “You think I won’t do?”       “Come on, Rose, kill me! End me here and now! Forget everything we’ve gotten through. Keep going crazy. Stay alone. Nobody else will try to deal with your fucking hysterics. There were not, and there will not be idiots like me! YOU WANTED TO BE ALONE, YOU WILL BE!”       “I NEED NOBODY! I WANT EVERYONE TO LEAVE ME ALONE!”       Peter gets the edge of the knife in Daniel’s arm not very deeply and runs it over the one, leaving a cut on the skin that starts bleeding immediately and making him shout and wince from pain.       “Wow… I didn’t get it deeply, but you scream like someone gets your guts out without narcosis.”       “You’re crazy,” Daniel pronounces in a rude, low voice. “A psycho. Just a psycho.”       “But now I feel myself. Giving pain to people and just thinking of their death turned out to be a very nice thing. It’s cool when everyone fears you. It’s cool when you dominate some assholes.”       “Stop, dude, don’t do this. Don’t stand in the way that’s gonna destroy you. Do you actually understand that…”       Daniel screams hysterically when Peter leaves a couple of cuts on his hand, keeping horribly indifferent as he harms his close friend.       “I give a fuck about what you say.”       Glancing at his hand thoughtfully, Peter runs the edge of the blade over it, literally stopping to feel any kind of pain in the affected condition because he remains indifferent and shows no emotions.       “M-m-m, bright red blood flows…” Peter smiles slyly, watching the way his own hand is bleeding like a charmed one. “The one you cannot tolerate…”       Peter turns his bloody hand on Daniel with his head proudly raised, while the brunet swallows nervously, feeling that a sense of nausea comes to his throat, and his breath gets heavier due to the thought that his panic is growing.       “Oh, oh, you are so green now! You are so tense… Childhood memories, huh?”       Literally mocking Daniel, Peter dirties his own face with the bloody hand and smiles widely when he sees his frozen friend looking at him with horror in his widely open eyes.       “So, are you recalling your daddy scaring his baby fucking hard? Him dirtying his face with blood and running after you in the whole house, while you were screaming like crazy and didn’t know where to hide from him!”       “Please, stop it…” Daniel begs quietly, struggling with a sense of nausea and grabbing his throat at some moment. “Stop…”       “Wow… You are about to pass out. It would be pretty good for me, huh. Because I am fucking done with dealing with you. But if you pass out, I can deal with you quietly and defeat the others.”       “WHAT THE FUCK BITE YOU?” Daniel breaks into a cry and slaps Peter in the face strongly. “WAKE THE FUCK UP! OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE WHO’S STANDING IN FRONT OF YOU!”       “I advise you to forget the one you knew before. Because the kind and good man is gone now. Peter Rose is dead. There is only Theodore Longbottom now. The one who is going to start a chaos here and in the whole city. Or maybe, even the entire country.”       “You are out of your mind! You don’t understand what you do and say!”       “Not at all. I have just finally realized who I really am. What was holding me all this time. And my father helped me figure it out.”       “IT’S INSANITY! THE INSANITY YOU MUST GET OUT OF YOUR STUPID HEAD!”       “Hey, tough guy, stop screaming. I think I said I gave a fuck about your lectures.”       “I wasn’t going to teach you. I shall be getting you rid of the insanity. TO BRING MY BEST FRIEND BACK!”       Daniel smashes his fist strongly against Peter’s temple, and the blond does not react in time when the brunet hits him in the jaw with the other hand. Then Perkins grabs Rose by the collar and hits him strongly enough against the wall with his forehead, and hits his knee against his solar plexus. The blond looks at his opponent with an icy look, spits blood off quickly, and dirties his face with his cut hand. And using the moment when he is confused, Peter smashes his fist strongly against Daniel’s nose, which gets a little blue and starts bleeding. And nobody notices that something white gets out of Perkins’ mouth, rolls, and ends up in the corner.       “Finally, I stopped feeling a fucking outsider everyone uses like a rag. I can finally kick the ass of anyone who dares to stand in my way. Anyone just to THINK about deceiving me, harming me, and making me suffer.”       While Daniel wipes blood under his nose and off his face, Peter hits him in the gut with his foot in a jump, and wants to get the knife into his stomach. But then Edward shows up out of nowhere, attacking Rose on the run from behind, striking him down, and squeezing his neck with his elbow tightly so that he immediately prevents all the attempts of the opponent to escape. Meanwhile, the anxious Terrence comes to Perkins, hugs the friend around the shoulder, and starts asking him about how he is feeling, while the man himself struggles with a nosebleed and breathing issues.       “Oh, the protectors have shown up,” Peter sneers evilly, trying so hard to get out of Edward’s grip. “Where have you been, pretty boys? Powdered your nose? Or changed your wet underwear to dry ones?”       “If you weren’t our friend, we’d kill you already,” Edward replies in a low, rude voice. “Because you’re acting like a fucking bastard.”       “Don’t worry, puppy… I shall deal with this bastard… And then do it to you and your brother.”       “You can’t jump here like a goat forever. Your strength will be gone early or late.”       “We will see it!”       Peter makes a great effort to get out of Edward’s grip, sits over him, and raises the knife above his chest to get it into the opponent. But the guy grabs it tightly with both hands and holds it before he hits the blond in the groin with his knee. Then MacClife, Jr. lies Rose easily on the back, places his foot on his hand, takes the knife with no problems, and throws it aside. While they start a hand-in-hand heartless fight with all the possible dirty tricks, Terrence keeps being next to Daniel, who starts feeling a much stronger sense of nausea and dizziness because he has too much blood on his hands.       “Damn, it seems that he won’t calm down soon!” Terrence swears. “He’s running wild and beating everyone’s faces. Though his hands are all in blood.”       “You’re right!” Daniel exclaims. “He’s kinda obsessed with a devil!”       “We won’t hold on for too long. If the police don’t come here in the nearest time, Peter is gonna kill us, not Marcus and his friends.”       “Where are these assholes, by the way?”       “Sitting quietly in the corner and shaking.”       “Yeah… Peed their pants from fear.”       “Next to the psycho that doesn’t control himself, I peed my pants too, and I’m afraid not to get out of here alive.”       “He doesn’t consider himself Peter now. He thinks he is Theodore.”       “Hard case.”       “Uh-huh…”       Daniel squeezes the bridge of his nose with the thought that his dizziness gets stronger and shakes slightly, while Terrence starts holding him tightly.       “Hey, Dan, c’mon?” Terrence expresses anxiety. “Why did ya suddenly get so pale?”       “I don’t feel good…” Daniel replies faintly, shakes his head sharply, and puts his hand on his forehead. “Feel nausea and dizziness.”       “No wonder! Rose beat you freaking strongly!”       “Nope… It’s all blood…” Daniel closes his mouth with a hand with nausea in his throat, looking at his second hand that is covered with bright red blood. “There’s too much of it…”       “Hey, hey, quiet, buddy, quiet.” Terrence claps Daniel on the shoulders. “Don’t dare to pass out.”       “Late. I’m losing ground.”       “Breathe deeper, breathe deeper. Let’s sit down.”       With these words, Terrence takes Daniel breathing heavily under his arm and hugs him with another to bring him to the only chair he sees here. But when they take several steps, Perkins’ legs get sharply weak, and he falls powerlessly on the floor with closed eyes, not hitting his head just because MacClife, Sr. keeps his safe at this moment.       “Daniel…” Terrence pronounces excitedly and puts Daniel carefully on the floor, while his friend is already unconscious. “Daniel!”       Terrence gets down to his knees beside Daniel and tries to wake him up by clapping him slightly on the cheeks covered with blood.       “Hey, buddy, can you hear me? Perkins! Fuck, you found such a good time to faint!”       When Terrence growls irritably, Edward runs to him after he pushes Peter in the chest powerfully with his foot, so that the blond gets thrown two meters aside.       “Daniel?!” Edward tries to call, shakes Daniel by the shoulder, and claps him slightly on the cheeks. “Daniel, c’mon? Hey, dude!”       “Passed out at the sight of blood,” Terrence says thoughtfully. “Stared at the one like something awful and collapsed.”       “Ar-r-r, such a good time!”       “You’re right!”       While Terrence and Edward try unsuccessfully to wake Daniel up, Peter gets up quietly, shakes the dust off the clothes, and comes to the men with his head proudly raised, taking a couple of plates on the way.       “Great, one is done!” Peter exclaims with an evil smile, making Edward and Terrence get up shortly and get back a little. “But two are still up. And those cowardly bastards. And Marcus. And those who will come here soon. In short, I’ve got a lot of work.”       “Fucking bastard, do you understand what you’re doing here?” Terrence knocks at his temple with a finger. “Wake up! Stop doing some shit!”       “You are doing some shit if you think naively you can bring back the old version of mine. Though I no longer want to be the whining boy everyone bullied. I crave blood and revenge. A thirst for harming and killing. A THIRST OF TAKING REVENGE ON ALL MY ENEMIES FOR MY SWEET LIFE!”       “What’s our fault?” Edward wonders. “What did we do to you? Why are you acting like this toward us?”       “You think you’ve been such cool friends all this time? You think I really considered you my close people and as ready to go through fire and water for you?”       “You said different things when your mental health was alright,” Terrence recalls.       “Time goes by, people change, giraffe. Yesterday, you said one thing, but tomorrow it’s going to be something different.”       “It’s not Peter’s words. Not the Peter we know and love. He would never behave the way you do.”       “Peter was a liar. He was pretending. Even if he didn’t know it. He didn’t know he should have actually been another person.”       “I don’t want to believe you’ve been pretending all this time!” Edward exclaims. “Don’t wanna believe you’ve been pretending to be a kind, loyal, and decent man?”       “I was just the one they wanted to see. The one people considered good for them. Weak, cowardly, insecure… So that everyone got pleasure from playing with me like a ball. I feared everyone back then. But now it’s otherwise. Now everyone is going to fear me. They will be standing in front of me and feeling like their knees shake.”       “Maybe you make us fear, but it doesn’t mean we are going to run after you like cowards. We will not give up on trying to save you from the dark version of you.”       “Okay! But I shall not calm down until I kill you. Until your dead bodies are LYING AT MY FEET!”       Peter throws both plates strongly at Edward and Terrence, who dodge the attack in time, hearing these things break against the concrete wall with a loud crash.       “Alright, Rose, war is war!” Terrence raises his head proudly. “You won! We aren’t cowards, we will not run. Even if we have to fight our own friend.”       “But remember our word: there will be a moment when the blond-haired princess will wake up, get fucking overwhelmed by what he’s done, and ask us not to ruin our friendship,” Edward adds.       “I shall catch you at the same time WITH MY OWN HANDS!” Peter hisses through his teeth. “YOU WILL NOT HIDE FROM ME!”       Peter wants to attack Terrence and Edward on the run with his fists, but they grab his hands skillfully, twist them behind his back, and turn them painfully, making the guy scream in pain. The older of the MacClife brothers gives the opponent a strong hit with his foot on his back, which the blond bends backward sharply as he keeps screaming at the top of his lungs. And MacClife, Jr., puts the rope that he just found quickly around Rose’s neck and tightens it strongly. That’s why Rose starts choking, coughing, and breaking free as he tries so hard to get out of the trap and catch some air he lacks so badly.       “You say you’ll catch us at the same time?” Edward smirks evilly.       “I don’t want to do this, but we have to torture you a little to cool you down a little,” Terrence says coldly, grabs Peter’s arm, rolls the sleeve of his jacket, and brings the lighter that fell off Daniel’s pocket when he collapsed to the skin.       Peter screams emotionally and clenches his hands into fists when the little flame burns his skin so that it gets red, while he feels unbearable pain.       “What’s up, beautiful?” Edward surprises falsely. “Why are you screaming like this? Is giving pain to someone much nicer than getting it yourself?”       “A-A-A-A, BASTARDS!” Peter throws with hysterical shouts. “I WISH YOU ALL DIED!”       “We wish the identity of Theodore that possessed your mind had died.” Edward tightens the rope on Peter’s neck much more tightly after he weakened them at some moment. “We want to get our kind and decent Peter, who knows what shame and coincidence are.”       “And until we get you rid of this shit, I can rehearse the role of the evil man,” Terrence adds with an evil smirk and warms up the little knife that he finds on the table among some trash with the lighter. “In which, I must confess, I feel very good. Even if I have to torture my friend, whom I would never harm at my wish.”       Terrence runs the hot blade of the knife over Peter’s cheek, on which he sees a little bloody wound, while the blond himself keeps racking his cords and trying to remove the ropes from his neck.       “So, do ya think you’re the sassiest ones here?” Peter throws coldly, breathing a little heavily. “You think you can really defeat me?”       “As you can see, my bro and I are holding on pretty well.” Terrence brings the burning lighter close enough to Peter’s face, while the blond looks at this scarily. “You know why? Because we are stronger together. Friendship and love always unite.”       “No unity will help you in the afterlife. SO YOU CAN STOP EVEN TRYING!”       Peter makes some effort to set himself free by hitting Terrence in the groin and giving Edward a hit against his gut with an elbow. While the brothers try to come to themselves a little, Rose grabs the knife from the floor and attacks the older one, who starts resisting hard, not letting the blade get into his chest. Later, the younger one becomes his target after he breaks the plate against his friend’s head and starts a fight with him fearlessly, giving him painful hits with feet, hands, and even head, and showing how he can make tornado kicks that strike the opponent down shortly. Even if he ends up lying under the blond, the guy does not get confused and finds a way to get out quickly. And his older brother does not leave him in trouble and fights with Rose cruelly and uses his fists and any other things he can see to protect himself.       “You aren’t as worthless as I thought,” Peter throws coldly, fighting Terrence and Edward at the same time with hands and feet. “One licks another’s ass. It’s so hilarious.”       “We will tell you what we do this a little later,” Terrence promises, pulls Peter by the hair back, and gives him a strong slap in the face.       “To be clear, you will remember!” Edward adds, hits Peter on the temple with a foot in a jump with a full twist, and pushes him off himself so strongly that the blond falls to the floor. “Because we have said it many times!”       “It’s alright, bastards, no matter how hard you show off, I shall be stronger anyway,” Peter states. “IT SHALL HAPPEN, REMEMBER THIS!”       Grabbing Edward and Terrence by the hair, Peter hits them against each other’s foreheads so that both of them fall to the floor, holding their heads. And while the guys try to come to themselves, Rose grabs the long enough rope from the floor and uses the moment, pressing them with their backs to one another and tying them tightly enough, despite all their attempts to resist. And when the brothers are in the trap and cannot help themselves and each other, the blond starts laughing loudly and evilly as if he celebrates his victory that is getting closer and closer.       “So what, goats, you have been caught!” Peter throws in a low, rude voice and raises Edward’s face by the chin with the knife he is now holding. “Nothing will help you now! NOTHING!”       Peter hits Terrence strongly against his groin with his foot, making him scream painfully from the unbearable pain that echoes in his whole body.       “Stop, Peter, STOP IT NOW!” Edward demands and tries to set himself free so hard. “ENOUGH!”       “Shut up, puppy!” Peter roars and slaps Edward strongly in the face.       “Why do you need this all?” Terrence wonders. “WHY? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO GET?”       “Satisfaction. The feeling when all my enemies are defeated.”       “We aren’t your enemies!” Terrence and Edward protest at the same time.       “This whole fucking world is my enemy. The enemy that hates me so badly. Even if I have done nothing bad to the one.”       “If you keep doing all of this, it’s really gonna hate you,” Terrence threatens.       “I give a fuck! But it shall not get rid of me so easily. IT SHALL NOT! I SHALL NOT LET IT HAPPEN!”       “Stop listening to that old bastard Marcus!” Edward demands. “He washed your brains, but you believe him, idiot!”       “He said the truth. The truth I didn’t want to notice all my life. Because I believed naively that there would be someone to love me to death, value me a lot, and SHOW THE RESPECT I DESERVE!”       Peter hits Edward strongly in the nose with his foot, while the guy’s head leans back by inertia and gets a bloody nose. Terrence gets the same hit next, feeling the taste of blood in his mouth, and spits it on the floor. Then Rose leaves a bloody cut on the cheek of MacClife, Jr., enjoying the way both of them scream emotionally from pain that does not stop them from trying to feel the ropes and set themselves free.       While Peter keeps mocking his friends in all the possible ways, Daniel lying unconscious not far makes a quiet, tormenting moan and moves every part of his body very slowly. He opens his eyes with the sense of slight dizziness and nausea in his throat, closes them two or three times, trying to get used to the bright light of the bulb that gets right into his face. When he feels he is ready for this, the man sits up slowly and carefully, puts his hand on his forehead, and shakes it slightly. He glances at his bloody hand, wipes blood under his nose, and swallows nervously. Then he looks around with his little blurry vision, guessing what happened to him quickly enough.       At some moment, Daniel stops his eyes on something far away and opens his eyes wider with a quiet ooh when he sees Edward and Terrence sitting tied on the floor and Peter mocking them with no shame, waving the knife before their faces covered with blood and bruises. Perkins understands he must take some measures to save his friends, even if he thinks starting a fight with a crazy man is a bad idea. Trying to ignore the strong weakness, dizziness, and nausea, he looks around with a heavy breath again to find something that could help him get some time and get rid of the one, who gave them much more problems than Marcus, who has not shown up yet, and Luther, Ronald, and Bob, who have already given up on all of this.       “Wow, you just look…” Peter pronounces with an evil smile, walking around Terrence and Edward with his head proudly raised, while they try so hard to untie themselves. “How much fear… How much plea in your eyes… How much panic… How you are afraid to die…”       “Hey, man, stop it already,” Terrence says quietly with a heavy breath. “Stop doing stupid things.”       “Yeah, buddy, stop,” Edward agrees. “I promise we’ll forget everything and forgive you if you take control of yourself again.”       “Oh, no, I shall not stop,” Peter shakes his head with indifference on his face. “And now I am going to take revenge. Take revenge on those who have been using me like a rag. Starting with my own father and that fucking alcoholic woman, who fucked me off in the end, and preferred to drink. And ending with some bastards, who laughed behind my back but DARED TO SMILE AT MY FACE!”       “We’ve never betrayed you!” Terrence protests. “We’ve never done anything bad to you!”       “LIE!” Peter smashes his fist strongly against Terrence’s jaw. “INSOLENT LIE!”       “We’ve asked you a million times if you have some claims for us,” Edward recalls. “But you’ve always sworn everything is alright. We’ve solved everything, and nobody is mad at each other.”       “YOU do think you’ve solved everything. But actually, nothing is solved. NOTHING IS FORGOTTEN! NOTHING IS FORGIVEN!”       “If you have something to say, let’s sit down and talk about it,” Terrence suggests.       “IT’S TOO LATE TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING!” Peter screams and slaps Edward in the face. “IT’S TOO LATE TO LIE AT THE FEET AND ASK FOR FORGIVENESS!”       “We don’t really know what our fault for you is. We don’t know why you started to attack us, beat us so shamelessly, torture, and harm us.”       “Think about it while you are alive! Before I kill you! IT SHALL HAPPEN IN ONE OR TWO MINUTES!”       Peter glances aside and takes another long rope from the floor.       “THOSE WHO DEPRIVED ME OF THE GOOD LIFE, WILL PAY A HIGH PRICE FOR THIS! EVERYONE, WHO TOOK THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I HAD!”       Not thinking a lot, Peter wraps the rope around the necks of Edward and Terrence and starts tightening them strongly, making the guys choke from the lack of air and be deprived of any opportunity to help themselves and each other.       “Don’t worry, since you’re thick as thieves, you are destined to die together. Alright, I shall personally make sure it happens.”       Peter squats down with an evil laugh, tightens the rope, and ties tight knots. Then he gets up on his feet and keeps his head proudly raised and arms crossed over his chest as he watches Terrence and Edward try unsuccessfully to catch some air, getting paler and paler and feeling a stronger dizziness. And the situation gets worse because they move a lot and kind of pull the rope so that one chokes and then another.       “It’s so funny to watch helpless people who try so hard to set themselves free and beg you for help with their eyes,” Peter gloats. “As it turned out, it’s a fucking warming feeling. Especially if that’s someone who hurt you. Who’s guilty of the death of the one who is very close to you. Someone, WHO DOES NOT THE FUCK DESERVE TO DIE!”       After looking around, Peter grabs the lighter from the floor and presses the button to release the little flame several times before he comes up with an idea that makes him smile slyly. But it does not come true because someone twists his arm sharply to the pain from behind, then unclenches his fingers by force and takes the lighter that they throw aside. When he half turns, the blond sees Daniel and tries to attack him without thinking. But Perkins does not let it happen and answers with a powerful hit of the fist in the jaw from one side to another side.       “Sorry, Peter, but I have to do this,” Daniel says quietly. “I have no choice.”       Daniel turns Peter with his back to himself, takes the electric gun that he found not far from himself from the pocket of his coat, puts it against the blond’s neck, and holds the button for several seconds to release the electric wave through him. He remains indifferent as he watches the guy shaking strongly, while all his muscles are squeezed with the pain, and his heart works at maximum capacity. But when Perkins lets go of the button, Rose starts falling to the floor without resisting. Daniel grabs Peter under the armpits, gets his limp body down to the floor smoothly, and puts him on the side, holding his head. Then he spends one second or two watching his unconscious buddy without emotions on his face.       “I’m sorry, but it would be better,” Daniel says. “Maybe you will come back to normal after this.”       Daniel claps Peter on the shoulder.       “We’re all done with your hysteria. It’s time to have a break.”       After he moves his eyes to Edward and Terrence, who are still tied and choked from the rope that is tightened on their necks, Daniel rushes to them, gets down to his knees, and tries to untie them.       “Quiet, quiet, guys, it’s okay. Don't move! I’ll set you free now. But don’t move! You harm each other. Don’t move, I said!”       Daniel spends several seconds untying the knots and removing the rope from the necks of his friends, who start catching the air greedily and coughing loudly.       “Oh, shit!” Terrence throws as he chokes. “It can kill you to the fuck!”       “Breathe, guys, breathe deeply!” Daniel exclaims, clapping Terrence and Edward on the shoulder as they cough quietly. “Don’t dare to pass out! C’mon, c’mon! Breathe! It’s okay, it’s okay!”       When Daniel manages to untie the rope that ties Edward and Terrence with no problems, he removes it and gets up on his feet before he helps the guys do the same.       “Hey, are you alive?” Daniel expresses anxiety, helps Terence get up by taking his hand tightly, and then lifts Edward with his help.       “I think so…” Edward replies thoughtfully and coughs loudly. “But we literally walked on the edge… A little bit before…”       “What about you?” Terrence asks. “You feel better?”       “It’s okay, a one-minute weakness,” Daniel replies. “I feel much better now.”       “Oh, that’s good you knocked Rose out,” Edward exhales sharply, leaning on his knees with his hands and glancing at Peter lying unconscious on the floor. “We should’ve done it a long time ago.”       “Uh-huh, he went out of his mind,” Terrence agrees, putting his hands on his hips. “Can’t believe he really tried to kill us.”       “It was the only way to solve the problem,” Daniel glances aside. “I didn’t wanna harm him and hit him with an electric gun, but it was a forced measure. Not to de because of our friend.”       “Don’t worry, Dan, you did everything right,” Edward encourages, clapping Daniel on the shoulder. “If it hadn’t been you, Terrence and I would’ve hit him on the head with a chair.”       “None of us wanted it,” Terrence notices. “But the case was about saving ourselves. As you know, all is good at war. Even the dirtiest things.”       “Okay, what’s our next plan?” Daniel rubs his forehead and wipes the rest of the blood under his nose. “We can’t wash our hands in blood and make tornado kicks ‘til the evening.”       “The basement’s locked, we can’t get out of here. Unless we try to break the reserved door.”       “No matter what, we can’t leave Peter here,” Edward says thoughtfully. “He started to act like a fucking bastard, but this guy is still our friend.”       “Do you think he’s gonna be normal when he wakes up?” Daniel asks with anxiety.       “Hysterics don’t last forever,” Terrence notices. “Peter has waved his hands and feet and screamed enough. It means he’s gonna calm down soon.”       “I thought his hits weren’t so strong in the end,” Edward adds. “It’s like anger was getting out of him.”       “Or we’re so fucking tired that we can’t feel pain,” Daniel assumes. “We forgot we’ve got blood on our faces, bruises on our bodies, and even burns on some areas.”       “Anyway, while Rose is out, we can relax and exhale,” Terrence exhales sharply. “Now there’s nobody to send us to the afterlife.”       Silence settles in the air for two seconds, and then someone’s male voice breaks it from behind:       “Are you sure about it, mate?”       Daniel, Terrence, and Edward turn around sharply and see the cheerful David, Shawn, and Darren, who are not exhausted by the fight yet, and let them know that they are ready to bury the three men in the ground.       “You’re late, guys!” Edward exclaims with his head proudly raised. “The party dedicated to the scuffle has just ended.”       “Oh, no, it hasn’t ended,” Shawn protests with a sly smile. “The party is still on!”       “But it’s a shame we missed the moment when Rose decided to take after his dad and start to kill everyone in his way with no shame,” Darren adds, glancing at Peter lying unconscious on the floor.       “Uh-huh, but he is fucking tired and decided to lie for a while,” David laughs evilly.       “And your pals peed their pants and decided to get out of here to the fuck,” Danie snaps. “Even your beloved Marcus couldn’t make them go against his sonny.”       “Don’t worry, Perkins, we will not leave this party,” Luther states with his head proudly raised, showing out of the corner along with Bob and Ronald.       “Since Rose is defeated, it means there’s no threat now,” Ronald adds. “Well, my boys and I will deal with you quickly.”       “What are you talking about?” Terrence puts his hands on his hips. “Why are you so sure, honorable?”       “Exactly!” Edward exclaims. “Do you think my boys and I can’t kick your asses with the same anger as Peter’s?”       “You are not dangerous to us,” Bob says confidently. “Moreover, there are two times more of us. So, you have no chance against us.”       “Oh, oh, guys, look how these cowards puffed their tails after they got help,” Daniel laughs contemptuously.       “Maybe the guys are a little tired, but we’re super cheerful now,” Luther replies. “After we fucked the gal by one. The dead one from now on.”       “Rest in peace, dolly!” David exclaims, sending an air kiss to the ceiling. “You spread your legs fucking well!”       “Yeah, where did you lose another pal of yours?” Terrence frowns slightly, crossing his arms over his chest. “The bastard, who licks Marcus’ ass so fucking hard that it’s bald now. And as far as I remember, you had one more friend. Ivan, I think…”       “Indeed, bouncers, why didn’t ya invite him to our party?” Edward sneers evilly.       “Uh-huh, your lord forgot him at all. Didn’t he polish his ass with his tongue enough so that it didn’t shine brighter than a diamond?”       “Don’t worry, MacClife, when Elijah does his business, he will be happy to join us and celebrate a long-awaited triumph of Marcus Longbottom,” Darren assures.       “And Ivan…” Luther pronounces thoughtfully. “Ivan is a betrayer. He really betrayed the lord when he dared to go against him by wishing to stand by you. And he paid a high price for this. The guys and I made sure about it personally.”       “M-m-m, wow…” Edward puts his hands on his hips. “Do you and your lord have a silent competition for breaking a worldwide record for the number of murdered people? Though I doubt you will win, knowing that the old bastard spent several years killing more than two hundred people. Judging by the official version. I dare to think there might be more than five hundred victims.”       “Hey, barking kid, shut your fucking mouth up!” Shawn roars.       “You shut up if you don’t want the guys and me to put your heads in your asses. So, you get tired of getting them out of them.”       “It’s alright, freaks, you have a little time to show off,” Darren laughs evilly. “Since the gal burned alive and was exploded, the list of our missions gets shorter. We will deal with you next. And we will kill Rose, no matter if he is out of his mind.”       “Even if your dear Marcus brings a whole army here, we will not give up anyway,” Daniel states confidently. “We will fight until the very end.”       “Uh-huh, after your friend almost ripped your balls and guts and cut your heads,” Ronald laughs with mockery.       “We aren’t mad at him,” Edward says. “He can wound, shoot, and make disabled one hundred times, but we will not stop protecting him. We will not stop taking care of him. We will always be ready to sacrifice for Peter.”       “Ugh, I’m gonna vomit because of this nobility,” Bob winces strongly, waving his hand in front of his nose as if he feels a disgusting smell.       “Not at us, please,” Terrence says. “We don’t want to get infected with something. Who knows where you walk and with whom.”       “Alright, men, stop taking shit!” Luther exclaims cheerfully. “It’s time to end this brave company.”       “Yeah, do this at last!” Marcus pronounces as he gets downstairs to the basement and gets the attention of everyone. “We have spent too much time, even if I planned to end it all quickly.”       “So, honorable, you want to join our fight, too?” Daniel asks. “You want us to beat your face, too?”       “I doubt that you have the strength to fight with an old man at the age of almost sixty. My guys got you super exhausted, and my dear Theodore settled up a real chaos here.” Marcus sneers evilly, stroking down his hair. “Just like his dad did thirty years ago. Ah, I still madly love the feeling when everyone hates you and shakes in front of you.”       “If you liked the feeling when someone hits your head against the wall, it would be a compliment for us,” Edward snaps.       “Fear nothing, my loyal boys!” Marcus exclaims with his head proudly raised, clapping Luther and Darren on the shoulder. “These three are super exhausted and can’t run after you as fast as they did before. Besides, they are not dangerous to you now. They will do nothing to you alone and all together.”       “M-m-m, if only you knew how wrong you are,” Daniel protests. “We are very dangerous. Mortally dangerous. Especially when some bastards harm our close people.”       “Does it make sense to wave your hands when it’s too late to change something?” Shawn surprises. “The gal died! You can’t bring her back! She doesn’t fucking care about your attempts to seem sassy. And Rose’s hysterics will not make her feel better or worse. Nothing will change.”       “We don’t wave our wings for fun, white sheep,” Edward replies with a certain hint. “We fight for justice and dignity. For saving the lives of our close people. So, no bastards dare to touch us even with a finger.”       “Alright, guys, if it helps you accept what’s inevitable, it’s fine,” Marcus says quietly. “All weak cowards start to pretend to be sassy when they understand they are in danger. Trust me, I’ve seen many people like these. But it did not help them a lot.”       “Think what you want,” Terrence replies confidently. “But we are not cowards. And we’re ready to fight you. No matter how many people you bring here. Five, ten, or one hundred – we give a fuck. We’ve got a goal and will be aiming to reach it, whatever it takes.”       “Guys, catch these pretty boys now,” Marcus orders with a sly smile. “Make cutlets out of them and bring them to me. I want their dead bodies to lie at my feet as soon as possible.”       “And we want to see you all smiling in jail,” Daniel states. “And we want to watch you, honorable, get executed.”       “Kill these bastards. NOW! GET THEIR FUCKING SKIN! I WANT THEIR BODIES TO LIE AT MY FEET IN FIVE MINUTES!”       After screaming the last words, Marcus pushes Ronald and Luther in the back so that they get close enough to Edward and Daniel, who strike them down with a hit of the foot in the solar plexus and a hit of the fist against the jaw.       “M-m-m, look, it seems like we have some brave folks here,” Edward smirks. “Even if they’ve been thrown in the fire by force.”       “WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING WAITING FOR, BASTARDS?” Marcus explodes. “TWO HITS IN THE FACE BEFORE THEY ARE YOURS!”       “We aren’t tired at all, just saying,” Terrence replies. “We can chase you ‘til the night.”       “It’s alright, you will start dying from tiredness right now,” David states. “I have as much energy as never ever.”       “AT-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-ACK!” Darren roars at the top of his lungs.       All the accomplices run on different sides and attack Daniel, Edward, and Terrence with fists. The guys accept the challenge bravely and start fighting off the opponents cruelly with hands and feet, and use everything they see in their way. Despite a slight tiredness and pain in the whole body after the long and intense fight, the friends tell themselves not to think about it and to fight as if their whole life depends on it. Yes, they miss hits and are now covered with blood and bruises, but it does not stop them. Even if the three men have to fight with not one, but two or even three opponents, and answer back in time.       “C’mon, idiots, CATCH THEM!” Marcus demands, standing aside and watching the fight. “STOP MISSING HITS! HIT HARDER AND CRUELER! YOU ARE NOT IN A FUCKING KINDERGARTEN!”       “So, doesn’t the killer of innocent people want to join us?” Terrence surprises, smashing his fist against Shawn’s fist and hitting Bob in the chest with his foot. “It would be a great honor for us!”       “Yeah, honorable, why are you hiding behind the backs of young guys like a coward?” Daniel agrees, hitting Darren on the head with his foot and smashing his fist against Darren’s groin. “Join us!”       “We’re assuring you, it’s gonna be super fun!” Edward exclaims, hits David in the temple with his foot in a jump with a twist, and hits Ronald in the nose. “You won’t regret it!”       “It’s alright, bastards, you have a little time to show up,” Darren hisses through his teeth, and wants to hit Edward in the face with his fist, but gets into Bob’s face because the guy pushes him aside sharply. “Fuck!”       “Oops, sorry, I wanted to throw you against the wall but pushed you so that you hit your forehead against your pal’s one,” Terrence smiles slyly, grabbing David by the collar and hitting his forehead against Luther’s one.       “Ah, fuck!” Shawn swears when Daniel hits his head against the wall and then gives him a hit of the fist against his stomach and pushes him off himself with a hit of the foot, so that he falls and pulls Ronald after himself. “It hurts…”       “You hear a crack, buddy?” Edward asks and hits David on the head with an iron pan that he finds in the bunch. “It’s your brain breaking! I mean the rest of it.”       “Ugh!” Bob squeaks when Edward hits him with the pan against the face, so that he gets thrown two meters aside and strikes Darren down.       “Oh, oh, who’s coming here so bravely?” Daniel sneers evilly, throws Ronald over his shoulder skillfully, and puts him on the scapula painfully. “Haven’t you peed your pants from fear, buddy?”       “What the FUCK?” David resents as he is lying on the floor and squeaks when he gets a hit of the foot on his nose from Terrence, who hits Shawn coming to him from behind in the gut with his elbow. “FUCK!”       “MY BACK!” Luther screams when he gets a hit of the fist to the small of his back from Edward and falls to the floor after being hit on the back of his head with a baton. “Ar-r-r-r…”       “Fuck yourself!” Ronald throws rudely, doubling over and starting to run his eyes energetically when Daniel sprays them with something and strikes him down with a hit of his foot in his stomach. “Ar-r-r-r, MY EYES!”       “HOW DO YOU DARE TO FIGHT LIKE THIS?” Marcus gets enraged, clapping his hand on the table. “PUT YOURSELF TOGETHER! WHAT KIND OF FUCKING KINDERGARTEN!”       “It’s impossible to defeat them, Mr. Longbottom!” Ronald complains, wipes blood under his nose sharply, and runs aside sharply when Terrence wants to hit him strongly with the chair. “They’re as aggressive as Rose! As sick and restless as he is!”       “Uh-huh, the men peed for the reason…” David pronounces in a little shaking voice, barely managing to dodge from the boxing Daniel keeping a fighting position to protect his vulnerable areas.       “A-a-a-a, they’re all fucking crazy!” Shawn squeaks when Edward catches him after a short run, grabs him by the collar, and throws him on the table that falls along with everything on it.       “GET THEM AWAY FROM ME!” Darren whoops hysterically, stepping back with widely open eyes, while Terrence comes to him confidently with a knife that he wraps in his hands, literally making a hole in his forehead with his icy glance. “PSYCHES!”       “A-a-a-a-a, fuck all of you!” Luther jabs excitedly, chucking nervously with a heavy breath when Edward burns a wooden stick quietly with a lighter and points it at the cellophane film hanging on the wall. “I’m giving up! I'm getting out of here!”       “Me too!” Bob adds, looking at Daniel with widely open eyes full of horror, when the man pulls the rope with a cold look, as if he says he is going to tighten it tightly around his neck. “Fuck it all! My life is more important to me!”       After pushing Daniel aside, Bob rushes to the stairs that lead up. But he gets caught by Marcus, who grabs him by the collar.       “Hey, where are you going?” Marcus asks surprisingly and pulls Bob far from the stairs. “Have you put the bodies of these bastards already?”       When Marcus sees Luther trying to escape as fast as he can, he trips him up so that he falls to the floor shortly.       ‘I said the battle IS NOT OVER!”       “S-s-sorry, Mr. Longbottom, but we can n-n-nothing,” Bob excuses himself in a shaking voice. “All these assholes are crazy. The pully is about to burn everything to the fuck.”       “Are you all FUCKING CRAZY HERE, BASTARDS?” Marcus gets enraged when he sees Shawn trying to run away, as well. “WHERE ARE YOU THE FUCK GOING?”       “Hey, guys, where are ya going?” Edward asks surprisingly, coming to Marcus and his accomplices trying to escape with the burning stick. “Do you really think you can run away from us? C’mon, come to me! Pip, pip, pip!”       “A-A-A-A, GET THEE BEHIND ME, EVIL SPIRIT!” Darren squeaks in a high voice, hiding behind Marcus’s back. “OLLY, OLLY OXEN FREE!”       “Stop, everyone!” Daniel exclaims, holding the button on the electric gun that releases an electric wave in the air with cracks. “We haven’t done with you! You have a planned castration! No anesthesia. You can’t cancel your visit due to the glitch of the system.”       “PENIS IN MY MOUTH!” Ronald squeaks, running aside and pulling Luther being also scared with him.       “BASTARDS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”  Marcus roars. “YOU CANNOT FEAR THEM! THEY WILL DO NOTHING TO YOU!”       David’s eye starts shaking when he glances at Terrence, who points at his eyes and then at him, and runs it threateningly over his throat as if he says he is dead.       “Indeed, sir, let’s just give a fuck about it?” David laughs nervously. “C-c-confess that we have l-l-lost…”       “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Marcus explodes with widely open eyes, moving his icy look to David. “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS NOW?”       “Honorable, why don’t you want to fight us face to face?” Terrence challenges. “Since your friends decided to leave you in such a shameless way, find the courage to fight yourself.”       “I don’t fear you, bastards,” Marcus states tensely. “I don’t meddle because I save my strength to get rid of my biggest enemy. That is now lying unconscious in the corner of the basement thanks to one of his friends.”       “M-m-m, what a true excuse for your cowardice and hesitation,” Edward smiles slyly. “If you want to take revenge so much, do this by yourself, not with someone's help.”       “I don’t have time for these stupid talks. GUYS, PUT YOURSELF TOGETHER NOW AND CATCH THESE ASSHOLES NOW! SO THEY LIE HERE AS WELL AS THEODORE!”       “Don’t count on them,” Daniel says confidently. “Their pants and underwear are wet from fear. They aren’t only afraid to fuck the helpless girl. They are too weak to fight tough men.”       To straighten the effect, Edward starts growling like a tiger loudly, making the pale and scared accomplices of Marcus jump back and put their heads on their shoulders.       “Alright, men, do what you want, but I’m getting out!” Shawn exclaims. “I am done with this shit that I don’t get any benefits from. And actually, I have a child! I need to raise my daughter!”       Shawn moves off sharply, gets upstairs quickly, and starts pulling the handle of the door that, as it turned out, has been locked by Marcus after entering here.       “Hey, open the door!” Shawn demands with a heavy breath. “Open! LET ME OUT OF HERE”!       “Mr. Longbottom, open the door!” Bob begs, deciding to follow Shawn. “Let us out of here!”       “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BASTARDS?” Marcus gets enraged. “YOU ARE AFRAID OF SOME RATS! COCKROACHES YOU CAN CRUSH WITH YOUR FOOT!”       “Cowards!” Terrence exclaims. “Weak! You are only brave when you fuck girls!”       Bob and Shawn start pulling the handle much harder and trying to open the locked door when Terrence gets upstairs with a knife in his hand, using it to terrify the men, who grab each other’s arms tightly and look aside scarily with the thought that they have no place to run.       “M-m-mommy…” Bob pronounces in a shaking voice.       “No…” Ronald jabs excitedly when Daniel and Edward start coming to him, Luther, David, Darren, and Luther determinedly. “No, no, no, don’t do this…”       “C-c-calm d-down, m-m-men, q-q-quiet…” Luther pronounces tensely, stepping back along with his friends. “Let’s solve it all quietly and peacefully and say g-g-goodbye…”       “We would’ve accepted to conclude a deal earlier,” Edward replies coldly in a low voice. “But now it’s impossible. Because you killed our friend. You dared to take the life of our close person.”       “It’s not u-u-us, it’s the l-l-lord…” Darren jabs with a heavy breath. “He made us…”       “Uh-huh, we give a fuck about Marshall, Rose, and all of you,” David agrees. “We don’t care if you’re alive or dead. We have a lot of t-t-things to do.”       “Uh-huh, and didn't you come up with an idea of getting your whistles in the girl against her will?” Daniel resents. “You probably suggested it! Because it itched fucking hard!”       “No, it’s not the truth!” Darren protests. “Mr. Longbottom made us rape Helene! He wanted her to live in torture at that abandoned house.”       “Lie!” Marcus protests. “You were running and jumping around me, begging me to let you play with the gal and fuck her as much as you want!”       “But Elijah barely persuaded him to let the gal eat a little,” Bob confesses. “And he was just allowed to give her a little bottle of water, a couple of sandwiches, and pieces of fruit. And he told us to torture her with starvation for most of the time.”       “M-m-m, look, we’re getting full confessions,” Terrence smiles slyly. “We’re getting closer to making you collaborate with the police.”       “What are you doing, fucking bastards?” Marcus gets kind of green from anger, clenching his hands into fists tightly. “WHO LET YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH?”       “Sorry, sir, but you have gone too far,” Shawn states determinedly. “It’s time to forget it all and let it go. Accept the fact that your wife is gone, and your son is not guilty of her death.”       “WHAT? HOW DO YOU, ASSHOLE, DARE?”       With these words, Marcus gets upstairs, grabs Shawn by the collar, and pushes him so rudely that the man falls from the last stairs to the floor.       “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” Marcus slaps Shawn in the face. “YOU WILL ALL PAY ME FOR THIS! I SHALL DESTROY ALL OF YOU!”       “Oh, if you’re ready to accept our challenge, we will be happy to show you where you belong,” Edward says with his head proudly raised.       “Yeah, bring here your old wrinkled ass!” Daniel exclaims. “Shake the dust off you! Show us you can still rock on.”       “I shall teach you…” Marcus hisses through his teeth. “I shall teach you to respect the older people. Teach you to keep your mouth shut when they speak. I shall… EVERYONE!”       Marcus gets upstairs in a sharp, wide step to attack Terrence, who points the knife at him with no hesitation.       “Quiet, quiet, don’t move,” Terrence says in a calm voice, clinks his tongue. “Do not move.”       “Don’t tell me what to do, six-foot-tall column,” Marcus threatens with a finger. “You are still wet behind the ears and can’t teach older people.”       “Ha, but you have had everything dry and dead for ages! And rotten! So, you have no other way but to find a couple of ass-lickers that peed their pants from fear and left you eventually.”       “You are walking on the edge of the blade. I advise you to keep your mouth shut if you don’t want problems.”       “Who would give them to me? Your friends don’t want to please you anymore! But you are afraid to do something!”       Marcus growls irritably and moves his eyes to Luther, David, Ronald, Shawn, Bob, and Darren, who keep their eyes widely open as they look at Edward and Daniel keeping them in view and threatening them with an electric gun and a lighter.       “Fine, since these bastards turned out to be cowards, I have to deal with you all by myself,” Marcus says determinedly. “And I shall start with you, bastard.”       Marcus grabs the knife in Terrence’s hands with his hands and tries to take it by force, while the man actively resists. But at some moment, they let go of the weapon and keep fighting hand in hand, while it rolls on the stairs. Daniel takes the knife quickly when he notices it and starts threatening the accomplices of Mr. Longbottom, who shake and shout at the sight of Edward releasing the electric wave in the air by holding the button on the electric gun.       “No, no, don’t do this, please!” Darren begs desperately. “Don’t do this! We want to live!”       “You put your tails between your legs too quickly,” Edward laughs contemptuously. “You turned out to be the most cowardly opponents we had ever had.”       “C’mon, men, let’s solve it all quietly,” David suggests. “What would we start fights without rules here? It’s not worth it anyway!”       “How easy you are ready to go against your lord,” Daniel notices thoughtfully. “Hm… Something is definitely not right…”       “We do say, we give a fuck about his business!” Luther exclaims. “If not for him, we wouldn’t hurt you, your pal, and his girlfriend!”       “Uh-huh, I would keep raising my daughter!” Shawn adds. “She has lived with her grandparents since her mother died. But I can’t watch her all the time. I’ve got too much work.”       “So, did you decide to start a riot because you didn’t get the required amount of money on your bank card?” Edward surprises. “You didn’t get the money your lord got from selling his own child to slavery!”       “Listen, we will do anything you say, but don’t kill us,” Ronald promises in a little shaking voice. “We… We will tell you where we were hiding the gal. We will tell you where she was all the time.”       “Does it make sense?” Daniel explodes. “Helene is dead anyway! You killed her! She burned in the fire you started!”       “Yeah, but…” Bob stutters. “Maybe, it will help the police… So you… Bury the girl the way she should be… So she gets… A grave…”       “We are really very sorry!” Shawn swears excitedly. “We didn’t want to kill and torture her! We barely held ourselves down when she begged us to pity her and let her go.”       “M-m-m, you would say anything to run away from responsibility,” Edward throws gloomily.       “If the police catch us and get us arrested, we’re ready to pay,” Ronald states. “Ready to tell them everything. Ready to help them investigate the case.”       “We will even tell them about all the tricks of Marcus,” Bob promises. “About him killing our friends when they go against him. Including Ivan, whom you talked about. We will tell them about all his attempts to kill Peter. He tried to kill him several times, but he met a failure all the time.”       “Yes, it’s been happening for several years!” Luther confirms. “After felling the child to some bastards, he lived for a long time with the thought that the boy was dead. But one day, Marcus learned about Peter and the band he played in. And when he met the alcoholic woman who raised him and got the confirmation of the fact that he was his son, the lord was obsessed with the thought of killing him.”       “He tried to spit acid over him, pit the fighting dog on him, and explode his car,” Shawn confesses. “And Marcus convinced the man, who worked at the hospital, to kill Peter when he tried to commit suicide. Well… They transfused the blood… The first time was good, but he got suddenly worse after the man did something during the second one. That’s why Rose got sharply worse. His blood was infected with something mortal that the doctors tried to get rid of with huge doses of antibiotics.”       “We know it, thank you,” Daniel replies coldly. “Now you will tell the policeman about all of this, sitting all together in the office and having a degree.”       “WE WILL DO ANYTHING, BUT DON’T KILL US!” Bob screams hysterically, falling to his knees and raising his hands. “WE WANT TO LIVE! WE DON’T WANT TO DIE!”       “PLEASE, GUYS, PLEASE!” Luther, Bob, Ronald, David, Darren, and Shawn scream at the same time. “DON’T KILL US! DON’T DO THIS! PLEASE!”       “BETRAYERS!” Marcus explodes, still fighting Terrence hand in hand. “BASTARDS! YOU WILL PAY ME FOR THIS!”       “I wonder what you are going to do now?” Terrence sneers evilly. “Who will help you fulfill your desired revenge?”       “It’s alright, I shall do this! JUST LIKE I DID IT MANY YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS KILLING PEOPLE! AND I SHALL DO THE SAME TO ALL OF YOU NOW!”       Marcus fights Terrence hand in hand for some time, while the man sometimes glances down, standing on the edge of the stairs that he may fall from at any time. He tries so hard to go aside, but the criminal does not let him do this, as if he understands everything.       “Watch out, Terrence!” Edward warns loudly. “You’re standing on the edge of the stairs!”       “Don’t fall, buddy!” Daniel exclaims. “You’re really walking on the edge of the blade!”       “Don’t worry, guys, I control everything,” Terrence assures. “You better watch these boneheads before they come up with something.”       “A great self-confidence has never led to anything good,” Marcus says. “And now you will SEE IT PERSONALLY, BASTARD!”       Marcus slaps Terrence in the face and then just pushes him strongly off the high stairs. The man can do nothing to keep his balance and starts falling down, hitting all the parts of his body painfully against the stairs. When he rolls on the floor, he just keeps lying motionless with a heavy enough breath, but does not lose consciousness.       “Terrence!” Edward and Daniel shout at the same time with horror in their eyes.       Edward moves off first and rushes to Terrence lying on his back and wincing strongly in pain that echoes in every part of his body every time he barely moves.       “Hey, Terrence, how are you?” Edward starts jabbing after he falls to his knees beside Terrence and puts his hand, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Alive?”       “My back!” Terrence shakes, tensing all the parts of his body with a heavy breath. “Something’s wrong with my back!”       “It hurts?” Daniel expresses anxiety when he also gets down to his knees beside Terrence.       “A lot…” Terrence winces in a suffering way when he barely moves. “Ugh, it echoes in all the parts of mine!”       “Damn, I hope it’s not a spinal fracture!” Daniel prays. “Otherwise, it’s gonna be a full disability!”       “And it echoes in my neck…” Terrence complains, clenching his hands tightly into fists. “Ugh, fuck…”       “Can you move your legs and hands?” Edward specifies.       “I can… But the pain is fucking strong as if I hit my little finger against the corner. Or something worse…”       “Let’s hope it’s just a bruise.”       While Terrence keeps lying on the floor and suffering from the pain in his back, Marcus gets downstairs as if nothing happened, pulling down his t-shirt with a proud look.       “Alright, the mission gets easier,” Marcus says quietly. “It’s easier to deal with the one to be half-disabled than the one who is as healthy as fuck.”       “Don’t be so naive, honorable,” Daniel replies confidently, gets up on his feet, and starts threatening Marcus with a knife. “You will not bring Edward and me down. All alone.”       “When I was young, I killed two or three people at the same time. So, getting rid of you and this kid is going to be super easy for me.”       “If my brother becomes disabled because of you, you, bastard, will be paying for his therapy for the rest of your life!” Edward states loudly, keeping his hand on Terrence’s head. “I shall not close my eyes to this!”       “Alright, shut up there, puppy, and watch your brother. Without whom you will always be nothing.”       “Hey, bastard, shut your fucking rotten mouth down!” Daniel throws rudely. “Don't dare to insult my friends and especially ATTACK them!”       “Don’t worry, I shall break your skull, too. Just wait for your time.”       “No, I shall break all your bones. You killed my friend, turned my friend against the guys and me, and made the guy suffer from severe pain in his back. YOU HAVE MADE ME FUCKING FURIOUS BY ALL OF THIS!”       “What would you do to me, plucked roster?” Marcus laughs contemptuously.       “I can do a lot. I can even murder.”       “You would be weak for this. Just like all your friends.”       “Wrong, I would cut anyone’s throat for my brothers,” Daniel says in a low, rude voice. “Even if it’s an old bastard who is out of his mind and cannot calm down, even at the age when he has just two Mondays to live.”       “Of course, I didn’t think the guys would betray me. I was sure they would be by my side until the end. But it will not stop me anyway. It will not stop me from my wish to bring this case to an end and accomplish all my missions. I do hate leaving without putting a dot. AND I SHALL NOT DO THIS!”       Marcus grabs the knife with both hands and tries to take it from Daniel, who starts showing resistance immediately. Either the age difference impacts, or he is full of too much anger caused by the death of his friend and his friends’ suffering, but the guy amazingly easily gets the weapon out of the opponent’s hands and pushes him off himself with a hit on the chest with a foot. And when he throws the knife aside, he starts a cruel hand-to-hand fight with Mr. Longbottom, during which they share hits with feet and hands and protect their heads, faces, and other vulnerable parts of the body.       Meanwhile, Edward watches what’s happening and stays with Terrence, whom he helps sit up carefully at some moment. At first, he just caresses his brother on the back or shoulder, but then he asks him to take off the coat and shirt to see how global the catastrophe is.       “The bones aren’t kinda broken, no fracture,” Edward says thoughtfully after he feels up the painful area carefully. “Though there’s a bright spot, and this area spreads the strong heat. There will be a bruise, I guess.”       “Ugh, don’t press so strongly!” Terrence winces. “It hurts!”       “Anyway, you have to visit a traumatologist and get X-rays and an MRI. You may even have to get several massage sessions.”       “Uh-huh, if we get out of here…”       “We will, don’t worry!” Edward puts the coat on Terrence’s shoulders, claps him on the head, and ruffles his hair. “We’ll fix you so you run like crazy again.”       “Ar-r-r, shut up, idiot…”       “Sorry, bro, I’ve gotta help Daniel deal with this old man before he comes up with something else. But you sit here and try not to move a lot.”       Edward gets up quickly and joins the fight between Daniel and Marcus, whom he hits determinedly with a short electric wave by putting the electric gun that everyone forgot about against his scapula. After falling to the floor with a painful moan, he pulls the guy after himself and starts fighting him hand in hand after falling over him, trying to ignore the pain. However, MacClife, Jr. sets himself free with no problems by hitting his knee against his groin and puts the opponent on the back, while the old man doubles over from pain.       “He’s got a mild bruise,” Edward addresses Daniel with a heavy breath. “No fracture.”       “We’ll drive him to the hospital when everything ends,” Daniel replies quietly. “And fix ourselves a little.”       “First, we’ve gotta get out of here. Deal with this bastard.”       “Agree…” Daniel glances aside, seeing Peter still lying unconscious on the floor far from here. “And Rose is gonna wake up soon. And start nobody the hell knows what.”       “You will not bring me down…” Marcus says after he gets up on his feet. “I SHALL NOT LET YOU GET A VICTORY! NEVER! NEVER!”       Marcus starts laughing loudly, hysterically, and evilly, making Daniel and Edward stare at him in surprise with a fear that this man may do something horrible here.       “Since everyone I need and those who betrayed me are here, I have a WONDERFUL chance to kill all of you at THE SAME TIME. Including Theodore, the killer of MY BELOVED JULIA!”       After looking around quickly, Marcus grabs the lighter thrown by someone and finds a small canister with a sign warning about being highly flammable in the corner of the basement.       “That’s what I need…” Marcus laughs hysterically as he comes to Edward and Daniel tensing all their muscles, getting sharply pale from horror, and opening their eyes widely. “So what… Are you ready to fly high, as well as your friend did?”       At this moment, Terrence sitting on the floor oohs quietly with a heavy breath, while Daniel hugs Edward tightly and goes two steps away from him.       “I just need to burn this canister or spit what’s inside on the floor to settle down the real chaos here. To deal with all of you, finally. To finally say my revenge has become real, and justice has been restored.”       “It’s not justice, it’s craziness!” Terrence protests. “Fucking dotage!”       “Don’t do this, Mr. Longbottom, don’t do stupid things,” Luther says excitedly, still standing aside with his friends, who press themselves to each other like little children. “Calm down, please.”       “SHUT UP!” Marcus roars. “NO MORE WORDS, FUCKING BETRAYERS!”       “Pity us, sir…” Bob begs. “We don’t want to die…”       “I have a child!” Shawn squeaks. “I can't leave my daughter!”       “You will have to!” Marcus exclaims. “You will have to pay for your betrayal. Just like those who dared to go against me, did. Those who wanted to tell the police that I killed innocent people. Those who wanted to warn Theodore about someone who was haunting him. Everyone who excuses the killer of my wife. They are all now rotten in the ground.”       “The police will know you have never stopped killing people!” Shawn states. “You just do this much rarer and more carefully. But we do know how many guys you have murdered. How many friends have become the victims of your hysterics.”       “And you dared to betray me even if you KNEW WELL what I did to those who betrayed. You feared one bastard at first, but then you feared three more. THOUGH YOU COULD HAVE KILLED THEM FOR ONE MINUTE!”       “With all due respect, sir, you must stop it,” Darren says determinedly. “Accept it! What happened, stayed in the past.”       “DO NOT DARE TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”       Marcus brings the lighter that is not burning yet to the canister, making everyone feel that a strong frost runs over the skin and squeezes every part of them.       “I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF! BECAUSE YOU CANNOT THE FUCK DO ANYTHING!”       “Enough, honorable!” Edward cuts off rudely. “Stop ruining your life much more! You are already about to get executed for all the evil things you have done.”       “NOBODY WILL CATCH ME!” Marcus roars. “NEVER! OVER MY DEAD BODY! ONLY! OVER! MY! DEAD! BO-O-O-O-O-O-DY!”       Marcus opens the canister and spits everything from it on some tables and shelves placed in the basement, while his literal hostages look at each other with horror in their eyes. The former accomplices of the criminal press themselves to each other, Edward gets down to his knees beside Terrence and hugs him tightly, and Daniel holds both of them by the shoulders.       “Die… You will all die here… I shall do my best to make it happen, bastards… You will all pay me for everything…”       After spilling everything out, Marcus throws the canister aside, takes a medium-sized box from one of the shelves, burns it, and comes to the reserved door.       “ENJOY THE FIRE SHOW! AND DIE WITH TORTURES, BASTARDS!”       Scaring everyone with his loud, hysterical laugh, Marcus throws the burning box right at the place where he spilled the flaming liquid before. That’s why the bright fire starts in the basement immediately and catches everything in its way. Luther, Ronald, Bob, David, Shawn, and Darren start screaming painfully like scared girls and run to the place the fire has not reached yet. Edward looks around to find something to save himself, Daniel, and Terrence as he watches what’s happening with a heavy breath.       “A-A-A-A-A, HELP!” Roland squeaks. “SOS! I FEAR FIRE! I FEAR!”       “MAMMA!” Luther screams with his widely open eyes. “WE WILL ALL DIE HERE!”       “No panic!” Edward orders loudly. “Find water, blankets, and everything that can help us extinguish the fire!”       Edward runs to one of the tables and starts searching it to find something necessary, throwing everything he sees with no regret. But when he finds nothing good, he checks all the corners where there is nothing either. Not thinking a lot, Daniel joins him and tries to find something in the room that gets caught in the bright fire and thick smoke rapidly.       “Rags!” Daniel exclaims. “Take the rags and close your mouth and nose! Otherwise, you will choke! Just like Helene did! Quick!”       With these words, Daniel finds the thick rag covered with a thick layer of dust not far from himself, tears it into several pieces, and gives them to everyone. Edward tries to break the door that leads outside, hitting it strongly with his foot again and again on the area under the handle. And after a few attempts, it leads to a good result since it bends slightly.       “Hold on!” Edward exclaims. “We will get out of here now!”       “Look, Marcus is running away!” Terrence shouts, pointing at Marcus, who leaves the basement quickly, getting upstairs and closing the door behind himself.       “Ugh, fuck him!” Darren throws. “We’ve gotta get out of here before everything turns to ash here!”       When Edward manages to break the door with a powerful hit of his foot in a jump, Luther Ronald, Darren, David, Shawn, and Bob move off sharply and rush to the exit, pushing, punching, and aiming to leave first. And a few seconds later, they disappear, and Edward himself, whom they strike down, Daniel and Terrence stay here together. Well, including the unconscious Peter, on the face of whom Perkins did not forget to put on the rag not to let him choke.       “Faster, guys!” Edward orders determinedly, getting up on his feet. “Get out of here!”       “We must not leave Peter!” Terrence exclaims. “We must take him away from here!”       “I will do this!” Daniel exclaims. “But you, Edward, help Terrence!”       “A-a-a-a, fuck I ain’t lucky to have my back hurt!” Terrence growls irritably.       “No time to complain and moan!” Edward replies and ties the rag on his face not to smell the smoke, which starts watering his eyes. “Grab your feet and go! And don’t remove the rag!”       With these words, Edward runs to Terrence and, holding him tightly, helps him get up on his feet slowly. Then he quickly but carefully brings him to the broken door, while his brother closes his mouth and nose with the rag, trying so hard not to think of the pain in his back that is the reason why he can barely move.       Coughing quietly and choking from the smoke, Daniel takes an example from his friend and ties the rag on Peter’s face and then on his own face. Next, Perkins raises his unconscious friend to his feet and decides just to hold him at first. But then he makes an effort to place the guy on his back and follow the MacClife brothers, barely jumping aside on the way when a burning piece of a shelf falls right in front of him. Nevertheless, Daniel successfully comes to the reserved exit and ends up outside after getting upstairs. Edward is waiting for him already after seating Terrence on the small stump and hugging his brother by the shoulders, while the man winces strongly and can barely take the burning pain, because of which he can barely move. The younger of the MacClife brothers helps Daniel carefully remove Peter from his back and puts the unconscious guy carefully on the side with his help. Then Perkins puts his hand on his forehead with a sharp exhalation, putting his second hand on his hip and trying to catch a breath.       “We did it, I guess…” Daniel says tiredly with a heavy breath, removing the rag from himself.       “Hey, didn’t he die there?” Terrence expresses anxiety. “Isn’t Rose supposed to wake up now?”       “Nope, he’s alive,” Edward replies after he feels the pulse on Peter’s neck, removes the rag from his face, and brings his hand to his nose to check on his breath. “The pulse is weak and faint, but the breath is rare and brief.”       “Okay, what do we do now?” Daniel asks.       “Have no idea…” Edward gets up on his feet and puts his hand on his stomach as he tries to catch his breath. “Though I have just one idea – to go to the hospital.”       “Oh, at least I’m happy I can feel all the parts of my body,” Terrence notices. “If I had my spine fractured, I could throw all my plans in a trash can.”       “Hey, brother, I told you to be careful! You were standing right on the edge of the stairs!”       “My blame, you’re right. That old man turned out to be too stubborn.”       “Alright, guys, stop talking,” Daniel says determinedly. “We’ve gotta get out of here before everything explodes here to the fuck.”       “Uh-huh, otherwise, we’ll go after Helene to the afterlife,” Terrence agrees.       “These cowards have already gotten out, but we’re still here.”       “Yeah, they peed their pants fucking hard when Pete literally terrorized them,” Edward exhales sharply. “Running away like rabbits when…”       But Edward does not speak his mind because a male voice stops him loudly:       “Stop! Do not move! The police! Hands up!”       Edward, Daniel, and Terrence shake slightly and raise their hands up when several people in police suits point the weapons at them.       “Is there someone else here?” one of the policemen specifies.       “No, nobody,” Edward shakes his head. “Those who were here have already escaped.”       “The fire is in the basement!” another policeman exclaims. “Call the fire department now!”       “There is nobody else there,” Daniel specifies. “We managed to get out by ourselves.”       “Check the whole territory out!” the third policeman orders. “What if there is someone else!”       “Do you know where the criminals ran?” another policeman asks.       “No, sadly,” Terrence shakes his head.       “Alright.” The policeman takes his ration to say something. “We found four young men. They were probably hostages of the criminals who escaped. They managed to run away from the basement where the furious fire started.”       “How long has this guy been unconscious?” one of the policemen asks, checking the pulse on Peter’s neck.       “Not very long,” Daniel replies. “We had to hit him with an electric gun when he went insane and started to behave non-adequately.”       “What do you mean?”       “Long story, huh. But I think he will wake up soon.”       “Alright, we will figure it out now. And you three go there. Someone is waiting for you.”       “Us?” Terrence frowns slightly.       “They will explain everything to you. And if you need medical care, let us know it.”       “Yes, please,” Edward says gently. “My brother fell off the stairs and hit his back strongly. I don’t think there is a fracture, but he feels severe pain and can barely move.”       “I got it. I shall work on this.”       “Thanks, Mr. Policeman.”       While the policemen talk to Edward, Daniel, and Daniel, Peter starts to wake up little by little, making a quiet, painful moan, moving every part of his body slowly, and opening his eyes barely but seeing everything very unclearly. After just lying for two seconds, the guy sits up carefully, puts his hand on his forehead, and shakes his head with a slight dizziness, looking at the people in the police suits surprisingly and trying to understand what happened while he was unconscious. At some moment, he feels the smell of smoke that his t-shirt spread and opens his eyes widely when he sees that the door is taken off the hinges, and the thick smoke gets out of the room.       However, Peter does not get stuck on it for too long and starts looking closely at everybody he sees far from himself, getting horrified by his beaten friends and not understanding why Terrence winces every time he moves as if he holds down the severe pain. Things are getting clearer in his mind, and he gets the memories of himself trying to kill the guys seriously. That’s why he holds his breath, his whole body squeezes painfully, his heartbeat gets faster, and his skin gets sharply pale. The guy breathing heavily gets terribly ashamed of everything he did in the affective condition and does not believe he could bring his friends to such a horrible condition.       “No…” Peter blunts quietly and faintly under his nose. “No… I could not… I could not… It can't be the truth…”       Peter moves his eyes slowly to his shaking hands and opens his eyes widely, seeing all the bloody wounds gotten from the friends, who tried to wake him up in a cruel enough way. At some moment, he looks at Daniel, Edward, and Terrence again and feels that his panic starts growing inside and makes his sense of dizziness stronger and stronger. All Rose wants is to be small and invisible. Wants nobody to notice him. Not to point at him and reproach him for what he did. Not to reproach him for daring to harm his close friends seriously, so that they got such different wounds as bruises, wounds, blood spots, and burns, and have their clothes ripped in some areas.       Peter’s terrible psychological condition gets much worse because of the memories of the fire and explosion that happened right before his eyes in the house where the criminals held Helene. The realization of the fact that she died. He cannot hold down the tears that roll down slowly over his pale, wounded cheeks. The man inclines his head and leans on the dirty ground with his hands, with stomach pain that he suddenly gets. He does not have the strength to scream after everything he has gone through. His voice is hoarse. Rose can barely move his lips and pronounces something soundlessly under his mouth. Yes, he understands his tears and suffering will change nothing. But this man just cannot control himself. He is unable to understand what he did to be destined to lose someone all his life, suffer all the time, and be deprived of any chances for a happy life.       A wish to stay alone with his grief gets stronger and stronger. Peter wants to leave this place and remain unnoticed, while his friends are busy talking to the policeman. And he waits for a few seconds to make sure nobody sees him. Then the guy gets up on his feet carefully, shaking slightly from weakness and dizziness, shakes his head, and looks around quickly to find out where to go. But when he takes a couple of steps aside, he catches the attention of one of the policemen who starts coming to him to ask him something quietly:       “Oh, sir, you are awake now! How do you feel? Do you need any medical care?”       But Peter says nothing, turning to the policeman who called him for two moments. And when he looks at Edward, Terrence, and Daniel with shame and feeling that his heart squeezes painfully, Rose turns around without words and moves off sharply, aiming to run as far as possible.       “Hey, Peter, wait!” Edward calls loudly.       “Stop, don’t run!” Terrence exclaims.       “Come back, buddy!” Daniel says.       Peter ignores all these calls, not even stopping and running to where his eyes look, while everyone watches him with pity in their eyes.       “I think he doesn’t look aggressive anymore,” Terrence says thoughtfully.       “Yeah, I guess he’s understood what he did and got ashamed,” Edward assumes.       Everyone sees that Peter runs by Victor Johnson, who calls him to ask him about how he is feeling, and looks at him in surprise when the blond ignores this man at all. Then the police captain frowns slightly and comes confidently to Edward, Daniel, and Terrence.       “Guys!” Victory exhales with relief. “Thank God, you’re alive and healthy!”       “Hello, Mr. Johnson,” Daniel, Terrence, and Edward greet.       “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with your faces?” Victor looks at the three men with horror in his eyes. “You’re all in blood and bruises!”       “Yeah, the fight was hard,” Daniel replies thoughtfully. “Physically and morally.”       “I’m even afraid to imagine what you had to get through.”       “Don’t better ask, Mr. Johnson,” Terrence shakes his head. “We’re going to spend a lot of time coming to ourselves after this.”       “Oh, that’s good we’ve come in time!”       Victor hugs and claps Daniel, Edward, and Terrence on the shoulder by one.       “I was worried we wouldn’t do this. That you would be dead when the police came here.”       “Yeah, but sadly, we couldn’t do this without losses,” Edward says with sadness and swallows nervously. “We… We could not save Helene.”       “What?” Victor frowns slightly. “What do you mean?”       “She died, Mr. Johnson,” Daniel says, not believing it at all. “Helene burned in the fire that Marcus’s accomplices started in the place where she was by his order.”       “What are you talking about, Daniel?”       “It’s true,” Terrence confirms and exhales with a shake. “The guys and I saw it with our own eyes. Helene died right before our eyes. But we could do nothing. Because we were too far.”       “But why did you do nothing? Guys, why? How could you let it happen? Why did you let the girl die?”       “We’re really very sorry, Mr. Johnson,” Edward excuses with pity in his eyes. “Marcus contacted his accomplices on a video call. We managed to talk to Helene a little while these bastards started the fire in the place where they held her.”       “And then these assholes exploded a bomb they installed there,” Daniel continues. “A part of the house just flew high in the air. They showed it all on the video call. We saw it all. From start to end.”       “Oh, it’s awful…” Victor shakes his head, closing his mouth with a hand. “Poor girl, my God… Why? Did she really deserve it?”       “We could not complete our mission and let our friend die,” Edward inclines his head with sadness in his eyes. “We had no small chance to save her. We just helped her untie herself, but she could not get out of the fire. The fire spread throughout the room too fast.”       “God, what do I say to her grandmother? What do I say to Mrs. Marshall? She is going to go crazy from grief! The poor woman cannot calm down there!”       “We’re sorry, Mr. Policeman,” Daniel apologizes in a quiet, low voice. “We are really very sorry. The only thing we did was save ourselves. And we could not help Helene.”       “Do you know the place where the criminals held Helene all this time?”       “No, sadly,” Terrence throws his hands up. “Edward thought it was similar to him, but he could not remember where it was. And even if he had done it, we wouldn’t have gone there in time.”       “I really tried to, I swear!” Edward exclaims.       “It’s okay, Edward, don’t worry,” Victor calms down, clapping Edward on the shoulder. “You and the guys aren’t guilty of what happened. You did everything you could. Sadly, it happens. The police do not always put cases to an end. Sometimes we have victims that nobody wants to lose.”       “It happens that we were fighting for nothing all this time,” Daniel says thoughtfully.       “Not at all! You didn’t save your friend, but you saved yourself! That’s already wonderful! In the opposite case, we would’ve had many more victims.”       “Anyway, I can’t say I am proud of myself now,” Edward confesses.       “I repeat, you did everything you could. Yes, death is always terrible, but you cannot change it. No matter how sad it sounds, Helene has become a victim of Marcus Longbottom.”       “The girls are gonna be devastated when they know everything,” Terrence says hesitantly. “They counted on us and believed we would come back with their friend. But… We will be back with the news about her death.”       “Now you must spend your strength comforting your girls, each other, and Mrs. Marshall. It’s going to be easier for you to overcome the grief together.”       “Oh, honestly, we’re bad at being a shoulder to cry on…” Daniel sighs tiredly, putting his hand on his forehead. “We’d love to cry on someone’s shoulder ourselves.”       “And yeah, you must watch Peter. Looking at him made me horrified when I went by him. He was overwhelmed, pale, tear-stained, tense…”       “He was kinda possessed when Helene died,” Edward confesses. “Peter was kinda obsessed with a devil! He destroyed everything and beat Marcus, his accomplices, the guys, and me cruelly.”       “Come on?” Victor opens his eyes widely.       “Yeah, we had to fight our own friend cruelly,” Daniel confirms. “We had to forget about any pity and beat him in the same way he beat us. Because he didn’t think of agreeing on anything peacefully in that condition.”       “Oh, poor guy… Can’t imagine how bad he feels now.”       “I swear we didn’t want to do this, but we had no other choice. If the guys and I had just stood like columns and let Peter do what he did to Marcus’s accomplices to us all alone, nothing would’ve been left of us.”       “Yeah, of course, we couldn’t avoid the consequences, but still, we’re alive,” Terrence shrugs.       “Wasn’t Peter the one to start the fire?” Victor asks hesitantly. “What’s burning there?”       “Nope, Marcus started the fire,” Edward shakes his head. “He decided to get rid of his accomplices and us. Who were so scared by Peter’s tricks to death that they refused categorically to do their lord’s orders. They even said they were ready to collaborate with the police and tell them about everything that man did.”       “Whoa… He wanted to do the same thing that he did to Helene…”       “We must thank Edward,” Terrence says confidently, clapping Edward on the forearm. “He reacted immediately and found a way to save all of us when Marcus started the fire.”       “Uh-huh, Edward broke that door very quickly,” Daniel confirms, hugging Edward around the shoulders. “Marcus’s accomplices ran away in the hurricane’s speed. And we got out quietly. Carried our wounded fighters and ended up here.”       “Good job, Edward, my respect to you!” Victor exclaims with his head proudly raised. “That’s good you didn’t succumb to panic and saved the guys.”       “Since we could not save our friend, we should’ve at least saved ourselves,” Edward replies shyly.       “Alright, thank God, at least you’re alive! I am really sorry about you losing your friend, but I’m glad nothing happened to you.”       “Maybe you’re right,” Terrence replies thoughtfully.       “Don’t worry, the guys and I will figure everything out here. Don’t even think about it.”       “By the way, Mr. Johnson, were the girls the ones to tell you where to find us?” Daniel specifies.       “Yes, as the girls said, they called me shortly after you left. They explained the situation, asked me for help, and gave the coordinates so I could find you.”       “So, they didn’t wait…” Edward concludes.       “They did the right thing. Who knows what would’ve happened if we hadn’t come in time.”       “Anyway, thank you so much,” Terrence thanks. “You helped us out again.”       “Glad to be needed by you.”       At this moment, everyone shakes slightly and steps back because a powerful explosion happens in the basement, which is set on fire.       “Oh, my God…” Victor specifies.       “The fire is about to burn the upper floors, Captain,” one of the policemen says. “It’s spreading rapidly throughout the whole house. I was told about it on the ration.”       “Did you call the fire department?”       “Yes, they are on the way.”       “Tell everyone to keep themselves far from the house.”       “As far as the guys know, there is nobody inside. We aren’t supposed to have victims.”       “Great! Tell them to wait for the firefighters.”       “Yes, Captain!”       “Alright, and I advise you, guys, to find Peter and talk to him,” Victor addresses Edward, Terrence, and Daniel. “Try to comfort him somehow.”       “If he hasn’t actually left this place yet,” Terrence sighs tiredly.       “Go, guys, if you don’t leave by that time, I will come to you a little later.”       “Yeah, I think we will talk to him,” Daniel agrees and moves his eyes to Edward and Terrence. “Catch me up, guys, but I will go forward.”       “Yeah, try to find him,” Edward approves. “Terrence and I will catch you up.”       “By the way, Terrence, why are you sitting here with a face full of pain?” Victor expresses anxiety. “Something hurts?”       “My back hurts,” Terrence confesses. “Marcus pushed me off the stairs, and I hit them strongly. Now I feel severe pain and can barely move.”       “Jesus Christ…” Victor closes his mouth with a hand. “It hurts a lot?”       “More or less.”       “Of course, I might be wrong, but he doesn’t have a fracture,” Edward says, holding Terrence by the shoulders. “Just a severe bruise.”       “Alright, you must rush to the hospital and get examined to make sure about it. A back is the thing you can play with.”       “We’ve already given an order to send an ambulance here,” one of the policemen says.       “Wonderful!”       “Alright, catch me up, but I’m going to find Peter,” Daniel says. “At least, I will try to find him.”       “Go, go!”       Daniel goes quickly to the side where Peter ran some time ago with the hope of finding him and trying to talk to him. He walks around the shoulder that is getting caught rapidly by the tongues of the bright fire and just glances at it on the way, shaking at just one thought about being burned down in it along with his friends, as well as Helene did. Besides, looking at the fire, the man recalls the fire in the house where his friend was held before she became a victim of the horrible man. However, Perkins does not stay here for too long and keeps moving on, even if he does not know if he can find his friend, who ran nobody knows where.       But some time later, Daniel comes to the hall door, near which several police cars and many people in special uniforms are parked. Someone fills papers, someone discusses something, and someone says something on the ration. They also do not let those who go by here stay here and ask them gently to leave, not answering any of their questions about what’s happening and why the house is set on fire. However, this is not the only thing that gets them horrified. They watch surprisingly the policemen try to pull Marcus forcefully aside after he attacks Luther, Ronald, David, Darren, Shawn, and Bob with fists, while they have a horror in their eyes as they watch the one, who is now enraged because of their betrayal.       Daniel stops a few meters away from them and keeps his arms crossed over his chest as he watches Marcus getting out of the grip of the young guys in a blue uniform and smashing his fist against Luther’s jaw after the man says something to him. Even several men cannot calm down the furious criminal, who curses them and attacks his former accomplices several times.       “BASTARDS, I SHALL BURY YOU ALL ALIVE!” Marcus threatens. “YOU WILL PAY ME A LOT FOR BETRAYING ME! EVERYTHING HAD BEEN FINE BEFORE YOU PEED YOUR PANTS IN FRONT OF THEODORE! COWARDS! FUCKING BASTARDS! I WISH YOU ALL DIED! I HATE YOU! I HATE! I SHOULDN'T HAVE COUNTED ON YOU! I SHOULD NOT HAVE!”       The policemen try so hard to calm down the furious Marcus and not to let him get close to the pale, scared to death David, Shawn, Darren, Bob, Luther, and Ronald, who have regretted getting in touch with this man many times. While Daniel shakes his head in disapproval and gets silently horrified by the fact that he turned out to be Peter’s father, Edward comes to him slowly, holding Terrence tightly and taking him after himself, while his brother keeps his arm around his neck and overcomes the pain so hard every time he takes a step. Then Perkins glances at them and points at what’s happening a few meters away from him.       “M-m-m, it seems like the old man is having a delirium tremens,” Edward chuckles evilly.       “And this bastard turned out to be Peter’s father,” Terrence says thoughtfully. “I would’ve never thought a man like him would be the one.”       “Uh-huh, the man, who is well known in the country as a heartless murderer of hundreds of people,” Daniel adds.       “Peter definitely did the right thing by not wishing to know anything about his father.”       “Who killed his girlfriend,” Edward pronounces hesitantly. “Right before his eyes.”       “Yeah, he would’ve rather lived his whole life without knowing the bitter truth,” Daniel notices. “I would hang myself if I knew my father was a killer. If my girlfriend died because of him.”       “DON’T TOUCH ME!” Marcus roars hysterically, while the policeman keeps his arms twisted behind his back and puts handcuffs on his hands. “LET ME GO! I SHALL NOT GO ANYWHERE WITH YOU!”       “You are under arrest, Mr. Longbottom,” the policeman says. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”       “It’s your time to pay for all the things you have done,” the second policeman adds. “For so many murders that make our hair stand out. For the murders of those whose relatives and close people have not come to us after what happened.”       “The man who tried to kill his own son!” Ronald exclaims. “And sell him to some bastards, who would’ve sent him abroad for slavery if not for the happy coincidence of circumstances.”       “Even if you changed your mind sharply, it doesn’t mean you will avoid the punishment!” Marcus states. “YOU WILL COME THE FUCK WITH ME! I SHALL NOT PAY FOR THIS ALL ALONE!”       “It will happen, then!” Darren exclaims determinedly. “But while we can get a shorter sentence, nothing will help you. You are actually about to get a life sentence for so many crimes. Which haven’t been solved nowadays.”       “ASSHO-O-O-O-OLES!” I SHALL FIND YOU ALL AND DESTROY YOU! YOU WILL NOT REMAIN ALIVE! I SHALL KILL YOU!”       Marcus glances aside and stops his eyes on Daniel, Edward, and Terrence watching what’s happening.       “IT HAS TO DO WITH YOU, TOO, BASTARDS!” Marcus explodes. “I SHALL FIND YOU WHEN TIME COMES! YOU AND YOUR FRIEND! YOU DIDN’T DIE TODAY, BUT YOU WILL DIE LATER! DO NOT FORGET THIS!”       While Terrence, Daniel, and Edward shake their heads in disapproval, deciding to say nothing, and remain quiet at first sight, Marcus starts coughing very loudly with a mild pain in his heart and a sense of dizziness that he has felt for a long time but tried to ignore so hard until the very end.       “Okay, the old bastard has screamed enough,” Daniel throws gloomily. “He lost his voice.”       “Don’t you think he walks kinda weirdly?” Terrence frowns slightly. “As if he turns on all sides and shakes.”       “He does,” Edward agrees. “And he looks kinda pale. Or even green, I’d say.”       After coughing several times so that he feels nauseous in his throat, Marcus spits some blood on the ground, doubling over due to the severe pain in his stomach. Edward, Daniel, and Terrence frown slightly and start watching this man much more closely, while the policemen hold him much tighter under his arms.       “What happened to him?” Daniel gets suspicious.       “It doesn’t look like he’s pretending,” Edward notices. “You can hardly fake a cough with blood. And even if that old man decided to act like he had a heart attack, it doesn’t happen like this.”       “Hey, Edward, you did double over like this when you got poisoned with water before the show,” Terrence recalls, frowning slightly.       “Right!” Daniel exclaims. “All the symptoms are the same! He looks bad, he coughs with blood… And he says something about the stomach pain…”       “Did he decide to poison himself with the same shit?” Edward surprises. “He decided to do this, following the rule, ‘nobody will get me, I shall take my body with me in the grave’?”       Meanwhile, Marcus keeps choking with a cough with blood that he spits at times, starting to fall to his knees at some moment due to the strong weakness that he cannot hide anymore. Some of the policemen use the ration to say that one of the criminals feels bad, while the others use the moment and take away the arrested Luther, Ronald, David, Darren, Bob, and Shawn, who also have handcuffs on their hands and obey the orders without any resistance.       “It would be fair if he died right now,” Terrence says gloomily. “If he paid for all his tricks.”       “Well, even if he experiences a clinical death, he will not survive it,” Daniel assumes. “It’s not our Edward, who would get out of the middle of hell and remain alive and healthy.”       “Most likely, he doesn’t feel good for a long time,” Edward notices thoughtfully. “But he was hiding it so hard. It’s one of the reasons why he didn't attack us and told his friends to do it all. That’s why he left the basement often, while these bastards were fighting with us.”       At some moment, the woman in the same uniform as the men’s says something to them, and helps them take Marcus aside. And Edward, Terrence, and Daniel can hear they talk about the arrival of the firefighters and the ambulance, seeing the car with sirens far from here after they move their eyes to the source of the sounds that literally the entire neighborhood can hear.       “Oh, fuck him!” Daniel waves his hand. “The police will deal with him now. We don’t have to do with all of this anymore.”       “Yeah, let’s go to find Peter!” Terrence exclaims. “Before he thinks of getting out and doing more stupid things.”       “But where did he go?” Edward wonders, looking around. “Where could he be?”       Daniel goes quickly to the other side of the house that he has not checked out, but sees nobody but the policeman doing their work. Then he sees a small door of the gate that is a reserved exit from the territory. Since it’s open, he leaves the territory of the house easily and ends up in the place where there is a narrow asphalt path, and there are many thick trees and bushes. Understanding that this place is too quiet and barely visible, he checks it carefully, paying attention even to the thickets. And at some moment, Perkins sees the top of the blond head that shows up out of the green bushes and does not doubt that this is Peter.       But before he comes to him, Daniel decides to run back to the previous place on foot and sees Terrence and Edward, whom he calls with a gesture, letting them know he found their friend. And while MacClife, Jr., helps his brother reach the goal in a slow step, still holding him tightly and pressing him to himself, Perkins comes back to the place where he found Rose and comes much closer. The blond is sitting on the dirty ground with his legs bent at his knees, which he embraces tightly as he puts his head between them. It’s easy to see how strongly he is shaking from tension as he makes quiet and frequent sobs, feeling desperate and not understanding how to live after he lost the one who was so important to him.       After getting rid of all the doubts about his decision, Daniel comes to Peter determinedly, squats down, and puts his hand on his shoulder.       “Pete, buddy…” Daniel pronounces softly.       Peter moves his tear-filled eyes to Daniel and sniffs, squeezing every muscle to the pain due to the sense of guilt for his friends, whom he tried to kill. Not hesitating, the brunet takes him in an amicable hug, which the blond does not refuse and answers to, squeezing his friend with both arms, snuggling his nose in his shoulder, and still crying bitterly.       “Quiet, quiet, it’s okay,” Daniel tries to calm down, caressing Peter’s head and back. “It’s okay.”       “I feel bad…” Peter pronounces in a low, hoarse from screams voice. “Too bad…”       “I know. I’m here. Here. I will always be. Whatever happens.”       “She’s dead, Daniel…” Peter exhales with a shake. “Helene is dead… Dead!”       “I’m really very sorry, bro. Helene doesn’t deserve it all. I’m also suffering ‘cause I couldn’t help her.”       “I could not save her. I could not help her.”       “Yeah… We failed this mission. As fuck.’       “That old bastard got what he wanted,” Peter says with a strong offense in a shaking voice and sniffs loudly. “He killed her! Killed! The one to turn out to be my father killed Helene.”       “It seems some kind of nightmare. Can’t believe it’s really the truth.”       “I don’t wanna believe it! I don’t!”       Peter steps away from Daniel and grabs his forearms tightly, looking at him with wet, red eyes.       “Please, tell me it’s not the truth. Tell me I’m sleeping. I’m going crazy. It’s never happened!”       “I’d like to make you happy, but…” Daniel shakes his head with sadness in his eyes.       “No…” Peter pronounces with a heavy breath. “No, don’t do this, please! I feel fucking bad! I won’t take it if it’s all the truth. Wake me up! Hear me! WAKE ME UP!”       “Listen, I can’t believe all of this, even if everything happened before our eyes. I don’t also wanna believe Helene became a victim of that bastard.”       “I don’t believe it… I don’t! It cannot be the truth! It cannot!”       Peter inclines his head and leans on the ground with his hands, while Daniel caresses his back softly and looks at him with sympathy.       “Why?” Peter clenches his hands into fists. “Why? Why did it happen to me? What’s my fucking fault? Did I really deserve it?”       “Peter, brother…” Daniel pronounces with pity in his eyes, feeling that his heart squeezes painfully at the sight of the depressed Peter.       At some moment, while Daniel does his best to comfort Peter not holding down his emotions, Edward and Terrence just come to them. Even if he minds this idea, MacClife, Jr., helps his brother get down to his knees carefully, while the man winces from pain strongly but tries to bear it bravely. Because he understands it does not matter now, while Peter is getting through a real tragedy.       “Hey, Peter…” Edward pronounces softly, squatting down in front of Peter and putting his hand on his shoulder.       “We’re here, brother,” Terrence assures, clapping Peter on the head. “We will not leave you, no matter what.”       “How do I live now?” Peter wonders and sniffs quietly. “How do I live without Helene? I can’t! I can’t live in the world without her!”       “We get it all, friend,” Edward replies. “Though we don’t understand how we can help you.”       “You will not help me anymore.” Peter wipes tears under his eyes and covers his face with his hands. “Nothing will help me. My life is over.”       “Marcus will no longer harm anyone,” Terrence assures. “The police have gotten him arrested, despite his resistance.”       “And why?”       “Why? That man will finally pay for taking the lives of so many people!”       “Does it make sense, Terrence?” Peter raises his voice. “Does it all make sense? Would it change something? Would it bring Helene back? Would it bring back the girl that old bastard killed?”       “At least, he will no longer harm any more people from this moment on,” Daniel notices hesitantly.       “I don’t fucking care if he’s arrested or not now. I give a fuck about everything after I lost the meaning of my life.”       “Listen, buddy, I don’t wanna say anything, but we know nothing yet,” Edward says hesitantly. “We don’t know if Helene really died.”       “Are you fucking kidding me? What do you mean, we don’t know if Helene died? We saw it all! With our own eyes!”       “Maybe, everything isn’t what we think about. Maybe… It’s not the truth. Maybe those assholes… Just burned down a random house and…”       “Those bastards wouldn’t have bluffed like this! Everything was real! Not a show! Helene really died!”       “Listen, indeed!” Daniel exclaims. “They could really burn down any house, but tell us Helene was there.”       “Yeah?” Peter surprises loudly. “But what about her being in the fire? What about the room where they kept her being set on fire?”       “Agree, it could be the truth,” Terrence agrees. “But just because they exposed the house doesn’t mean anything yet.”       “It does mean a lot! It does!”       “Imagine if it's something like what happened to the father of Terrence and me!” Edward exclaims. “We thought he died because of Uncle Michael, but he managed to survive and came back to kick the ass of that old bastard.”       “Oh, yeah, and is the same thing supposed to happen in the case of Helene?” Peter rolls his eyes. “Is she supposed to show up at Marcus’ house and look like, ‘Here I am, bitch!’”       “Everything is possible, Peter.”       “Stop talking shit, Edward! Did those bastards crush your brain since you got this bullshit on your mind?”       “Don’t be mad, Rose, let’s really wait,” Terrence says quietly.       “What wait? What? How could you actually come up with this? Are you fucking blind? Helene died! She died before our eyes! She burned! She choked on carbon monoxide! Choked! Exposed! She could not get the fuck out of there!”       “We know, but…” Daniel tries to say.       “I would also walk from side to side and shout that it’s not the truth. But I saw it all with my own eyes! I saw her trying to escape the fire! I saw the fire getting closer and closer to her!”       “If we’d known where they kept Marshall locked, we would’ve saved her immediately,” Terrence replies. “If we’d understood where to go, your girlfriend would’ve been alive and healthy now.”       “But she is not alive! SHE IS DEAD! SHE IS FUCKING DEAD!”       “Peter, please…”       “And actually, it’s all your fault!” Peter states rudely. “It all happened because of all of you!”       “What?” Daniel, Edward, and Terrence round their eyes, starting to breathe a little heavily with a faster heartbeat.       “What are you talking about, brother?” Edward wonders.       “If not for you, Helene would’ve been alright!” Peter replies coldly. “Her death is going to be your responsibility. Especially, yours, MacClife.”       “Mine?”       “If you, bastard, had remembered where that house was, I would have SAVED HER! She would have been ALIVE! But she is DEAD! Because of YOU, ASSHOLE!”       “Peter, c’mon…”       “Quiet, quiet, Pete, calm down, please,” Daniel tries to say quietly. “Don’t be so nervous.”       “I am quiet!” Peter throws coldly. “Absolutely quiet! So quiet that I want to kill you all! STRANGLE YOU WITH MY OWN HANDS!”       “If we’d had a little chance, we would’ve saved her immediately,” Terrence states.       “I would’ve preferred to see you dead instead of her!” Peter exclaims excitedly. “I wish you had died there! I WISH MARCUS HAD KILLED YOU! I HATE YOU TO THE FUCKING DEATH!”       Getting sharply pale, Edward, Terrence, and Daniel look at each other with widely open eyes full of horror. While Peter glances gloomily at the place near him, and looks at something closely.       “What are you talking about, buddy?” Daniel wonders. “What did we do to you? Why are you talking to us like this?”       “You have done a lot!” Peter snaps. “MANY THINGS! I wouldn’t have enough fingers to count everything!”       “Don’t say it as if we killed Helene.”       “YOU DIDN’T? YOU DID KILL HER! I LOST HER BECAUSE OF YOU!”       “Listen, Peter…”       “Why did you the fuck come here? Tell me, why did you the fuck come here? WHO THE FUCK ASKED YOU? WHO CALLED YOU? WHY DIDN’T YOU STAY AT HOME?”       “You thought we’d leave you?” Edward surprises. “You thought we’d give you to Marcus and his henchmen so easily?”       “You should’ve known you were going toward your inevitable death!” Terrence exclaims. “You should’ve known you wouldn’t have agreed with him!”       “If you hadn’t come there, Helene would have been alright!” Peter states. “I COULD’VE SAVED HER! BUT YOU CAME AND RUINED EVERYTHING!”       “Helene would've died anyway,” Edward replies. “We had no chance to save her. And you would’ve done nothing. Marcus didn’t even think of letting the girl go. He wanted to kill her and killed her.”       “INSOLENT LIE! YOU MESSED UP EVERYTHING! YOU DID NOT LET ME SAVE HER!”       “Do you really think we would dare to kill our close friend?” Daniel wonders. “Do you think we’re so heartless?”       “YOU WANTED IT! YOU WERE JEALOUS OF ME! YOU DIDN’T WANT ME TO BE HAPPY! YOU WERE JUST PRETENDING YOU TOOK CARE OF ME!”       “What?” Edward frowns strongly. “We don’t take care? Jealous of you?”       “We don’t care about you less than each other and our girls!” Terrence states.       “You think we would’ve meddled in this shit if we’d given a fuck about you?” Daniel surprises. “You think we would’ve done it at our wish? And why would we have carried your body outside when Marcus started a fire in the basement and almost sent us to the afterlife after Helene?”       “Exactly! We could’ve left you there easily, but we did not do this! Even after you almost made us disabled! After you almost killed all of us!”       “If Perkins hadn’t hit me with the electric gun, I would’ve put the case to an end,” Peter replies rudely. “You would have been lying in the ground. I WOULD NOT HAVE KEPT YOU ALIVE! I WOULD NOT HAVE!”       “Listen, you don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Edward adds. “Yes, we know this is how you’re getting through your grief and letting your emotions out. But it’s hurtful for us to hear it. It’s hurtful that our close friend treats us the way we don’t deserve.”       “If I had a gun in my hand, I would shoot you all down to the fuck! BECAUSE YOU ALL RUINED MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE!”       “How did we ruin your life? If you have some claims, let’s talk about them! We are fully open for the dialogue and ready to listen to you!”       “I want to talk about nothing! I DO NOT WANT! I DO NOT WANT TO SEE AND HEAR YOU! I HATE YOU! AND I DO REGRET GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOU BACK THEN!”       “Okay, Pete, let’s talk about it all later,” Terrence exhales quietly. “Maybe it’s easier for you to get through your grief by taking it out on everyone and blaming them for nobody knows what. It’s okay, we will take it. But you do what you want if it helps you.”       “Do not calm me down, assholes. DO NOT TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND DO NOT PRETEND TO BE NICE! STOP ACTING! I AM FUCKING DONE WITH YOUR GAME! I AM TIRED OF BEING SURROUNDED BY MEAN RATS!”       “Terrence’s right, brother,” Daniel replies quietly. “Speak what you want. But when you calm down, we’ll talk about everything quietly. Talk about all the claims you have.”       “I SAID I AM QUIET! I AM ALRIGHT! EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL FOR ME!”       After pushing Daniel rudely aside, Peter gets up sharply on his feet and starts breathing heavily as he sets his bloodshot eyes full of hate on him, Edward, and Terrence, who understand the reason for this behavior but make a lot of effort not to take these words seriously.       “I WISH I KEPT BEING ALL ALONE! I WISH I NEVER HAD FRIENDS! WHOEVER I GET IN TOUCH WITH, THEY ALWAYS BETRAY ME! EVERYONE HURTS ME!”       “We’ve always taken care of you,” Daniel protests. “We could sacrifice a lot to make you feel good. We were ready to reject anything if we had to go against you for this.”       “Those who take care of someone don’t do their best to deprive someone of the one they love! You took Helene from me! AND I SHALL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THAT! NEVER! I shall think you are murderers for the rest of my life! The bastards, who did nothing to save her!”       “Don’t say it, buddy,” Edward protests, getting up on his feet and coming to Peter. “It’s actually hurtful for us to hear it all. We do everything for you, but you, speaking rudely, turn your ass on us.”       “I can say the same about your trio. I do everything for you, but you turn your fucking ass on me!”       “You’re doing a stupid thing by blaming us for Helene’s death. It’s not our fault. Not even yours. It just happened.”       “DO NOT DARE TO SAY IT!” Peter explodes. “DO NOT DARE! There WAS A CHANCE! THERE WAS! I COULD HAVE saved Helene! I COULD HAVE! But you came and FUCKED UP EVERYTHING!”       “Alright, how did we fuck it up?” Edward crosses his arms over his chest. “Tell us everything about what we did in all details.”       “YOU WENT TO MARCUS' HOME!”       “Just this?”       “YES, JUST THIS!”       “Don’t act like a child, Rose,” Terrence demands harshly and winces strongly from pain when Daniel helps him get up on his feet and brings him to Peter and Edward. “We completely understand everything, but nobody here needs your hysterics.”       “Hysterics?” Peter laughs evilly and puts his hands on his hips. “What hysterics! I do not have hysterics!”       “You should look at yourself from the outside,” Daniel throws. “You should see all your tricks.”       “Do not be surprised! Remember who the fuck my father is. Who my fucking family is, the one that has only ill freaks.”       “Oh, yeah, we’ve noticed that you’re on the first stage of bipolar disorder,” Daniel throws gloomily. “You cry bitterly and press yourself to everyone like a child, but then you scream like crazy, run from side to side, and run after everyone with a gun and a knife. You threaten to kill everyone to the fuck.”       “Are you hinting that I am ill? That I am a PSYCHO? THAT I MUST BE PUT IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL?”       “In this condition, you should really take some tablets,” Terrence replies coldly. “Or get therapy in the clinic before the country meets the updated version of Marcus Longbottom with improved characteristics and modern internal components.”       “Look who’s talking, MacClife!” Peter sneers evilly. “You just need one reason to start a hysteria and then end up wearing a straitjacket forever.”       “You have outshone him in all possible ways already!” Edward exclaims. “You were not shy of the girls when attacking Helene with charges. And almost hitting her. I mean, you would’ve done it if we hadn’t held you down.”       “Ha, did you forget how you were a psycho for everyone? Huh, Edward Lockhart? Don’t pretend to be holy here! The holy one that was almost put in prison!”       “M-m-m, I see you have nothing to say since you decided to talk about the past and remember all our mistakes.”       “Do not read me lectures and teach me life. I am an adult and know what I need.”       “Oh, yeah, we do!” Daniel rolls his eyes. “One more hit of the electric gun and on the head. Maybe it can help you come back to normal after you wake up.”       “Do not dare!” Peter threatens with a finger in a low, rude voice. “If you come to me with that thing, I swear I shall put it in your ass and hit you fucking hard!”       “Do not make me regret carrying your body on my back when we were getting out of the basement.”       “I didn’t ask you to save me! I would have done it all by myself!”       “Listen, aren’t you having a split personality?” Terrence crosses his arms over his chest, frowning slightly. “It seems like two people live inside your body: a shy and kind Peter and a heartless and mean Theodore. You switch them like channels on a TV.”       “Uh-huh, you lose all your memories as long as you switch them,” Daniel adds. “You forget who we are, what we did to you… You can’t remember what you said, what you swore, what you promised…”       “I mean, you don’t forget, you just rewrite your software,” Edward specifies. “All good people become bad for you automatically!”       “Fucking shit, they fucked your brains hard!” Peter laughs contemptuously. “You started to talk shit that leaves me speechless.”       “We tell you what we see, Peter,” Terrence replies. “Or Theodore. We don’t know how to call you now. Though, as I understand, you’ve already accepted the news about your father and decided to kill Peter Rose and become Theodore Longbottom.”       “Who knows. Maybe this is my real side, but Peter Rose has never existed. I guess it’s true because I have never felt like myself. I felt like I was forced to be someone not me.”       “Listen, we understand the death of Helene broke you down, and this behavior is your protective reaction,” Edward says quietly. “But please, don’t forget we’re here. We will always be. Even if you’re acting like a fucking bastard and trying to kill us.”       “I do not need you!” Peter roars. “I NEED NOBODY! I WANT TO BE ALONE! I WANT ALL OF YOU TO GET OFF ME!”       “Idiot, you’re gonna regret what you’re doing later!” Terrence exclaims. “You’re gonna run after us like a tail and beg for forgiveness!”       “Ha, are you serious now?” Peter laughs hysterically. “Me? Asking for forgiveness?”       “Yes! When you finally deal with both of your sides! When you have just one person living in you – Peter Rose.”       “Helene’s death helped me find the real me. Helped me understand why I didn’t feel like I was where I belonged all my life. Why this fucking world didn’t have a place for me. The world that gave me endless sufferings only.”       “You’re really out of your mind…” Edward shakes his head with horror in his eyes. “We don’t recognize you!”       “But I do recognize you! I recognize you so well that I shall remember you for the rest of my life! I shall remember you as fucking bastards, who became guilty of all my problems. Who killed my girlfriend with their own hands. The one who was the only reason why I stayed here and was put under the torture that was waiting for me on the ground.”       “Alright, we see this talk doesn’t make sense now,” Daniel raises his hands up. “You don’t hear us and keep being stubborn. And you went out of your mind and don’t know what you are doing.”       “I don’t know why you came here,” Peter snaps. “I did not call you! And I was actually going to get out!”       “Just hoped you calmed down. And I believed it happened when you were crying on my shoulder. Though I guess Peter just woke up inside you for a while. The Peter that we know and love.”       “Forget Peter, freaks. He is gone. He has been killed and buried. As well as Helene. There is only Theodore Longbottom. The one who is going to take revenge on all his enemies. Those who harmed him for many years and called him nothing. It’s their time to pay for everything. And it has to do with you, too.”       “Fuck, is he really gonna become the new Marcus Longbottom?” Edward cannot believe it all. “He wants to go to a shop and shoot everyone down heartlessly, not caring that the times are different now, ‘cause they can track him by cameras and catch him?”       “Probably, I shall love killing people more than harming myself.” Peter smiles kind of frighteningly. “Especially if these are my enemies.”       “Hey, dude, stop scaring us like this!” Terrence says tensely. “It crosses all the lines.”       “What did you do to Peter?” Daniel hisses through his teeth, clenching his hands into fists. “What did you do to him? WHERE IS MY FRIEND? Where’s the kind, shy, and decent guy I knew? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?”       “I have nothing to lose,” Peter snaps. “The last shoot of the sun in the soul has gone after Helene’s death. Any pity, regret, and other shit that made me fucking weak have gone.”       “I shall not give my friend to you! I SHALL NOT!” Daniel slaps Peter in the face strongly in despair. “If I have to fight for getting him back, I shall do this. I WANT TO BRING PETER BACK! AND YOU WILL GIVE HIM TO US!”       Peter smashes his fist silently against Daniel’s jaw and strikes him down by pushing him off himself with special cruelty. Then the brunet falls to the ground but gets up quickly enough.       “In short, deadbeats, from this moment on, I do not want to see and hear you,” Peter says in a rude, low voice. “But if one of you stands in my way, I swear I shall not pity you.”       “If you need to be alone, you can,” Terrence says quietly. “We will wait as long as we need. And when you’re ready, we will be happy to listen to you and do everything you need.”       “Ar-r-r-r-r, I am fucking SICK of your fucking courtesy and kindness!”       Peter pushes Terrence off himself so that the man shouts after the severe pain gets into his back after a cruel fall on his knees.       “Hey, easy, bastard!” Edward throws irritably, takes Terrence under his arm, and helps him get up. “His back is hurt!”       “I give a fuck,” Peter pronounces with a horrifying indifference. “I give a fuck about all of you.”       “Go, Theodore,” Daniel says coldly. “We do not want to have a deal with you. Come back when you become Peter again. When we see the one we met for the first time. The brother we love.”       “With great pleasure! And I really hope we will NEVER meet again from this moment on.”       “Alright, live as you want,” Terrence replies without emotions. “Do what you want. Come to yourself. But we will be waiting for our friend Peter to come back to us. The Peter that we love.”       “I wish you all died…” Peter hisses through his teeth. “I wish you all ran into karma and went after Helene, whom you killed.”       Peter turns around sharply and wants to go nobody knows where, walking around Edward, Terrence, and Daniel, who seem indifferent at first sight but feel terribly bad deep inside.       “Likely, you will run into this when you stay all alone,” Edward says gloomily. “When you have nobody to ask for help. When everyone gives a fuck about your feelings and everything about you. When death seems the only way to get rid of the shit you have done.”       “I said I NEED NOBODY!” Peter explodes, turning sharply on the man and starting to wave his hands. “I DO NOT NEED PEOPLE! I DO NOT NEED THOSE WHO HURT ME AGAIN AND AGAIN!”       “We do not need the friend who tries to kill us, blames us for the death of his girlfriend, and wishes us to die.”       “EXCELLENT THEN! FUCK YOURSELF, YOU ALL, THEN!”       Peter comes to Edward in a sharp, wide step and pushes him off so strongly that the guy falls to the ground and hits his elbows painfully enough. Then he, tensing all his muscles, shouts and winces strongly since the severe pain echoes in every part of his body. And while Daniel places the guy on his feet with no problems, taking him under his arms, the tense blond breathing heavily turns around and gets out of here, wishing to hide from this whole cruel world and live with his grief all alone.       “I’m okay,” Edward says quietly when Terrence puts his hand on his shoulder.       “He’s going wild…” Daniel shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “As if he really has something like bipolar disorder.”       “Agree,” Terrence pronounces thoughtfully. “He seemed fine, but then he kinda got obsessed with a demon again.”       “It seems like he decided to reject the side of Peter fully and accept the side of Theodore,” Edward assumes. “The side of the same nasty and mean bastard as his father.”       “What if he really takes after Marcus and starts killing people for nothing?” Daniel expresses anxiety. “Rose has a condition where he can do any stupid thing.”       “I don’t even know how to call him: Peter or Theodore.” Edward crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s like two people are living inside him now.”       “As I understand, he considers himself Theodore now. But when I just came to him, I thought there was Peter in front of me. Weak, depressed, and unhappy.”       “We can understand him, though,” Terrence replies confidently. “His girlfriend died. The girl who began to bring back his belief in the thought that people don’t always use their feelings. And then the old bastard showed up to kidnap her and kill her right before his eyes.”       “I think I would be the same psycho if any bastard dared to do the same thing to Natalia,” Edward says thoughtfully. “I would be ready to destroy everything in my way.”       “Yeah, but I’m hurt that he’s treating us like this,” Daniel confesses with sadness in his eyes. “It’s hurt that Peter gives us such stupid charges and sees enemies in us.”       “Don’t forget, Daniel, there’s something that made him start to fear men and stop trusting them,” Terrence recalls. “Peter has always treated us with mistrust and expected something bad from us. Especially after we spent a lot of time criticizing him for refusing to date girls.”       “And what do we do now?” Edward wonders. “How do we solve this problem?”       “Leave him alone for a while,” the man’s voice pronounces from behind.       Daniel, Edward, and Terrence turn on the voice and see Victor coming to them after witnessing some events that happened before and hearing the men’s talk.       “It doesn’t make sense to explain something to someone to be obsessed with grief, anger, and other negative emotions. Whatever you do and say now, Peter will not hear you. He is now blind and deaf.”       “But it’s dangerous, Mr. Johnson!” Daniel throws his hands up. “Peter may do any stupid thing! He might go to kill and rob someone or kill himself at all!”       “I know, but if you keep running after him like tails, you will make it worse for you.”       “Hm, he did try to kill us,” Terrence confesses gloomily. “He terrified Marcus and his accomplices and didn’t pity us when we dared to stand in his way.”       “Anger gets weaker early or late. I think Peter just needs time to calm down. Besides, his girlfriend died. And all of this might be his protective reaction. Peter doesn’t want to seem weak. He doesn’t want people to see his tears and vulnerability. So, he decided that the best protection was an attack.”       “But we’re not guilty of anything!” Edward exclaims. “We aren’t guilty of Helene’s death. If we had had a chance to help her, we would’ve done it. But we didn’t even know where to find her.”       “Don’t take everything he just told you, guys,” Victor advises. “In anger, you can say what may make you shoot yourself from shame. This is how Peter tries to let his emotions out. He speaks, speaks, and doesn’t watch what gets out of his mouth like a machine gun. He just needs to scream out and talk out.”       “We get it, Mr. Johnson, but we’re hurt anyway,” Terrence protests. “It’s hurt that our close friend treats us like this.”       “But on the other hand, we completely understand him and can’t judge him,” Daniel adds. “He lost Helene and does not know how to live without her.”       “Peter is now deeply shocked and doesn’t understand how to express his emotions,” Victor notices. “He is confused, he is scared… The whole world is the biggest enemy to him. I think if your girls were here, your friend would not pity them. Maybe, he would not attack them, but they would have to listen to many hurtful words about themselves.”       “And what do we do?”       “I’ve already said. Leave him alone.”       “What if he harms himself?”       “There’s a chance, but I think it will not happen now. He is obsessed with anger and hatred for everyone in the world. So, you must not stand in his way out of harm’s way. Let his anger weaken, and then you can try to comfort him carefully.”       “And how long do we wait?” Edward asks hesitantly.       “It’s hard to say, every person needs a different amount of time to calm down. But he will not get better today or after tomorrow. And then play it by ear.”       “You’re right, I guess,” Daniel shrugs. “We’re really powerless now. Peter refuses to hear and understand us. It’s like we’re talking to the wall.”       “You'd better focus on helping each other overcome the grief,” Victor advises. “Helene was your close friend, and it’s hard for you to accept her death.”       “It’s still hard to realize it,” Terrence confesses. “My brain refuses to accept the fact that Helene is dead.”       “And I’m still waiting for me to wake up in my bed,” Edward adds. “And realize that all of this was just a dream.”       “And I’m shocked that we’ll have to tell the girls about the death of their friend,” Daniel exhales sharply. “I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen if Anna, Natalia, and Raquelle know it.”       “And Mrs. Marshall will not take this piece of news at all!”       “Focus on helping them overcome this loss,” Victor advises. “You need to stay all together right now.”       “Can’t believe we’re gonna have to go to her funeral, the funeral of our close friend,” Daniel puts his hand on his forehead. “Who had her whole life ahead. Who wanted to do so much.”       “Yeah, she died because of Peter’s father,” Terrence shakes his head. “Because of his wish to make the guy feel the same pain that he felt when his wife died.”       “What do you mean?” Victor frowns slightly. “What Peter’s father?”       “Marcus,” Edward pronounces quietly. “He is the father of Peter.”       “Come on? Marcus? Marcus Longbottom? Peter’s father?”       “Yes, our friend is the son of the criminal, who is known in the entire country after killing hundreds of people,” Daniel replies, not believing it. “And Cornelia Rose, whom he called his mother all his life, is actually nobody to him. She just raised him. His real mother is Julia Longbottom, the late wife of Marcus, who died during childbirth.”       “What a twist…” Victor shakes his head, stroking his chin. “This boy… And Marcus?”       “Marcus thought Peter, who was named Theodore at birth, was guilty of the death of his wife and was obsessed with a wish to get rid of him. He sold his child to a deadbeat for a lot of money. Peter could’ve been sold to a family for slavery, but someone stole him and gave him to Cornelia.”       “Yeah, and her husband left her when she brought Peter home. He didn’t want to raise a strange child and wanted to have his own baby, even if Cornelia wasn’t able to give birth because she was barren. And when her husband left her and went to his lover and their child, that woman started to drink as hell. And Peter turned out to be guilty again. Cornelia blamed him for her husband leaving her and regretted agreeing to take the guy to her home.”       “Marcus told you?” Victor specifies.       “Yes, his personal confession.”       “Jesus Christ…” Victor closes his mouth with a hand. “How could he do this? How could he treat his own child like this? To sell him… To give him to someone…”       “Yeah, the phrase, ‘the world literally wants to get rid of you,’ gets a new meaning,” Edward crosses his arms over his chest.       “The boy is not lucky to have parents like these… Oh, he is really not lucky…”       “Of course, we knew his life wasn’t sweet, but we didn’t think everything was so terrible,” Terrence says thoughtfully.       “It’s amazing that he didn’t turn evil much earlier,” Edward notices. “Peter was a shy, kind, and good man before today.”       “We-e-e-e-ell, I wouldn’t say he was so sweet, innocent, and puffy,” Daniel notices. “Peter has always been a guy with a tough character. He’s never been gutless and cowardly, and always been able to swear and hit in the face. And he’s fought with people many times. In short, I can’t call him weak.”       “Weak people don’t survive in this world, and Peter completely understood it,” Victor replies. “That’s why he had to learn to protect himself.”       “Or we knew that guy too badly, and he definitely inherited the genes of his father and his mentally ill family,” Terrence adds. “Probably, Helene was the only one to keep something light inside him. But after her death, nothing is left. The darkness swallowed him completely.”       “Time will show, guys. Anyway, what’s done is done. Now you only have to accept it.”       “We have,” Daniel inclines his head. “We have to live with it somehow. Live with the thought that we could not accomplish our mission. We let the girls down after promising them to come back with Helene.”       “You did everything you could.” Victor claps Edward and Daniel on the shoulder. “You did a good job anyway. You’re brave if you weren’t afraid to stand in the way of such a dangerous man and were determined to save your friends.”       “The thing that makes me happy is the fact that we stayed alive,” Edward notices. “After everything we had to get through. Though you wouldn’t rather know what.”       “I have understood it, looking at your appearance. Terrence’s back issues. All the bruises, scars, and burns of Edward. And Daniel’s broken tooth.”       “Erm, what?” Daniel frowns slightly. “Broken tooth?”       “Don’t you feel it? You don’t know? You have the front top tooth broken.”       “Really?” Daniel moves his eyes to Edward and Terrence. “Guys, is my tooth really broken?”       “Let me look,” Terrence says and looks closely at Daniel’s teeth when he opens his mouth slightly. “Yes, your front tooth is really broken. Not fully, of course, but you lost a big piece.”       “Damn, when did it happen?” Daniel swears and checks all his teeth, running his tongue over them. “And how didn’t I even notice it?”       “I dunno, I didn’t personally pay attention to this.”       “I didn’t look at anyone’s teeth, too,” Edward confesses.       “Did Rose break it?” Daniel wonders. “When he did do it? Now, when he hit me so strongly that everything went black for a moment. Or before, when he beat me freaking strongly?”       “I advise you not to delay a visit to the dentist and restore it as soon as possible,” Victor insists.       “Yeah, here is a contingency. And I have to spend my time on it.”       “After this, you all will have to spend a lot of time recovering. Someone has to treat the wounds and bruises, someone should get rid of the burns… And someone has to solve the problems with the teeth and back.”       “It’s fine, it’s not the first time, huh,” Edward tries to lighten the mood and puts his hand on his stomach, which hurts a little after many hits on it. “It all will be gone soon.”       “And yeah, while the doctors are here, you should come to them so they can examine you,” Victor says confidently. “So, they treat your wounds and bruises… Maybe, they can even examine Terrence’s back and do something.”       “By the way, don’t you know what happened to Marcus?” Daniel asks. “He was coughing up blood and looked too bad!”       “Yes, yes, I know! There is a suspicion that he’s been poisoned with something. I don’t know if he did it by himself or not, but he will be rushed to the hospital.”       “The symptoms are the same as Edward’s when he felt bad,” Daniel notices. “So, he’s been poisoned with the same thing as our friend.”       “I hope you didn’t do this? Or Peter?”       “No, no, Mr. Johnson, it’s not us!” Terrence shakes his head. “We didn’t do this!”       “And we can say nothing about Peter,” Daniel adds. “Though we kinda heard that Marcus wanted to give him a cup of coffee with that poison. But the blond quickly realized what it was and refused to drink it.”       “Alright, guys, don’t worry, we will figure it out,” Victor says confidently. “But you got to the ambulance car and ask them to examine you.”       “You need our help?” Terrence specifies.       “No, no, I will solve it all. Though I would like to specify if you don’t really know where the criminals held Helene?”       “No, Mr. Johnson, we don’t know.”       “Marcus’s accomplices do know,” Edward adds. “Ask them. I’m sure they will tell you everything and show you everything.”       “I got it,” Victor says quietly. “When my colleagues and I get the address, we will go to the place to examine everything. Moreover… We need to find… The body of your friend… I mean… The remains… What’s left of it…”       At this moment, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence look at each other tensely and swallow nervously.       “Next, the corps will be brought to the morgue. They will perform an autopsy on the body to establish the reason for death and give the official document. And then… They will prepare it when Mr. Marshall is ready to organize the funeral.”       “You say it all now, but I have goosebumps on my skin,” Daniel confesses confidently, embracing himself with both arms. “I… I can’t believe in all of this… As if everything is not happening to us.”       “As I said, it happens, sadly. I am very sorry for Helene, though. She was really a light and sweet girl who loved her close people.”       “Helene didn't deserve what happened to her,” Edward shakes his head. “Yes, she wasn’t always holy. We can’t call her holy. Helene was one of those who put Raquelle and Natalia in hell during their school years. But she regretted everything and apologized, and the girls forgave her.”       “Most likely, she wasn’t just lucky. Though everything would’ve ended differently if she had been drowned. If Peter hadn’t saved Helene back then, she would’ve died. And this time, your friend was alone. Nobody could help her.”       “We know, Mr. Johnson,” Terrence pronounces with sadness in his eyes.       “Anyway, I want to express my sincere condolences to you due to Helene’s death. I am really very sorry about what happened. Nobody wanted it. God saved it all.”       “Thank you so much,” Daniel nods hesitantly.       “When I have some free time, I will go to visit Mrs. Marshall and try to comfort her. And I will surely come to the funeral when the date is chosen.”       “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Edward thanks. “You’re our magic wand, without which we wouldn’t get through all of this.”       “Glad to be necessary.”       “Oh, the thought about having to call the girls and tell them this news is like a knife in the heart,” Terrence sighs tiredly. “It’s like cats scratch inside.”       “Let me talk to the girls and try to tell them about their friend’s death kind of delicately. But you ask the doctors to examine you and drive you to the hospital if you need it.”       “Oh, thank you so much!” Daniel exhales with relief, running his hands over his face. “We are going to be speechless when we have to say these terrible words.”       “I will not tell them details and will just calm them down by saying at least you are alright, thank God. And when you come to them, you will tell them everything you think you should.”       “Alright, we will do this.”       “Hold on, guys, hold on. Be strong.”       Victor shakes Daniel, Edward, and Terrence by the hand and hugs them amicably to comfort them a little.       “Remember, your girls, Helene’s grandmother, and her doggy need you now.”       “We will think of them while Peter is distanced from us,” Terrence shrugs.       “Give him some time. When he is ready, he will come to you and ask you for help, care, and friendly support.”       “Let’s hope.”       “Oh, alright, I think I will go. I have so much to do here. And then I will need to go to the station. I hope I will do all of this by evening.”       “Thank you for everything again,” Edward thanks.       “If I need something else for the investigation of this case, I will let you know.”       After glancing at the three men with sympathy, Victor turns around and goes quietly to do his work, meeting the young woman in a police uniform on the way who definitely wants to tell him something important.       “So, we’ve gotta get out of here, too,” Edward exhales sharply. “We have nothing to do here.”       “Let’s treat the wounds and then go to my home,” Daniel says quietly. “The girls are probably scared to death there.”       “Oh, with my hurt back, I will come to the car by the evening only,” Terrence moans quietly and takes two steps before Daniel takes him under an arm. “And then I will spend three more hours getting in the one.”       “It’s alright, bro, if this is really a bruise, you are gonna come back to normal again.”       “Oh, if I’m confined to a wheelchair due to the broken spine, I’m gonna go crazy at 100%.”       While Terrence turns around slowly to the side he needs and starts just moving forward and moaning quietly at times, Edward takes him under the second arm, helping him move as carefully as possible along with Daniel.       “I think I would love to shoot or hang myself in this case.”       “Since you can walk and stand, it means everything isn’t so bad,” Edward tries to encourage. “If you had a fracture, it would be seen clearly.”       “Hey, how do you actually feel now?” Daniel asks.       “Fine, actually,” Terrence replies. “Though my whole body is kinda squeezed. My muscles are kinda very tense.”       “Okay, buddy, don’t worry. We will drive you to the hospital so you can get examined fully.”       “I ain’t worry. Some painkillers, cold compressors, therapeutic massages, and two or three days of rest before I’m back to normal.”       Terrene winces slightly when severe pain gets into his back when he makes a sharp movement.       “Ugh… But I’m gonna suffer a little before it happens.”       “Hey, I have an idea how to make your condition a little better and come to the doctors and the car much faster,” Edward says confidently.       “How? Are you gonna fight fire with fire by pushing me off the cliff?”       “Not this life!” Edward stops and turns his back on Terrence. “Get on my back.”       “What?” Terrence frowns slightly.       “C’mon! You wouldn’t suffer and walk. I will carry you quietly to the right place.”       “Good idea, huh!” Daniel exclaims with approval. “It wouldn’t let you suffer from pain every time you move.”       “Fuck, I feel like a fucking helpless disabled man,” Terrence rolls his eyes with a resentful sigh.       “C’mon, c’mon, no talks!” Edward exclaims. “Get on before I change my mind!”       Understanding that it would be better for him, Terrence uses Daniel’s help to climb onto Edward’s back carefully and grab him tightly not to fall.       “Alright, ride me, my loyal horse,” Terrence sighs tiredly. “I’m holding you tight.”       “C’mon, you just need to pass a short distance,” Daniel calms down, moving forward along with Edward carrying Terrence on his back. “The doctors are standing there. I see them from afar. They’re gonna fix you now. Or at least do something for us, so that you can go to your home quietly.”       “It’s okay, dude, I will carry this body to the right place,” Edward promises. “I will carry my big bro, who really walked on the edge of the blade again.”       “Ar-r-r-r, shut up!” Terrence growls irritably. “I feel bad without you!”       “Okay, I’m silent!”       Despite a wish to mock Terrence and lighten the mood with a joke, Edward decides to keep his mouth shut, completely understanding that this is not the best time for this. He keeps carrying his brother on his back, while the man decides not to show that he really liked being in this situation when he gets so much care from people. And Daniel just goes ahead but turns back at times to make sure everything is alright, and his friends are still with him.