The Criminal Diaries

      The next day, Natalia, Anna, and Raquelle joined Helene, who went to walk with Sammy. Knowing that there is no threat anymore, they feel confident, walk quietly in the city, talk about everything, joke a lot, and laugh contagiously. When they come to the big park where there are many people, the friends have pleasure from playing with the dog, whose mood got way better after rejoicing with his owner. The retriever runs wild after the toy the girls throw by one, not missing a chance to cheat a little and make him work hard before getting the prize.       Some children may stop to watch the doggy they like, and adult people ask Helene, Anna, Natalia, and Raquelle some questions about him since the girls do not refuse to talk to those who come to them. They let one little girl caress the head of Sammy being delighted by getting so much attention, enjoying it a lot, behaving very friendly, and not stopping to wag his puffy tail. Someone even asks for permission to play with the retriever that finds his favorite toy and brings it with pleasure.       At some moment, Sammy, Helene, Anna, Raquelle, and Natalia get a little tired and decide to take a break. While the dog lies on the soft green grass with a heavy breath and his tongue out and starts watching people go somewhere and do something, the girls sit on the bench and open bottles of water they bought at a small stall located right in this park.       “I feel that Sammy has finally come to himself,” Raquelle notices cheerfully, holding the open bottle in her hand. “You saw him running and playing?”       “Yeah, he’s changed for the best for two days only,” Natalia agrees. “He looks much better now.”       “You must’ve seen how Sammy rushed to the bowl with food on the day I met you,” Helene laughs. “He was running around Anna and barking at her while she filled the bowl with food. And then he started to swallow everything super fast.”       “The poor baby was too hungry,” Anna replies. “He didn’t eat anything for so many days.”       “And when we came back home the next day, Sammy slept deeply in his corner until the evening.”       “Why wouldn't he sleep when his owner is near?” Natalia adds.       “To be honest, I was really upset when Sammy didn’t come to me after I called him. When he didn’t recognize me at first.”       “But when he sniffed you, he literally struck you down from happiness!” Raquelle exclaims.       “And thank God, he’s recovered after the wound.”       “Luckily, it was mild, but his organs weren’t hurt. That’s why Sammy got off lightly, as they say.”       “He was lucky Raquelle was near,” Anna adds. “And those people who helped drove Sammy to the clinic.”       “Oh, no need to think about it now!” Natalia waves her hand. “Stop, the threat is gone, all the bad things are over.”       “Right! Now Sammy is gonna live a long and happy life next to his owner.”       “Who will not leave him,” Helene adds with a slight smile.       Sammy barks quietly, gets up on his laps, comes closer to Helene, and snuggles his nose in her palm.       “Yes, my baby, I never will,” Helene promises, caressing Sammy’s head and scratching his head. “I’ll always be with you.”       “He reminds me of the child that can’t do without a mom,” Raquelle says.       “Sammy is the child. My little baby, who gives me a lot of happiness.”       Again, Sammy barks shyly, wagging his tail amicably, while Helene keeps caressing his head, and Anna runs her hand over the dog’s hair.       “Oh, just something good!” Natalia sighs tiredly. “I am so happy as I watch the happy and cheerful Sammy.”       “Ah, I wish I were happy too…” Helene sighs heavily. “I mean, I’m happy to have you and the men. But in order to have everything in its place, I wanna know I’m not under a threat of losing Peter once and forever.”       “Haven’t you reached him yet?” Raquelle asks with sadness in her eyes.       “Alas, girls… I’ve sent him several messages and called all his numbers many times, but Peter ignores them so hard.”       “And you went to his home?” Anna specifies.       “I went there in the early morning, but it didn’t work. His neighbors said it didn’t make sense to go there because everyone started to meet Rose rarely.”       “I guess the men were right that he’d be running after us really hard,” Natalia assumes.       “What if he left his apartment on purpose and decided to live at a different place, renting something?” Raquelle says thoughtfully, putting her bottle in the bag.       “Really, girls, I don’t know what to do,” Helene throws her hands up. “I don’t! I’m giving up more and more!”       “No, no, darling, don’t worry, please,” Anna says softly, caressing Helene’s hand.       “My God… The men count on me so badly, but I am powerless and can’t help them. I can’t bring their friend back.” Helene sighs heavily. “The one they’re about to reject at their will.”       “They’re thinking about it just because they’re afraid for their lives and don’t see the meaning in helping the one who rejects people’s attempts to make it all better,” Raquelle replies. “If Peter showed that he needed help, the men would jump outta the skin.”       “When they told me about this wish, my heart was broken. Broken at the thought that Peter would be losing his close people because of his stupidity. He wanna stay all alone.”       “Anyway, even if they decided to try to reach out to him the last time, nobody’s gonna give up so easily,” Natalia says confidently. “Edward, Terrence, and Daniel will go until the end for you and Peter to finally meet.”       “If only he didn’t do anything to them in anger. He told the guys that they’d regret it if they stood in his way again.”       “Our men are strong and fearless, Helene,” Anna smiles in approval. “They can go through this, obviously. I am sure about them.”       “I don’t doubt it. But I am worried anyway. I am worried that they may be Pete’s first victims. Who may definitely take after his father…”       Seeing that Helene can barely hold down the tears and looks saddened, Sammy barks with pity and puts his paw softly on her knee.       “After everything three got through, the men are ready for anything,” Raquelle notices. “They don’t know what to expect from Peter.”       “We’ve gotta catch the moment when Peter is Peter, not Theodore,” Natalia adds. “When he looks like a normal and reasonable man.”       “He’d been like this before the guys said I was alive,” Helene says thoughtfully. “And then he went outta his mind.”       “It means the guys will do something different. Without mentioning you.”       “I’m afraid he’ll not be normal after that. He acted like a psycho! I think if not for the people around, Rose would’ve attacked the guys with fists.”       “Anyway, Terrence, Edward, and Daniel swore to us that they wouldn’t give up until they get what they want,” Raquelle says confidently. “Until they watch you come to Peter and watch him see you alive and unharmed.”       “My God, how could he go so far?” Helene wonders and brings her hands folded together to her mouth. “How could Peter get furious at his best friends? Who were ready for anything for him! Who gave him no reason to think they plan something mean!”       “We wanna believe that he doesn’t want it,” Anna replies with sadness in her eyes. “His illnesses control him. Emotions caused by the thought that you’re dead.”       “I love him with all my heart and see nobody but him next to me. But this guy has lately been scaring me a lot.”       Sammy whines quietly with pity at this moment.       “Excuse me, had he really never shown aggression to you before he blamed you for betraying and lying?” Natalia specifies. “Maybe you don’t wanna tell us something?”       “No, Natalia, it’s never happened!” Helene says confidently. “The only thing I noticed was that he talked to himself. When he didn’t see me.”       “Are you sure?” Anna specifies.       “I am sure! Yes, maybe Peter wanted to harm me somehow, but he always held himself down. If he wanted to raise his hand, he stopped immediately when he saw me.”       “But you can’t deny that he wanted it,” Raquelle replies.       “That’s why I’m holding myself down. I’m afraid that Peter will stop holding himself down someday and want to attack me the way he attacks the men now.”       “No, Helene, I think he will not hurt you one hundred percent,” Anna says confidently. “He loves you too much.”       “I dunno, Anna…” Helene sighs heavily. “What if his hallucinations tell him something so he forgets about his love for me?”       “Do you want to say you’re thinking of turning your back on Rose as well as the men?” Natalia rounds her eyes.       “No, of course! But his behavior and actions make me tense and think about whether I make the right choice.”       “Anyway, you will decide it,” Raquelle says softly, putting her hand on Helene’s hand. “We will support any of your decisions. We will support the men if they decide to end any relationships with Peter. Support you if you understand you can’t carry this load.”       “But what would you do, girls?”       Helene looks sadly at Raquelle, Anna, and Natalia.       “What would you do if your men were instead of Peter? Would you find the courage to stay with them?”       “I would stay with Terrence,” Raquelle says confidently. “Though it’s not a secret to us that he’s far from being sweet and fluffy.”       “And I wouldn’t leave Daniel,” Anna says with a slight smile. “Whom I can’t imagine running after someone with a knife in his hands and threatening to kill the whole world. Besides, he’s got strong mental health. No matter how many difficulties he runs into, he never breaks down.”       “I can’t imagine myself without Edward,” Natalia shakes her head. “And I’m still surprised by his power of will. So much has happened to him, but he didn’t break down and didn’t get angry.”       Sammy sitting near barks confidently two times.       “So, I don’t also see myself next to any other man,” Helene inclines her head. “When I was trying to get rid of my feelings for him, I was looking for Peter in every man who tried to come and invite me on a date. But… I could not. Even if someone liked me, I didn’t like them.”       “Just do what you think is right,” Raquelle advises. “Think about all the ‘for’ and all the ‘against’ and do what can make you happy.”       “I think I will do what the men wanna do. Give Peter the last chance. I will try to lift him up from the bottom for the last time. Wake him up.”       “It’s your decision, sweetie,” Natalia says softly. “Things will happen as you want.”       “I understand I can’t save him forever every time he wanna fall. I did it for the first time. Maybe I can do this for the second time. But next, I might not do this. Maybe I won’t even want to.”       “If Peter really wanna get out of it, at least for you, you can do this,” Anna says with a slight smile. “I think he just needs a much stronger motivation. You’re the only one to be able to give it.”       “Yes, friend, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence can’t give him such a strong motivation that you can,” Natalia agrees. “The reason to fight for something.”       “If Marcus and his gang hadn’t made Peter believe you died, he wouldn’t have gone insane,” Raquelle adds. “Everything we wrong after he allegedly lost you.”       “I know, Raquelle,” Helene pronounces thoughtfully.       Sammy barks quietly and whines with pity.       “Yes, my boy, I know you’re missing him.” Helene caresses Sammy’s head softly. “But what can I do since we’re having this situation?”       “Even if it’s our last attempt, we will be as determined as never before,” Natalia assures. “Nobody’s gonna give up so easily.”       “The question is about how much time it’s gonna take,” Raquelle adds. “One week, one month, one year, two years…”       “Anyway, Pete can’t run away from us forever,” Anna notices. “Early or late, he will run into someone. And he will have to do our claim. The last claim in case we decide to never talk to him anymore.”       Again, Sammy barks quietly and starts butting his head against Helene’s knees, while she caresses the dog’s head with a slight smile, and her friends scratch and stroke his smooth hair. At some moment, the girls hear a loud but short sound that makes them freeze sharply. Helene quickly understands that it was her smartphone, opening her bag to find it after putting her bottle of water in it. When she takes her phone and unlocks the screen, the girl sees the notification that makes her really interested in it.       “Oh, a message!” Helene exclaims. “From Daniel…”       “Daniel?” Raquelle frowns slightly.       “So, what does he want?” Natalia asks.       “He sent a voice message,” Helene says thoughtfully. “Hm… Interesting…”       Helene opens the message app with a couple of touches of her fingers, makes sure that she really received a voice message from Daniel, and starts playing it at a low volume, while Natalia, Anna, and Raquelle sit much closer to her to find out what the man needs from their friend.       “Hey, Helene! Sorry for bothering you, but the case is urgent. Edward, Terrence, and I are now spending time together. I met them after I left the gym class. In short, while we talked, we saw Peter. He didn’t see us, but we watched him from afar. At first, Rose was sitting on the bench and checking something on his phone, but then he got up and went to his car. The guys and I thought and decided to follow him carefully and find out where he was hiding. We thought we should’ve told you that and would keep you aware of what’s happening. I ain’t sure if we can do something, but we will try to persuade him to go with us and help you meet him. If we do it, I’ll contact you again and tell you where to go. But now just wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed.”       “So what, do you think they can do this?” Natalia looks at her friends.       “It would be great,” Anna replies. “Peter must meet Helene as soon as possible and understand that the guys didn’t lie to him.”       “My heart kinda squeezes painfully…” Helene winces slightly, grabbing her throat with a hand. “I’m worried… And it’s so muggy outside, it feels like rain’s coming. One of the confirmations is that my grandma’s knee starts to ache. It always happens before any weather changes.”       “I don’t feel quiet, either,” Raquelle confesses. “But I’m sure the guys can get through this.”       “I’m afraid to imagine what’s gonna happen if Peter catches them earlier,” Natalia expresses anxiety. “And if they end up in a desert place where he can do anything he wants to them.”       “Maybe we should contact Mr. Johnson just in case?” Helene suggests hesitantly.       “Or the doctors from a mental hospital,” Anna adds thoughtfully. “So, they take Rose away and calm him down a little.”       “Yeah, but where do we find them this time?” Raquelle throws her hands up. “Daniel didn’t say where they were.”       “We have just a clue – the gym glass where Perkins was,” Helene notices.       “Hey, Anna, don’t you know which one it is?” Natalia asks.       “Yeah, I know,” Anna nods with a slight smile. “In the center of the city. It’s called ‘Warrior Workout.’”       “I think the MacClifes and Rose go there…” Raquelle says thoughtfully. “Terrence goes, for sure.”       “Yeah, but what’s next?” Helene wonders. “We weren’t told which side Pete went on.”       “Anyway, we will have to wait for some time,” Natalia says quietly. “We shouldn't start panicking in advance. Maybe everything is gonna be okay.”       “Knowing how much Rose hates the men now? I kinda have doubts about it!”       “Natalia’s right, girls,” Raquelle agrees. “Let’s really wait for a while. We can wait at the home of Terrence and me. It’s not too far from here.”       “We can. While you and I wait, Sammy can play in the pool. You know how much he loves this thing.”       Sammy barks confidently two times.       “By the way, girls…” Helene pronounces thoughtfully. “How do I look now?”       “Still a little tired but still beautiful,” Natalia replies with a slight smile.       “But we can make you look much better if you have a wish to surprise Peter,” Anna smiles mysteriously.       “Would you help me if the men managed to lure Rose to the meeting?” Helene asks hesitantly.       “With pleasure, friend!” Raquelle exclaims. “Be sure, we’ll make you look like a stunning cutie.”       Again, Sammy barks confidently.       “As I understand, Sammy wanna join this process, too,” Anna laughs.       “He's gonna be our main expert who’s gonna choose the best look for you,” Natalia says confidently.       Raquelle, Anna, Helene, and Natalia laugh shyly, getting up from the bench and placing their bags over their shoulders. Sammy waits impatiently for his owner to fasten the leash to his collar and follows her obediently when she and her friends turn to the side they need, still talking about their men’s idea on the way and praying that they do everything they planned and do not suffer at all.       

***

      Some time before catching Peter and deciding to follow him, Daniel really went to the gym class where he had an intense workout, after which literally all his muscles started to hurt. Nevertheless, he remains happy with doing a good enough job and leaves this place after taking a shower and putting on clean clothes. When he is outside, he breathes in the fresh but too hot air and smiles slightly as he tries to get rid of all the negative thoughts that come into his mind so hard.       Daniel looks at what’s happening around him and, squeezing the handle of his bag with everything he needs for workouts, goes somewhere straight with no rush. On the way, he takes a bottle of water, opens it, and drinks some of it to get rid of the thirst that tortures him. Then the man keeps moving forward in his soft sneakers on the asphalt, going by people rushing to do their business or spending time with their friends, relatives, or pets. But since it’s too boring to walk like this, he listens to the music in his wireless headphones that he used during his workout, so he did not consider it torture.       Remembering clearly that he should always be careful, Daniel does not turn on the music at full volume and looks around all the time to see if there is danger somewhere. And he barely holds down his wish to sing and dance along with his favorite song before the eyes of people, who may look at him badly because of this. Adult people would obviously do this. So, he walks by the group of teenagers performing an easy dance along with a song that’s currently trending worldwide and recording it on the camera of the smartphone. The man looks at them without judgment and smiles shyly, noticing silently that some guys move really well and can feel the rhythm.       Despite the tiredness after the workout, Daniel does not rush to come back home as soon as possible and does not regret deciding to walk somewhere on his feet instead of catching a taxi. Favorite music in his headphones, the favorite hot weather, and a bottle of cold water make this pastime much more interesting and make him forget about all the problems and think about something good at least for a while. At some moment, he comes to the metallic railing, to the place where there is a view of the small lake, on which little and adult ducks and a couple of inseparable swans are swimming, while a crowd of seagulls fly above the water again and again.       Daniel spends some time watching what’s happening and enjoying another favorite song that is playing in his headphones. The man lets himself relax a little and think about something nice, holding tightly by the ceiling with both hands and asking himself silently when he walked like this in the city for nothing all alone and thought about nothing. However, he does not spend too much time alone because someone comes to him from behind at some moment and taps their finger against his shoulder quietly. Shaking slightly in surprise, Daniel moves his eyes aside, but sees nobody to his surprise. And he turns to another side sharply when someone claps him on the second shoulder. Someone plays with him like this several more times. That’s why the man, who stops the music on his smartphone, manages to find out that Edward and Terrence came to him, being cheerful and funny, after several attempts.       “Hi ya, Dan!” Edward pronounces funnily, and then Terrence does the same.       Daniel takes off his headphones before he starts speaking:       “Oh, hi ya, tough guys!” Daniel turns off his headphones with the button and puts them in his sports bag. “Didn’t you ya coming.”       “So, are ya listening to the music and watching birds?” Terrence puts his hands on his hips.       “Sort of!”       Daniel greets Terrence and Edward with a homely handshake and a strong, amicable hug.       “Where are you coming from so tired?” Edward asks. “With a bag…”       “From a gym class,” Daniel replies. “I had an intense workout.”       “Oh, wow…” Terrence smiles slyly. “From a gym class…”       “You should go there too. Instead of walking in the city and doing nobody the hell knows what.”       “We can so there someday…” Edward replies thoughtfully. “To see how many push-ups you’ve really done or how many times you’ve carried a bar. And whether you enjoy yourself, taking photos of your abs.”       “Seriously? Everything I have hurts after this workout: starting with my head and neck and ending with my ass and my toes! I left all my strength there!’       “But meanwhile, you’ve got the strength to walk in the city.”       “With your favorite music in the headphones, anything goes better. It’s one of the most necessary things in a gym class. As well as one big bottle of water or several little ones.”       “Yeah, but where’s your icon horse?” Terrence asks. “Did ya crush it?”       “Nope, my car is okay! I just decided to walk on my feet and use a common transport today.”       “Oh, we got it all!”       “Hey, pretty boys, where are you going now? Why are ya walking here and showing yourself to everyone?”       “We’re actually walking and doing nothing,” Edward confesses. “We recently ate ice cream… It was really delicious. It’s too hot today… And we bought some food… We ate something and left something in the car for later.”       “M-m-m, as I understand, don’t ya wanna do a repair?”       “Nah, I wanna do nothing today.” Edward stretches his arms lazily and cracks his fingers. “I just wanna be a vegetable.”       “Same shit,” Terrence agrees. “I woke up in the morning and had no strength to do anything. I barely made myself get up from my bed and drink coffee.”       “Oh, after everything that’s lately happened, there’s nothing amazing,” Daniel sighs tiredly.       “That’s why we can let ourselves lie on the bed in a star position and split at the ceiling,” Edward replies confidently.       “I feel like it’s gonna happen to me in the nearest few days,” Terrence puts his hands on his hips.       “We can ourselves do this, while we don’t have any important business,” Daniel notices.       “We actually do. But we don’t know how to solve it.”       “And whether we wanna do it at all. Because it may eventually turn out to be a waste of time.”       “That’s what we mean…” Edward sighs tiredly.       Silence settles in the air, during which Daniel glances at the ducks swimming in the water and getting his attention with their loud quack.       “Okay, buddy, join us!” Terrence suggests cheerfully. “Why would ya walk here all alone?”       “Well, actually, I spent a good time walking alone,” Daniel replies thoughtfully. “But since we met, let’s hang out together.”       “Any ideas where we can go?” Edward asks. “Terrence and I have been racking our brains with no success!”       “Who the fuck knows!”       At this moment, Daniel steps away from the railing he leant on with his buttocks and just starts to move forward along with Edward and Terrence.       “I personally go where my eyes look. Breathe in the air, watch the birds, listen to the music…”       “Our girls are also a little lazy today,” Terrence laughs. “They agreed to meet, but they didn’t decide where to go.”       “Uh-huh, they decided just to go with Sammy where their eyes looked,” Edward adds.       “I guess we all need it now,” Daniel assumes. “Go somewhere and do something we didn’t plan. Well… Or just do the fuck nothing.”       “Yeah, if we’re so powerless on the wedding day, we won’t obviously get pleasure,” Terrence sighs tiredly.       “I don’t even have the strength to have a bachelor now,” Edward confesses.       “What if you think about rescheduling the wedding?” Daniel suggests. “But when we feel better, we will start getting ready for this?”       “We’re really close to the one,” Terrence replies. “Everything is almost ready. And the guests said they agreed with their bosses and solved the problems with free days.”       “Well, I just suggest that you buy tickets to a warm country and go to warm up your bones under the sun and swim in the water for one week.”       “Oh, I’m too lazy to do this now…” Edward replies tiredly.       “As you wish. My duty is to offer ideas.”       “Nevertheless, I wanna bring this case to an end as soon as possible and know surely what’s gonna happen and how to move on,” Terrence says. “Well… Think about plans…”       “And how do we bring it to an end when we can the fuck do nothing?” Daniel shrugs. “And Helene meets a failure.”       “Yeah, Rose is outta his mind…” Edward shakes his head. “He runs from everyone, fights with everyone, fucks everyone off, and believes nobody…”       “Seriously, guys, I am sick of dealing with him,” Terrence confesses. “Sick of running after the blond like a girl and proving that we don’t lie.”       “Agree, if not for Helene, I would fuck him off already. We’re doing this for her only. Because she’s the only one to be able to change something.”       “She can probably change something, but the question is whether we need it?” Daniel asks.       “Hey, Perkins, tell us honestly, did you really forgive Rose after everything he’d done to you?” Edward asks. “Or do you still have some offence?”       “I dunno, Edward. I kinda understand everything, but I’m kinda fucking hurt. Yes, I can’t be called sweet and fluffy, but you can’t attack someone with a knife like this and really try to kill them.”       “If you’d said it back then, I think I would've hardly believed you,” Terrence replies thoughtfully. “I would’ve thought you slandered Peter.”       “That’s why I decided to be silent about what really happened between us. Nobody would've believed me.”       “But we already had the first bad sighs back then,” Edward notices. “If we’d been much more careful, we would’ve guessed everything much earlier.”       “Nevertheless, I’m sorry for him. Peter hardly wanted to become like this. He probably dreamed of a quiet and peaceful life with his beloved girl and their children. But alas, every asshole standing in his way kicks his ass.”       “I’m sorry for that guy too, but I’m not sure if I wanna keep befriending him. The case is not about any offence. The case is about fear for my close people and me. If something goes wrong again, Rose is gonna go crazy again.”       “That’s right!” Terrence exclaims. “We can’t tolerate his emotional waves and watch how skillfully he changes his personalities. How fast Peter Rose can become Theodore Longbottom.”       “Since Marshall starts to doubt it, it means something!”       “Oh, Rose is really an idiot!” Daniel exclaims. “Just an idiot! He’s messing up everything. Pushing off those who can help. He wanna live like everyone, but he does nothing for it. We give him a hand of help, but he rejects it.”       “If Helene can’t wash his brain, there will be no sense to do something,” Edward says confidently.       “Oh, I can’t wait to end all of this shit and calm down!” Terrence exclaims.       “Friendship is the same hard and painstaking work as the relationship that may have many nuances and dead ends,” Daniel says thoughtfully. “A long test that people can’t sometimes get through with honor and dignity.”       “The case is not about how hard it is. The case is different. It doesn’t make sense to jump out of your skin for someone who doesn’t appreciate it. For the one who ignores any effort someone makes for them.”       “Listen, we’ve decided to take the last attempt,” Edward sighs tiredly. “We said, ‘If we can’t do this, we’ll fuck Rose off!’ We don’t want to and won’t be running after him until the end of our lives. If he doesn’t need us, the guy can live as he wants. He’ll have nobody to take him out of the loop when he stays all alone.”       “And when will we get a chance to take the last step?” Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. “When will we finally calm down?”       “I don’t know if Father joked or not, but he suggested that Edward, you, and I arrange Peter’s kidnapping,” Terrence confesses.       “Peter’s kidnapping?” Daniel rounds his eyes.       “Uh-huh,” Edward nods. “Like, since the guy doesn’t wanna do something at his will, we can use the force and deprive him of the right of choice and chance to leave.”       “Well, of course, he gave in under the pressure of our relatives,” Terrence adds. “But the kid and I really loved this idea.”       “Listen, guys, your father knows it all!” Daniel smiles slyly. “His idea is really cool.”       “Though there are many nuances, huh,” Edward notices. “How to catch him, where, when, where to drive him, what to do so he doesn’t get out… And how not to end up in jail after all of this.”       “If Rose doesn’t understand anything at his will, we’ll have no choice. We will have to hit him on the head and drive him to an abandoned house while he’s out.”       “Uh-huh, we can also have some fun and scare him a lot,” Terrence smiles mysteriously. “So that he has his underwear wet.”       “The important thing is that nobody knows it,” Daniel says confidently. “All our close and familiar people are gonna run and be like, ‘C’mon! How do you dare? Don’t dare! It’s wrong! It’s bad! It’s a sin!’”       “Yesterday, everyone was overwhelmed when Father said that!” Edward exclaims. “Especially, Mom. She grabbed a spoon from the table and wanted to hit him on the head, but she changed her mind later.”       “Of course, we swore solemnly that we wouldn’t do anything like this,” Terrence adds and smiles slyly. “But we wouldn’t be ourselves if we hadn’t decided to talk about this idea a little later.”       “Cool, men!” Daniel smiles widely. “I’m in, just in case!”       “Uh-huh, but we need to think about everything well and catch that pretty boy somehow,” Edward notices. “So that nobody notices. So that he doesn’t get out.”       “We’ve gotta become his nightmare at least for a while. And then give the excited Rose to our friend so she washes his brain deeply.”       “The question is whether we can scare him. It happens that Rose is scaring us three.”       “If we try hard and don’t forget about our roles until very the end, the blond is gonna squeak and beg us to let him go,” Terrence says with his head proudly raised. “If we don’t succumb to emotions and do everything cruelly and determinedly.”       “Oh, if only it worked, I’d shake Mr. MacClife by the hand tightly and show him my respect,” Daniel says happily.       “I guess he dreamed of doing something like this to Uncle Michael,” Edward assumes.       “So what, guys, talk about this idea?” Terrence smiles mysteriously. “Let’s play bad boys?”       “With great pleasure, brother!” Daniel rubs his hands.       “Say nothing to the girls!” Edward warns. “And adults!”       “I am silent!” Danial shows the zipper that closes his mouth with his fingers.       “If we can do this, we’re gonna have a lot of fun,” Terrence says happily.       “Yea-a-ah!” Edward and Daniel pronounce funnily.       When Terrence raises his hand and reaches it out with his palm first, Daniel and Edward give him a five and then share it with each other, not hiding their wide smile. The men keep going straight, still having no idea what they can get busy with or where to go. But at some moment, the friends decide to turn left and pass some distance before MacClife, Sr. glances aside and looks better when he sees something that catches his attention immediately.       “Guys, look there!” Terrence looks at the side with a mysterious smile. “Look who’s sitting on the bench…”       When Edward and Daniel look at the side Terrence shows them, they can see Peter is sitting on the bench all alone a few meters away from them, checking something on his smartphone and typing a text with both hands.       “Hey yo, that’s really interesting,” Edward rubs his hands.       “We’re lucky that we decided to get out to walk,” Daniel notices. “The pretty boy’s caught!”       “As I understand, he goes home since he changed his clothes,” Terrence says thoughtfully. “He wore different clothes yesterday at the café.”       “And what’s our plan? What do we do?”       “It doesn’t make sense to come to him and try to say something. Moreover, he hardly joked when threatening to kill us if we came to him again.”       “And this is not the best place to pack him,” Edward notices.       “Oh, oh, look, he says something!” Daniel notices, seeing Peter say something under his nose and turn his head to the side for a moment.       “Uh-huh, his hallucinations tell him some bullshit again,” Terrence assumes. “Kill someone or harm someone.”       “Anyway, he won’t deal with us three all alone,” Edward says.       “Uh-huh, he won't!” Terrence chuckles. “He almost walled us up in the basement in Marcus’s house! All alone!”       “Yeah, but we did it somehow,” Daniel notices. “Even if we got fucking tired, but we held on. And now we’re full of energy. So… This creature is out of our league.”       “I feel his hallucinations fuck his brain really hard,” Edward frowns slightly. “He's sitting so tense. As if he’s holding himself down.”       “Listen, guys, let’s hide before he sees us,” Daniel suggests. “Over there, we can hide there!”       Daniel takes Terrence and Edward under an arm and pulls them to the building located near them so that the three men hide behind it. Someone presses his back against the brick wall, but someone looks out of the hideaway carefully and watches Peter. Who glances at the place where the men were before at some moment.       “Oh, in time…” Terrence exhales sharply. “Or we would’ve been caught.”       “So, what do we do now?” Edward wonders. “What if he’s gonna spend half of the day there?       “And what is he checking on his phone?” Daniel asks. “Typing a text, I guess… Is that a message?”       “I don’t understand one thing!” Terrence exclaims. “Helene has sent him several messages and called him two or three times. Doesn’t that idiot really see it’s her number? Doesn’t he see that she’s trying to reach out to him?”       “What if he actually ain't read them. Our latest messages remain unread. And the last time he was online was several days ago. Maybe Rose actually turned off notifications about messages. That’s why he doesn’t see them.”       “Uh-huh, and added all our numbers to the black list so that nobody could call him?” Edward asks surprisingly.       “Quite a reasonable explanation!”       “Oh, I think we’re just wasting time,” Terrence sighs tiredly. “We can’t do anything. No kidnapping, no meeting of Helene with him…”       “It’s okay, we’ll find a way to catch the birdie in the cage. Since we got a goal, we’re gonna crush any walls to get what we want.”       “Uh-huh, it’s gonna be so-o-o-o easy!” Edward rolls his eyes. “Knowing that we don’t have any plan! No idea of catching this birdie’s tail and getting a couple of feathers out.”       “Well, since we have nothing the fuck to do, we’ll watch the one to come to you as Peter but leave you as Theodore.”       “I kinda thought he wouldn’t show up in public places,” Terrence confesses. “He’d love to hide where there would be nobody.”       “Who the fuck knows what he’s got on his mind!” Daniel throws gloomily. “We thought naively that the guy was really shy and sweet because he looked like this. But you see what happened in the end!”       “We only have to wish ourselves to have much patience and luck,” Edward says.       “Oh, yay, luck is the only thing that’s gonna help us in the situation with that psycho. As well as the unity and the ability to get out shortly.”       Terrence sighs tiredly, but Edward runs his hand over his hair, while Daniel and they keep watching Peter carefully. The one who shakes his leg nervously at this moment and looks around much more frequently. He spends some time checking something on his smartphone, but then locks the screen and puts it in the pocket of his open leather waistcoat. Then he just keeps sitting on the bench, leaning back, spreading his legs widely, and looking into the distance with dead eyes.       “What’s next?” Terrence frowns slightly. “Will he keep sitting like this, like a seal?”       “And he looks at people walking by like they irritate him,” Edward adds. “As if he’s be fucking happy to take a gun and start to shoot everyone.”       “Who knows, maybe he’s got something with him,” Daniel throws gloomily.       “I wonder if he came here on his feet or in his car?” Terrence asks. “The way from his home to here is gonna take a lot of time.”       “Huh, knowing that he’s obsessed with sports, this walk is gonna be fucking easy for him!” Edward crosses his arms over his chest.       “Maybe that’s good he works out a lot,” Daniel says thoughtfully. “He gets rid of some craziness somehow as he runs on a running track or smashes his fists against a punching bag.”       “I haven’t kinda noticed his special love for sports lately,” Terrence notices. “And now, he’s probably given up on his workouts.”       “Definitely…” Edward agrees.       “Guys, guys, look!” Daniel jabs. “Rose came up with something!”       “He’s gonna get up!”       “Okay, okay, where’s he gonna go?” Terrence asks.       At this moment, Peter gets up from the bench quickly and pulls down his black leather waistcoat and white sleeveless shirt with black signatures. Then he looks around and goes to the side where Edward, Daniel, and Terrence are hiding.       “Fuck, he’s coming here!” Daniel jabs.       “Over there!” Terrence exclaims, pointing at the walls of the houses located too close to one another, a few meters away from them. “Hide there!”       Daniel, Terrence, and Edward barely manage to run to the place they need and hide before Peter goes two meters away from them in a quick, sharp step. Hoping not to be caught, the men literally stop breathing and look tensely at the blond, who stops sharply at some moment as if he suspects something is wrong.       “Holy fuck!” Edward swears in a whisper.       “Sh-h-h!” Terrence puts his finger on his lip, closing Edward’s mouth with a hand.       Several seconds that Peter spends looking around himself with a gloomy glance, Edward, Terrence, and Daniel feel how fast their hearts are beating from anxiety and excitement. But when the blond hums quietly and keeps moving on as if nothing happened, while the three men exhale with relief.       “Oh, almost got caught…” Daniel leans his back against the wall.       “Where do you think he’s going?” Edward asks.       “Let’s find it out,” Terrence smiles slyly. “Of course, if you’ve got nuts.”       “Hey, what did ya come up with?”       “Let’s follow him! Follow him and find out what he wanna do! Maybe we can even find his secret place. Well, at least one of them!”       “What if catches us?” Daniel expresses anxiety. “It seems like the blond suspects something, knowing that he looked around too closely/”       “If he catches us and shows off, we’ll kick his ass,” Edward says determinedly. “If we have to be cruel, we will be.”       “C’mon, guys, let’s go!” Terrence makes a calling gesture. “We’ve gotta end this shit as soon as possible, fuck him off, and finally calm down.”       “Well, it deserves to fight for…” Daniel shrugs.       Edward, Terrence, and Daniel leave their hideaway carefully and start following Peter, who does not notice them as he goes straight with his hands put in the pockets of his waistcoat and his head inclined. The men try not to come too closely but try not to stay behind not to lose him, hiding behind all the walls, fences, columns, benches, and bushes they see in their way. They freeze sharply and barely manage to hide every time their friend slows down or actually stops to look around.       “I feel like he’s gonna kick our ass when he understands he’s on our hook,” Terrence says quietly.       “After Rose’s attempts to kill me, I fear nothing of what may come into his mind anymore,” Daniel says confidently.       “It’s alright, guys, we’ll knock him out quickly somewhere, put him in the truck, and go outta the city,” Edward replies and smiles slyly, while Daniel, Terrence, and he are hiding behind the small fence and squatting. “I know a very good one.”       “Don’t tell us you’ve got ropes and rags in your car so that we can shut him up,” Daniel chuckles/.       “I can’t promise to find ropes, but the problem with rags can be solved. I have some old ones in my car… But actually, there is much shit in it. I need to sort it all out someday.”       “Follow me, guys!” Terrence exclaims. “Don’t leave me behind!”       After leaving the hideaway and getting up, the three men keep following carefully Peter getting down the asphalt stairs and still keeping his hands in the pockets of the waistcoat. When Edward, Terrence, and Daniel follow the same path, they tense much more because they have no place to hide if the blond wants to turn back.  But luckily, it does not happen, and they keep following successfully the tracks of their friend, who turns left at some moment where there is a large parking lot.       “Okay, seems like he’s gonna get in the car,” Terrence assumes thoughtfully.       “I hope my car isn’t parked too close to his car,” Edward expresses hope. “Or he’s gonna catch us surely…”       “How long do we have to go?” Daniel asks.       “Well, not very long. The place is like… D64… That’s what was written on the asphalt when I was parking.”       “Oh, it’s not too far! I suggest we go on the alternative path so that we don’t get caught. Let’s go!”       Daniel makes a calling gesture and leads Edward and Terrence, going by the edge of the large parking lot and sometimes squatting or hiding behind the cars. At some distance, they can see Peter walking from side to side for some time, looking around often, watching every single car, and reading the numbers of the parking lots on the asphalt.       “I guess he can’t remember where he left his car,” Terrence assumes. “He walks in circles and checks all the cars and numbers.”       “When you’re on such large parking lots, it’s always a headache,” Edward notices.       “Uh-huh, when I went to the hardware store, I spent like five minutes looking for my car,” Daniel confesses. “I left it, but I forgot where. I didn’t memorize the number of the lot and didn’t take a photo.”       “At least, we know where to go this time,” Terrence notices. “Because the kid thought of memorizing the number of the lot.”       This time, Edward decides to say nothing and, hiding behind one of the cars, watches carefully Peter still try to find his car and scratch the back of his head with a thoughtful face at some moment. He has to walk on the parking lot for some time before he finally finds his personal transport among cars of different modes and colors. Exhaling sharply, the blonde quickens the step and comes determinedly to the place he needs as he takes the keys from the inside pocket of his waistcoat.       “Hm, the lot D58…” Daniel pronounces thoughtfully, reading the signature on the column placed near Peter’s car.       “A little bit before he would’ve recognized my car,” Edward adds.       “Now we’ve gotta decide how to come to the one without a hitch,” Terrence says confidently.       “It’s okay, we’ll crawl little by little. There are many cars we can hide behind.”       After looking around, Edward squats, crawls to one of the cars, and hides behind it, but then he hides behind one of the walls. Thus, MacClife, Jr., helps Daniel and Terrence come to his car slowly but confidently. The guy tenses a little when he has to take the keys from the pocket on his light blue jeans and unlock his transport with the press of the button, after which a short, loud sound spreads everywhere. He, his friend, and his brother are worried that they can get Peter’s attention on them, but Rose looks at another man, who is not far from him, and sits in the driver’s seat of his transport.       “In the car, now!” Edward orders. “Before he turns around!”       Using the moment, Edward, Daniel, and Terrence spend moments getting in the car and barely manage to close the door before Peter frowns slightly and looks around with suspicion again.       “Fuck, I’ve got a feeling that he suspects something,” Daniel exhales sharply, sitting comfortably on the backseat and putting his sports bag near him. “What if Rose is just pretending that he doesn’t see us?”       “I bet that his imaginary friend tries so hard, repeating constantly that someone chases him and wanna kill him,” Edward assumes, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands.       “By the way, we need to warn Helene about noticing Peter and deciding to follow him just in case,” Terrence says confidently, knocking his fingers against the door of the passenger.       “I will send her a voice message,” Daniel promises and takes his smartphone from the pocket of his bag. “I’ll tell her to be ready to take her sweetheart and wash his brain.”       While Edward and Terrence watch Peter look around for some time and say something to himself under his nose or his hallucination, Daniel opens the message app on his phone, records a voice message to explain the situation, and sends it to Helene.       “Oh, finally, he decided to jump in the car!” Edward throws gloomily, seeing Peter decide to get into the driver’s seat. “I thought he’d spend the whole day turning his head on all sides like an eagle owl, looking for danger.”       “Maybe we’re lucky now, we’re gonna get caught by him on the way one hundred percent,” Terrence says thoughtfully.       “The important thing is not to get caught in the beginning,” Daniel notices. “But somewhere in the middle or the end of the way.”       “No matter what, we’ve gotta be ready for anything,” Edward says confidently, putting on the safety belt. “And forget about any pity in case he goes crazy again. It’s gonna happen, for sure.”       “I don’t know what I feel for him now,” Daniel leans back in the backseat after he does the same thing. “I’m kinda sorry for the guy, but I kinda hate that bastard openly.”       “Agree with you, buddy.”       “Alright, stop talking!” Terrence orders. “Rose is starting the car and gonna get out of here.”       “C’mon, MacClife, don’t let us down!” Daniel claps Edward on the shoulder. “Don’t get caught earlier.”       “Calm down, bro, I have experience in chasing,” Edward smiles mysteriously. “It’s gonna be okay.”       “Don’t get too close to him,” Terrence insists. “Or he’s gonna realize it all!”       “We will wait for him to leave the parking lot and go a distance.”       Meanwhile, Peter really starts the motor, getting the key in the switcher, removes the handbrake, turns on the first speed, and turns his head on all sides as he leaves the parking lot slowly. Then he turns to the right and goes straight for some time, glancing at the rear side mirror, in which he sees a red car that he believes is driven by a girl driving behind him.       “Great, that red car is covering us!” Terrence exclaims and claps Edward on his hand, putting on the safety belt. “Hey, bro, c’mon, do it!”       “Well, let’s go!” Edward exhales sharply.       Edward turns off the first speed with a gearbox, presses the gas pedal slowly, leaving the parking lot quietly, and turning on the same side where Peter went. But he drives behind two more cars that end up on the straight path much earlier. Luckily, he does not have to drive for a long time, and all the cars go on different sides when they rise up and reach the exit from the underground parking. Rose presses the gas pedal harder when he goes on the circular road, comes to the turn he needs, and finally ends up on the broadband highway that is free enough today.       Edward has to wait for several cars to move on since they are driving too fast before he goes on the highway and starts to go straight after Rose’s car, trying to keep him in his view but not daring to get too close to him. In this case, it’s easy for him to do it because the blond drives quietly and does not aim to play catch with someone or overtake any cars.       “He’s driving quietly…” Daniel notices thoughtfully. “It means he doesn’t see us yet…”       “We'd better drive after other cars not to get caught,” Terrence advises. “The road is free, there’s a high chance of getting caught.”       “And I’m gonna be driving quietly,” Edward decides. “Without overtaking people, without rushing.”       At some moment, a motorcycle drives by Edward’s car at full speed, making such a loud growl that it can be heard even in the salon with closed windows.       “I wonder where he’s gonna go?” Terrence wonders. “There’s nothing but thick woods here!”       “Maybe he decided to become a hermit?” Edward assumes funnily. “He has to live somewhere in the woods so that we don’t annoy him.”       “Judging by the maps, a little beach is supposed to be somewhere near,” Daniel says thoughtfully, opening the maps on his smartphone.       “You wanna say Rose wanna go on the beach? It’s better to think about how to take revenge on the whole world as you’re lying on the sand?”       “Anyway, we’re gonna spend a lot of time reaching it. Judging by the location, we’re too far from that beach. There are only woods in our way yet.”       “What if that dude who burns petrol and drives in the city for nothing?” Terrence assumes, “He does anything not to stay home!”       “Hey, about petrol!” Edward exclaims and glances at the indicators on the dashboard. “I really hope this trip won’t last for like two or three hours. Because I ain’t sure that I have enough fuel in the tank.”       “If we don’t have enough and stand in the middle of the way, I swear I will hang you by your balls.”       “If we don’t have enough and stand in the middle of the way, you’re gonna push my baby to the nearest petrol station without minding.”       “Uh-huh, keep dreaming! You fail it all, but I have to suffer because of you? And actually, the pain in my back hasn’t gone yet!”       “Okay! Then you’re gonna be standing naked on the sidelines in a sexual pose, hoping someone will want to put this creature, who pronounces himself Apollo, with feathers in their car.”       “Anyone would be honored to put Terrence MacClife himself in the car.”       “I’d look at these idiots,” Edward chuckles. “Who would agree to tolerate you the whole way.”       “Shut up, little rag!”       “You shut up!”       “Creeping reptile!”       “Don’t breathe on me!”       “You turn off me!”       “Hey, shut up, you two, and watch the road!” Daniel orders. “We’re actually on the mission! A very important one, to your information.”       “I’m doing nothing!” Edward smiles innocently. “I’m just informing you about the current information and warning you about the possible problems in advance.”       Terrence says nothing and just rolls his eyes, repeating everything Edward said in a much funnier way. While his brother decides to be silent, judging, glancing at the older guy briefly, with judgment. Peter decides to merge into the other lane after he makes sure there are no cars he may crush by accident. Then he changes the speed and presses the gas pedal much harder, hearing the motor make a quiet growl so that the car starts driving faster. Not going to lose the blond, MacClife, Jr., waits a little, merges into the same lane, stands behind the gray car of a very, very old model, and drives like this for some time.       “Ar-r-r-r, where is that idiot going if he goes so far?” Terrence growls quietly. “Is he gonna go to the other end of the city?”       “How long ago did he get a love for desert places?” Daniel wonders. “How long ago did he start to walk in the places where people had never walked before?”       “Trust me, Perkins, we don’t know everything about him,” Edward replies confidently. “Not everything that’s probably gonna make us dumbfounded one hundred percent.”       “I guess Peter doesn’t know everything about himself, too. And he doesn’t rush to fix it. He’s definitely happy with everything.”       “I don’t think we care about it now,” Terrence says thoughtfully. “When we bring him to Helene, we’ll wave our hands at him, saying the final, ‘Au revoir!’”       “If he’s out of his mind, he’s gonna fuck that girl off, too,” Edward says. “Because he’s gonna think she betrayed him, too. Make her guilty of something she’s never been guilty of.”       “She’s starting to be afraid of it. And regret falling in love with that man.”       “Yeah, her grandmother doesn’t know half of what that guy has done,” Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. “But if she knew it, her late husband’s actions would seem nothing to her.”       “Mr. Marshall was an innocent angel next to our Peter-Theodore. He was too harsh, of course, but he obviously befriended his mind.”       “Can’t argue,” Edward agrees.       Edward drives on the highway for some time, being focused on the road for most of the time, while Terrence and Daniel look around. At some moment, he decides to merge into the other lane, and fastens a little because he starts keeping pace with Peter watching what’s happening forward with dead eyes and holding the steering wheel tightly with both hands. Cars and motorcycles drive by him at full speed, but he looks at them badly with a quiet smirk. While the blond himself keeps driving as fast as he wants and does not rush, having no idea where he is going or what he wants to do now.       At some moment, Peter glances at the rear side mirror and does not care about what he sees at first. But then he frowns slightly and looks at this, starting to look closely at what’s happening behind. A few moments before the guy stops his eyes on the car of Edward, who is driving a long enough distance from him.       “What?” Peter frowns much more strongly. “What the fuck?”       Peter growls irritably under his nose because he cannot see the number of the car in this case.       “Is this what I’m thinking about now?”       “M-m-m, is that a familiar car, huh?” Theodore smiles slyly, sitting in the passenger’s seat.       “It looks like Edward’s one. It’s literally the same.”       “What if that’s really him?”       “I don’t know, I’m not sure… Can’t see the number.”       Peter slows down a little with the hope that he will manage to see the number of the car that makes him have suspicions.       “Fuck, I can’t see anything!” Peter swears. “And I didn’t take my glasses with me! I have them at my home.”       “Huh, a holed-head guy!” Theodore mocks.       “Through… Wait…” Peter squints much more strongly. “No… I can’t see it anyway.”       “But you’re obsessed with a thought that someone chases you for the reason. You’ve been since you came to the parking lot.”       “Right, I can’t escape the feeling that I’m on someone’s hook. But when I look around. I see nothing and nobody.”       “By the way, there was a similar car in the parking lot not far from you,” Theodore notices. “You were literally several cars away from one another.”       “Right…” Peter realizes. “Right, right! That’s the car! I saw it there!”       “And the same car is now following you. It’s happening for the reason, dude! Don’t ya think?”       “I think I’m starting to understand… Understand that these assholes didn’t understand me at all. They didn’t understand what I told them in a clear enough language.”       “You wanted to wait for them to want to catch you again – it has happened. Even earlier than you expected.”       “Hey, that’s really them!” Peter exclaims after he slows down enough so that Edward’s car, which is driving on the side, ends up a few meters away from him. “That’s Edward! I see his face! He’s driving the car!”       “M-m-m, did ya see him even with your fucking bad vision?”       “And Terrence is sitting next to him. And I see Daniel in the backseat…”       “Here’s the proof!” Theodore claps his hands. “They won’t leave you alone!”       “Hm, it means they decided to follow me…” Peter smiles slyly. “They decided to find the place where I was hiding. Thinking I would guess nothing?”       “What are ya gonna do? Are ya gonna put them on a stake?”       “First, I wanna make sure that’s really them. And they are really following me.”       Peter changes the speed with the gearbox and presses the gas pedal much harder, making the car speed up and drive on the free lane at high speed.       “Oh, oh, he’s starting to drive faster!” Daniel notices with anxiety. “He caught us?”       “I think so,” Terrence nods.       “There’s no way back,” Edward says confidently. “Since we started it, we have to go until the end.”       After changing the speed, Edward fastens as well, and merges into the other lane – the one Peter is driving on. But two moments before it happens, the driver of another car takes a place in front of MacClife, Jr., and drives very, very slowly.       “Fuck, drive faster, asshole!” Terrence resents. “You took the lane and started to drive as slow as a snail!”       “Overtake him!” Daniel orders. “Or we’re gonna lose Rose.”       Listening to his friend, Edward merges again, overtakes the car that is driving at a human’s speed, and comes back. And now he is driving after Peter, behind whom he lags a few meters. The blond himself merges into further lanes on purpose and fastens two or three times, realizing everything after MacClife, Jr., follows him determinedly and does not even think about leaving him behind.       “Ha, bingo!” Peter laughs contemptuously. “I knew it! They are really following me!”       “So, is it time to go on your daddy’s path and start your own criminal diary?” Theodore rubs his hands happily. “And do your best for those people to be honored to be the first ones to have their names added to it.”       “You saw it all – I gave them a chance to save their skin. I gave them a chance to leave me alone and live my life. But they did not hear me. They decided to keep poisoning my life.”       “M-m-m, I can’t wait to have fun and get rid of these bastards. Do it before they want to do this to you.”       “Oh, no, they will not destroy me so easily,” Peter says in a rude, low voice. “I shall not let them fool me!”       “What are ya gonna do, Peter?”       “I have one cool idea…” Peter changes the speed with the gearbox. “I wanna lure them to the place where nobody can stop me from dealing with them.”       “Interesting, interesting… Will they go?”       “Undoubtedly! These idiots will not even realize how they end up in my trap. How I deal with them immediately.”       “That’s gonna be fun!”       “Especially, if I scare them so that they want to beg me for mercy. But I shall refuse to do it with no mercy.”       “Great! So, where do we lure them?”       “I shall drive further on the highway and make them enter the wood.” Peter sneers evilly. “I’ve got a knife with me, just in case.”       “Yea-a-a-a-ah! You should’ve done it a long time ago!”       “Hold on, bastards, only bones will be left of you now,” Peter says in a sinister voice. “I shall destroy you. Take revenge on you for everything. You will ask for trouble now.”       Laughing loudly and evilly, Peter speeds up again and drives determinedly straight with the thought that Edward, Daniel, and Terrence will surely follow him and have to run into what he has come up with.       “My gut tells me that the blond-haired one came up with something,” Edward squeezes the steering wheel with his hands.       “Something bad for us,” Terrence specifies, seeing Peter cross two lines to merge sharply into the left lane. “He sped up like this for a reason.”       “So what, guys, do we take a risk or fuck him off?” Daniel asks hesitantly.       “We have no choice, Daniel. If we don’t end this now, we’ll never end it. We’ll keep being suspended all the time. He’ll keep calling us liars, who wish him all the worst.”       “You’re right. We’ve gotta bring what we started to an end and finally calm down. Bring Rose and Marshall together and let him decide: whether he really fucks us off and lives as he wants, or he apologizes for being a nasty and heartless bastard all this time. Though we’ll hardly need it after everything that has happened.”       “So, do we follow him?” Edward asks. “Are you ready to get involved in a trap he wanna catch us in at your will?”       “Go, Edward,” Terrence says confidently. “Press the gas and follow him.”       “C’mon, kid, rock on!” Daniel encourages.       Edward exhales sharply, changes the speed with the gearbox, and presses the gas pedal harder so that the car drives faster. That’s why he gets close enough to Peter, who managed to go further at a long enough distance. Who sees it and smiles smugly at the thought that his plan is working.       “Uh-huh, the mouse has been caught in a mousetrap!” Peter exclaims happily. “My plan is working like magic!”       “Stupid people,” Theodore sneers. “They don’t understand they’re going to die very soon.”       “They do understand! And they’ve probably realized that I would not leave them alone.”       “Then it’s a fucking stupid thing!”       “Likely, a wish to show off. A wish to ask for fucking trouble.”       “Well, someone is going to die because of this.”       “Enjoy the grandiose show, Theodore,” Peter raises his head proudly. “ I shall make them regret what they started. Make them pay for all my sufferings.”       “Can’t wait to come!”       “Now, we’ll come now. I want to go as far as possible and find a much thicker place.”       “Any place would be good here!” Theodore exclaims. “There are only woods around!”       “That’s what I need!”       Peter speeds up a little so that his car drives faster on the free lane. At some moment, he glances at the rear side mirror and sneers evilly as he sees Edward is a few meters away from him, trying not to lag behind but not to get too close to him.       “I wonder where he’s gonna lure us?” Daniel wonders. “There are only woods around!”       “I bet that he’s coming there,” Terrence says confidently.       “The guy is really determined,” Edward noticed. “He’s too determined to kill us.”       “Uh-huh, his imaginary friend is now sitting next to him and telling him to get rid of us.”       “That’s why I’m assuring more and more that we won’t get anything peacefully,” Daniel replies. “Mr. MacClife’s idea is the only thing that will save us.”       “Of course, it’s unpleasant to do this, but we were literally forced to take such radical measures.”       “Whatever happens now, I’ll be ready for anything.”       Some time later goes by before Peter comes to a very narrow turn that leads somewhere in the deep woods. The man understands quickly that this place is perfect for him and does not even include blinker when he merges sharply into the most right lane and turns on the place he needs. After looking at Terrence and Daniel briefly and frowning slightly, Edward merges more carefully and lets other drivers know that he wants to turn right and follows the same way as Rose.       “Yeah, MacClife, I guess you were right…” Daniel says thoughtfully, looking around. “This idiot wants us to go as far into the woods as possible.”       “Hey, guys, does someone see him now?” Edward wonders. “Where is he? Where do we go?”       “There’s just one path out here, so you need to drive on it,” Terrence shrugs.       “The important thing is to get out of here in the end. You can get lost in these woods super easily. And cell phones would barely work here one hundred percent.”       “As if Rose himself can get out!” Daniel chuckles. “He’s never been to these places. It’s not Edward, who’s checked the entire city in search of fucking trouble.”       “Yeah, but I’m not sure if I can orient here if the blond makes us go too far.”       “In short, drive on the path so that you can end up somewhere! We can come back on the same path later.”       “Look, Peter’s car is there!” Terrence exclaims, pointing at the bumper of Peter’s car that just hid. “It seems that he decided to turn aside.”       “Ar-r-r-r, this idiot is starting to irritate me!” Edward growls quietly and turns aside after he comes to the place he needs.       “Not just you, brother.”       Looking around a little tensely, Edward keeps driving straight after Peter being a few meters away from him. Being really happy that his plan starts working like magic, the blond sneers evilly and goes further and further on purpose, and chooses the hardest and narrowest turns on purpose.       “Great, now it’s going to be hard for them to get out of here,” Peter says confidently. “Even if they want to run from me and come back to the road, they will not be able to do anything.”       “Uh-huh, are you sure you can get out of here?” Theodore sneers evilly.       “Don’t worry about me. They must be worried. And fear my anger that they know about very well.”       “Of course, I really love your idea about getting rid of them, but you should also think about what you’re doing.”       “First, I shall deal with that company and then think about other things.”       “Okay, as you wish. But I warned you.”       “I know what I’m doing, buddy. And nobody can stop me.”       Peter turns the steering wheel sharply aside and drives on the other path that gets through high trees and swaying sticks. When Edward just comes to the turn some time later and turns, he looks at Terrence and Daniel a little bemusedly, not understanding where to move on because the guy’s track has disappeared.       “I don’t understand, is he gonna drive us through the entire wood until the evening?” Terrence wonders. “It’s something like, ‘I twist, I turn, my goal to confuse?’”       “Maybe it’s time to leave the car somewhere and walk on foot?” Daniel suggests.       “Let’s leave it here?” Edward suggests. “It’s gonna be hard to move on. These paths are getting narrower and narrower.”       “We’ve gotta take a picture. To understand where we are approximately.”       “Yeah… I think this crossroad is gonna be a good clue that can help us understand how to come back to where we were.”       “So, let’s get out of this case?” Terrence looks at Edward and Daniel.       “Let’s go!”       After putting off the safety belts, Terrence and Daniel leave the salon first, but Edward does it last after he turns off the motor and gets the key out of the switcher. Then he locks the car with one press on the button on the key, hearing the specific sound that lets him know that he has done it successfully. When he puts the key in the inside pocket of his open waistcoat and takes his smartphone from it, the man takes a couple of photos of the place to find the way back.       “I hope it will help us a little,” Edward expresses hope and puts the smartphone in its place.       “So what, bros, let’s follow Rose?” Terrence suggests quietly.       “Oh, if I’d known I’d have to run after him, I wouldn’t tortured myself on a workout at the gym class,” Daniel moans tiredly.       “I don’t wanna scare you, but I am more than sure that we’re gonna have to fight him and run a lot.”       “I feel like I’m gonna come back home, crawling on my stomach after all of this. Though I ain’t sure if I’ll have enough strength.”       “But now we know what we’re gonna do in the near time,” Edward notices.       “I hope we won’t waste time. I hope it will lead to something good.”       “Alright, Dan, stop whining!” Terrence demands harshly. “We’ve gotta end this case to exhale with relief!”       Daniel moans quietly with rolled eyes and follows lazily Edward and Terrence, who go to the side where Peter’s car went some time ago. And they ask themselves where to go, knowing that there are several narrow paths that lead to different sides. The men decide to separate and walk a little on all of them, but they do not find any hints on the tracks of their friend. But thanks to Terrence hearing the deafening sound of the motor somewhere far from here, they manage to decide on their next steps and choose one of the paths. Their way turns out to be hard due to the much dirt and thick thickets they have to get through.       “Fuck, I can’t hear the motor working anymore,” Daniel swears. “It’s like he turned it off.”       “We’ve gotta find his car!” Edward exclaims. “If we find the car, we’ll find Peter.”       “Follow me, guys, I think I understand where to go,” Terrence says confidently.       Terrence leads Daniel and Edward after himself confidently and determinedly enough. The three men help each other get through the thickets somehow, do not let each other get dragged in dirt, and take each other under an arm in case someone may fall. By this moment, the edges of their jeans are covered with dirt, and they will definitely have to spend a lot of time cleaning white sneakers that may cost a lot, so that they get back the original look.       “Ar-r-r, can’t believe this psycho was my friend for five years,” Daniel moans tiredly.       “At least, you had a chance not to get in touch with him,” Edward notices.       “We were kind of colleagues. We should’ve kinda kept a good relationship. Though you’re right, I shouldn't have imposed on him. It would’ve been better if we’d remained just familiar people.”       “If he wasn’t such a nasty bastard, I wouldn’t forget all the good things we’ve gotten through,” Terrence confesses. “But his actions struck it all out.”       “That’s why I say we’re doing all of this for Helene only. If not for her, I would fuck Rose off a long time ago. Though he will be fucked off when we do what we promised.”       “It’s funny that we somehow thought the same about you,” Edward chuckles. “When you were a little out of your mind.       “Oh, dude, please, don’t remind me of that. I still wanna be swallowed by the ground from shame. From shame caused by the fact that I was a bastard.”       “But forgetting that is impossible,” Terrence laughs.       “Shut up, you two!” Daniel snaps.       Edward and Terrence say nothing and just chuckle quietly, while Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. By this moment, they get much deeper in the woods, being far, far away from the point they were before. But after a long, exhausting walk, the men end up on the spacious clearing where they notice the car that belongs to Peter.       “Oh, guys, look!” Edward exclaims and runs to the car. “Peter’s car! We found it!”       “Yeah, but Peter is not in the one,” Terrence notices after he looks into the window and sees that there is nobody in the salon.       “Great, where do we find him now?” Daniel throws his hands up. “Do we have to walk in the woods for half an hour?”       “Watch out, guys,” Edward warns and looks around. “He can be anywhere. And give us unexpected surprises.”       “My gut tells me that he’s now sitting somewhere in the bushes and waiting for the moment to attack us,” Terrence says.       “He will hardly attack here,” Daniel assumes. “Too spacious place where you can hardly hide quickly. While you run to those trees, you get caught one hundred times.”       “Anyway, since his car is here, it means he’s somewhere close. Maybe it’s something like a bait.”       “Or vice versa, he went far from here,” Edward gives his version.       “Try to check those places?” Terrence suggests, pointing at the woods located far from him. “I dare to assume that he’s somewhere there.”       “Let’s hope it’s gonna be the final destination,” Daniel expresses hope.       After looking at each other, Edward, Daniel, and Terrence pass some distance before they enter the zone full of high trees with trunks and sweeping branches. Understanding that Peter may be anywhere, they get suspicious, looking around with anxiety, paying attention to every bush and listening to every suspicious noise, while there are too many of them here. The guys try not to go too far from each other because they understand that they will hardly get through all of this alone.       Moreover, they feel more anxious deep inside every second because of presentiments that start to possess them more and more. However, none of the men show it. Everyone keeps an indifference on their faces and does not show that they are a little scared at the bottom of their hearts. They are afraid that they may not get out of here or be murdered by the one they called a friend some time ago. Their brother. The man, who meant a lot to them.       “Where is that idiot?” Daniel throws his hands up, looking at what happens around him.       “Peter!” Terrence pronounces loudly. “Peter, we know you’re somewhere here! Get out now!”       “Stop hiding!” Edward encourages. “Show up and talk to us like a real man!”       “He’s surely here!” Terrence points at the fresh tracks of the shoes’ soles. “Look at where the tracks on the ground lead!”       “Right, they’re recent!” Daniel exclaims. “Which means they belong to Rose.”       Not thinking a lot, Terrence and Edward go to the place where the tracks on the ground lead in a much faster step. They lead them much deeper in the woods, where they have to get through the thickets and barely dodge the sticks that want to get right into their faces. Sometimes they have to climb up small hills and climb over short railings. Nobody pays attention to ravens croaking loudly at times, a woodpecker knocking the trunk of the tree, or bugs, mosquitoes, and other flying insects flying in the air and wishing to land on the open parts of the skin or get into the nose or the mouth. However, the men sometimes drive them away when it’s unbearable to ignore their stubbornness.       “Ar-r-r-r, of course, I love sitting on a picnic somewhere in the woods, but all these flies make everything worse,” Daniel confesses.       “Rose must be killed for all of this!” Terrence resents. “He pretends to be nobody the fuck knows who and shows off!”       “His attempt to lure us into the woods is just the beginning,” Edward notices. “It’s gonna get much worse next.”       “It’s okay, since we decided to do it, we’ve gotta put an end to this case.”       “Right!” Daniel exclaims. “Since we got into this trouble, we have to get out of this on our own.”       “Huh, is this the first time?” Edward chuckles. “We’ve got a great experience in attempts to kick the ass of some bastards.”       “Uh-huh, we can tell our children and grandchildren what we spent our youth on.”       “They’d be proud of us!” Terrence raises his head proudly. “Be like, ‘Whoa, our dads and grandpas were really awesome!’”       “Of course!” Edward smiles slyly.       Daniel and Terrence laugh back and keep examining the woods along with Edward in search of Peter, not suspecting that he is now sitting proudly on the thick trunk of the dry tree, leaning on it with his back, bending one leg at his knee, letting another leg down, and shaking it at times.       “The pretty boys are coming…” Peter laughs evilly. “Coming toward their inevitable death…”       “Ah, I do feel that someone’s gonna lose their head!” Theodore rubs his hands happily, skipping from one side to another.       “Even though they pretend to be proud and sassy, I surely know that their pants are wet from fear now. From fear of what I am going to do to them now.”       “Uh-huh, they did even grab each other’s arms out of fear!”       “Yeah… I do feel how fast their hearts are beating. How their knees are shaking. How they lack air.  I do love the sense of fear. The sense of fear of my enemies. I do love seeing them shake in fear. When they start to beg for mercy with the thought that it can help them.”       “Anyway, you didn’t make them follow you,” Theodore smiles innocently. “They did it at their will.”       “These bastards have always been crazy in this case.”       Peter sneers evilly and watches Edward, Terrence, and Daniel come closer and closer to the high tree he climbed on some time ago.       “Coming…” Peter raises his head proudly. “They are getting closer and closer…”       “Yes, yes, guys, c’mon, c’mon!” Theodore exclaims and makes a calling gesture as he looks at Daniel, Terrence, and Edward. “Komm zu mir, komm zu mir!”       “Your fucking asses are going to burn now. Your heads will be cut to the fuck. You will finally stop ruining my life.”       “Oh, yay, it’s time! Good luck on reaching your goal.”       “Danke, kumpel!”       At this moment, Edward, Daniel, and Terrence come close enough to Peter and do not suspect yet that he is watching them and waiting for them impatiently. On the way, the men try to clean their shoes and the edges of their jeans somehow after having to get into the dirt several times. At some moment, they stop to catch a breath and have some rest.       “Fuck, I’m fucking done with these walks in the woods,” Daniel complains, leaning on his knees with his hands and doubling over.       “If we don’t find this idiot now, I suggest that we forget about it and fuck him off,” Terrence suggests with a heavy breath.       “Yeah, I'm not quite happy with the perspective to get lost here, spend a night in front of the fire, and become a delicacy for mosquitoes,” Edward agrees.       “It’s really strange to hear something like this from you,” Daniel notices. “The main lover of putting his naked ass in the fire and waiting for it to burn him down to the fuck.”       “As I understand, the boy started to grow up and get smarter,” Terrence assumes. “Started to get brains by the age of twenty-eight.”       “Actually, I talked about my reluctance to become dinner for mosquitoes,” Edward explains. “Not a wish to punish criminals. And those who are about to become ones.”       “Uh, nope, pardon! It seemed to me! The kid still has as little brain as a chicken.”       “Hey, rooster, if you don’t shut up now, your feathers will fly on different sides!”       “You'd better watch yours.” Terrence keeps moving on. “For the last time. Because you’re about to have them ripped.”       “I agree with him!” Daniel exclaims and follows Terrence quickly. “Your gorgeous head is gonna be cut!”       “As well as your genitals,” Edward blunts under his nose and follows the older people.       Some time later, Terrence, Daniel, and Edward come too close to the tree Peter is sitting on, but do not pay attention to it and keep moving on as if nothing had happened. Then the blond decides to get their attention with an evil smile, still keeping one leg bent at his knees when saying loudly:       “You noticed it right, MacClife. This is the last time you and these two showed off a little for everyone.”       At first, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence stop sharply, but then turn around and move their tense, little scared eyes to Peter, who looks at them with contempt from up to down and laughs evilly under his nose.       “Finally, fucking bastard,” Daniel pronounces in a quiet, rude voice. “We are fucking done with looking for you.”       “So, so…” Peter pronounces thoughtfully. “Who is that? Ah, yeah… These are two nasty bastards who cannot calm down and leave me alone.”       “You know, we do not want to talk to you at all after everything you have done, either,” Edward states determinedly. “We would be fucking happy to never see your face anymore.”       “Nobody made you come here. Nobody kidnapped you. You followed me at your wish.”       “Do not worry, Rose, when we say our last word, you will never see us again,” Terrence promises. “You will be fucked off and be able to forget that we were friends.”       “Ha, I shall never see you anymore,” Peter sneers. “Never. And you asked for this.”       “What are you trying to get, Theodore?” Daniel asks rudely. “Why are you the fuck ruining what can barely stand?”       “M-m-m, it’s a pleasure to know you have accepted the new me.”       “The new you I hate to fucking death. The one to force us forget all the good things Peter and we got through.”       “Peter is gone, Perkins,” Peter raises his head proudly. “He is dead. And actually, he has technically never existed. There has always been Theodore only. Who was made to live someone’s life.”       “You can the fuck be Antonio!” Edward roars. “We do not care about this anymore.”       “I give a fuck, you know. I do not care about you anymore, either.”       “Even if you want to change your mind, nobody will forgive you,” Terrence threatens. “After all of this, nobody will the fuck need you at all.”       “I do not have anyone.” Peter glances at his hand. “I have nothing. Everything was taken away from me. I was deprived of everything that meant a lot to me.”       “You had just something! But now you really have nothing! Because you are a bastard. A heartless bastard with tons of mental illnesses.”       “M-m-m, does it mean you state openly that I am sick?”       “If you were healthy, you would not behave like this!” Edward exclaims. “You would not change the sides of Peter and Theodore.”       “Peter is a coward. A pathetic coward, whom everyone used as a doormat. Who was kicked by everyone like a ball. Who was made a fucking mockery.”       “What’s our fucking fault?” Daniel explodes. “Why did you the fuck make us guilty? Are we guilty of everything? Guilty of you having nothing?”       “Oh, if I start calling your reasons why I despise you, I may not have enough fingers.”       “Call just one, asshole!” Terrence demands. “Make us believe in just one reason why we are guilty of something!”       “You know everything well,” Peter smiles innocently. “Why you would know it.”       “We are not holy, but we do not deserve to be treated like this!” Edward roars.       “Wow? You do not? After you ruined me and killed my girlfriend?”       “Your father wanted to kill her!” Daniel recalls. “Marcus could’ve become Helene’s killer. Marcus Longbottom.”       “You better not make me enraged, bastards. I swear if you dare to say Helene is alive, I shall cut your fucking tongues. As well as your guts!”       “Alright, we will not,” Terrence promises. “But you will make sure about it someday.”       “You are now walking on the thin ice. You are literally several seconds away from your inevitable death.”       “If we have to fight you again, we are ready,” Edward says confidently. “We are not afraid of you and can kick your ass.”       “Wrong!” Peter throws coldly. “You must fear me! You must run after me like a hurricane.”       “Do not worry, Longbottom, we have enough experience in dealing with psyches,” Daniel clenches his hands tightly into fists. “And we will hit your fucking head against the ground strongly if we have to.”       “I. Am. Healthy. Absolutely. Healthy. And if one of you dares to say I am a psycho again, you will have to regret it a lot.”       “Look at yourself, freak! Who you have become! Is that what you were dreaming of? Did you want to be like this? Huh?”       “I have never felt as good as I feel now, when I am finally living my real life.”       “It’s not the real you!” Edward protests. “Not the one we know!”       “I am Theodore Longbottom! And I have finally reunited with the real me.”       “Alright, we give a fuck about who you are!” Terrence exclaims. “You are not our friend anymore.”       “Yeah, it’s so ironic!” Daniel crosses his arms over his chest with an evil sneer. “You were afraid to stay alone all your life, but you did your best to make it happen.”       “Ha!” Peter shows his contemptuous grin. “I would rather spend my whole life alone than be surrounded by a crowd of heartless bastards waiting for the moment to put a knife deeply in my back.”       “You did stay all alone!” Edward raises his voice. “Congratulations, Longbottom, you got what you wanted. You stayed all alone. All alone. You do not have a family or friends!”       “And your girlfriend will not want to stay with you!” Terrence adds. “She will be afraid to stay with a beast like you. She will leave you and find someone who is much better. The one who has good mental health.”       “I told you not to make me rage,” Peter recalls in a much lower and more sinister voice. “I did the fuck warn you! ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID AND DEAF?”       “And what would you do to us?” Daniel asks with a challenge. “There are more of us, but you are alone.”       “Do you really think I shall not bury you three in the ground by myself?” Peter sneers evilly. “Ha, I shall deal with you for a couple of moments! You will not even understand anything. And say goodbye to your close people.”       Peter easily jumps from the tree he is sitting on and comes determinedly to Edward, Terrence, and Daniel, literally trying to kill them with his icy look.       “As I understand, nobody knows about your idea of chasing me and killing me. So, excellent! You did at least one right thing in your life! We are now face-to-face. Which means no bastard can stop me now.”       “It would actually be great to really kill you,” Daniel states in a low voice. “But we do not want to carry a sin. We want to live a normal life next to those we love. Unlike you, we have many people.”       “M-m-m, it’s so emotional…” Peter smiles falsely. “And it’s too bad that your wishes will not come true. Too bad that your life will end here and now.”       With these words, Peter takes a jackknife from behind and unfolds it with one movement of his fingers.       “I am not going to waste time on you, and I want to do everything quickly, without noise. So, be nice to give me pleasure to start my own criminal diary by adding your names to it.”       “Did you get permission from your imaginary friend?” Edward asks snappily. “Or is he turning you against us and telling you to kill us?”       “If you snap, MacClife, I shall start with you. Shorten your long tongue so you do not annoy me with your attempt to blind me with the gloss of your mind and show me your truly pathetic sense of humor.”       “Ha, don’t scare a chicken with an egg!” Edward puts his hands on his hips. “I do know the trill by psyches like you. So, I can lie you down on the floor for two moments.”       “Relax, puppy, you will not go anywhere. As well as your brother and this bastard. I shall not let you run anywhere. I shall not let you leave this place alive.”       “We will see it, bastards!” Terrence demands rudely.       “Ah, bastards, bastards…”       Peter starts walking around Edward, Terrence, and Daniel with his head proudly raised, while the men look at each other tensely and try to keep the blond in their view.       “I did warn you… I warned that you would pay a lot if you dared to bother me again. I gave you a chance to stay alive and live your life. If you had gotten away from me, nothing would have happened. But you did not listen to me. You thought you were the smartest and sassiest.”       “When we do the last business, you will go to hell yourself,” Terrence says determinedly. “We will need nothing from you anymore.”       “I was wondering, ‘Why was I obsessed with a feeling that someone was watching me?’ I didn’t understand why I felt like someone was breathing into my back and watching me. At first, I thought it seemed to me. But my suspicions got stronger and stronger. Especially after I saw the car of MacClife, Jr., in the parking lot. I mean, the number of his car that I clearly remember. As well as the number of the cars of his brother and friend.”       Edward looks questioningly at Terrence and Daniel at this moment.       “I briefly doubted myself and thought it just seemed to me. But I made sure that I was alright when I saw the puppy named Eddy was driving after me determinedly in his car. Along with his gang, who decided to chase me and choose the moment to kill me somewhere.”       “Did you decide to lure us into a trap with the thought that you’d deal with us for two moments?” Edward continues.       “And you succumbed to my provocation. You did it even sooner and easier than I thought. You three were following me determinedly and refused to use your last chance to stay alive. You followed me at your wish. I did not make you. So, I'm not supposed to get any claims anyway.”       “We do not love to leave our business unfinished,” Daniel says gloomily. “We thought we’d solve the problem with you and fuck you off once and forever.”       “Anyway, you made your choice. Since you didn’t want to do what would be better for you, I am going to do what would be better for me.”       Ending up behind Daniel and waiting for two moments, Peter tries to get the knife into his scapula. But Perkins turns around immediately, grabs the hand with the cold gun, and twists it without any difficulties. Rose manages to set it free quickly enough, but then Terrence grabs his raised hand skillfully with the gun.       “It was stupid to believe we would be silent and would not resist if you wanted to kill us,” Terrence says with his head proudly raised, squeezing Peter’s wrist tightly, while the blond tries to set himself free so hard. “And it was naive to think you would get a victory over three men all alone.”       “Uh-huh, you should have prepared our murder,” Edward adds. “Should have found a couple of tough guys who would help you strike us down. You cannot attack a crown with a small knife in your hands like this.”       “What can we do if he were not so careful and did not watch what his daddy was doing?” Daniel sneers evilly. “Who was successfully hiding from the police for more than twenty years.”       “Do you think the police will catch me?” Peter surprises. “Ha! Naive! I shall do everything so quietly that nobody will even suspect me.”       “I doubt it!” Terrence exclaims. “Everyone knows you made us your enemies who did nothing bad to you.”       “Wrong, six-foot-tall column, you did!”       Peter sharply gets his hand out of Terrence’s grip, pushes him rudely off himself, and threatens him, Edward, and Daniel with a knife by one.       “You are murderers! Fucking murderers who took away the most valuable thing I had.”       “To blame us for something, you need proof,” Daniel recalls. “You do not have it!”       “I believe what my eyes see and what my ears hear! But I saw how you killed her!”       “Okay, if you want it, you can think so!” Edward raises his hands in front of himself. “We give a fuck. We are not going to excuse ourselves for the one we do not have to have anything in common with.”       “At least something is mutual! I do not want to have anything in common with you, either. And I want you, bastards, to die! AND NOT TO HURT MY EYES!”       When he tries to give Edward a knife wound, Peter runs into a cruel resistance from the guy, who starts fighting him skillfully and pushes him off himself strongly in a jump with a powerful hit of the foot in his chest at some moment.       “We are not sure if we can forgive Peter,” Daniel says confidently. “But we surely know that we will hate Theodore. This nasty bastard who stole our friend from us. And made him a mentally ill bastard who must be put in a mental hospital.”       “What did you say, asshole?” Peter gets enraged. “WHAT DID YOU THE FUCK SAY?”       Again, Peter attacks Daniel with a knife, but the brunet does not get confused and starts protecting himself determinedly with hand-to-hand tricks and strong hits of fists against the face. And when Perkins manages to push the blond off himself, Rose growls irritably and attacks Terrence, who is not going to stand like a column and not to resist at all.       “Ar-r-r-r, fuck!” Peter groans, showing his grin with a heavy breath. “It seems like I have to spend some time on you… I shall not be able to kill you quickly.”       “We were ready for a fight from the beginning,” Edward says determinedly. “So, Theodore, do not even hope for something easy.”       “It’s alright… Since you and I are alone here, nobody will stop me. Nobody will bring the police here. Do not count on your cuties, too. They will not save you the way they did the last time.”       “We are not afraid of you, Theodore!” Terrence says with his head proudly raised. “You can show off as much as you want, but your dream of seeing us pee our pants and fall to our knees in front of you, begging for mercy will not come true.”       “We’ve got a lot ahead, freaks,” Peter smiles slyly. “I have not even started my grandiose show.”       “Hey, idiot, did you confuse us with girls who would scream at the top of their lungs and beg to let them go?” Daniel surprises. “If you thought we would behave like this, I want to upset you.”       “I got it, got it. I understood that you were not afraid to die at all. You have never been afraid, judging by how hard you always rush into a fight with some assholes.”       “Said by the one who would not mind waving his hands,” Terrence sneers. “Pretended to be such a cowardly and unprotected guy. Even though a heartless bastard was hiding under the mask.”       “Well, everyone is aware of your mental issues,” Peter grins contemptuously. “Everyone knows you are a psycho.”       “Ha, next to you, my brother is just an angel!” Edward states. “Maybe he is really a little unrestrained, but Terrence has never acted like a bastard who wanted to kill anyone to stand in his way. And he has never betrayed those he loves.”       “And all the actions of Edward from the past also seem innocent tricks, unlike everything you are doing,” Daniel adds. “We know it was how he tried to get attention. But what do you the fuck want? What is supposed to happen after you get rid of us?”       “I want one thing – I want you all to die,” Peter says in an icy voice without emotions on his face. “You to stop hurting my eyes and not to force me to believe in your fucking lie.”       “When we do our business, do not even try to run after us. Nobody will even listen to you. Live as you want and do what you want. We will give a fuck even if you die!”       “It’s impossible to run after someone to lie in the ground. When I deal with you, I shall not have to think about those who ruin my life all the time.”       “Yeah, here’s your fucking good thankfulness!” Terrence chuckles. “Thankfulness for everything we have done for you.”       “Fuck, I am an idiot…” Daniel puts his hand on his forehead. “I got in touch with a bastard… Why did I the fuck run after you and suggest we became friends? If I had known what you were made of, I would have fucked you off back then.”       “Exactly, Perkins!” Peter exclaims. “Exactly! NOBODY made you run after me. If not for your stubbornness, I would not have even come to you.”       “Who did I waste five years of my life on? Who did I befriend? Who, the fuck? A psycho! A psycho suffering from a split personality and hallucinations! Suffering from tons of illnesses! I would not have enough fingers to call all of them!”       “I AM NOT ILL!” Peter explodes with widely open eyes. “NOT ILL! How many times do I have to tell you? YOU ALL ARE ILL! YOU! NOT ME!”       “In short, Theodore…” Edward pronounces, setting his eyes full of contempt on Peter. “You can show off as much as you want. But until you do the last thing we want from you, we will not get off you.”       “Just do what you should do and go anywhere you want,” Terrence adds. “Nobody will wipe your tears and your fucking ass. That they must have beaten you every hour when you were a child so that you were nice and obedient.”       “Do you think I am so stupid that I do not understand a thing?” Peter laughs evilly, wrapping the knife in his hand. “I do not understand that you followed me to find out where I hid from you and kill me quietly?”       “Okay, what else did your imaginary friend tell you?” Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. “C’mon, speak out! What else do we want to do?”       “Oh, no, bastards, you cannot fool me. I see you all through. I know how hard you annoyed me all this time. You called me one hundred times per day. You sent me hundreds of messages that I deleted without reading. I was so done with you that I just eventually removed the SIM card from my phone. After this, all of that shit finally ended.”       “We thought naively you understood nothing because of your grief,” Edward confesses. “You wanted to be alone, we gave you a chance. We thought you would calm down and understand what you did. But as I see, you did not the fuck understand. Vice versa, things got much worse.”       “When you did not bother me, it was the best time!”       “Yeah, but why did you the fuck come to us at the café?” Terrence wonders, putting his hands on his hips. “Why did you not go by? You came and sat down, acting so innocently and shyly. But you didn’t know what you wanted from us. And then you started to ride over bombs on the wrong path.”       “I am sorry about preventing your cool party!” Peter rolls his eyes. “Your discussion of the plan for destroying Theodore Longbottom.”       “Thank you, but I am not going to go to prison for you,” Daniel says determinedly. “And I would actually do nothing for you.”       “You should not have started!”       “Alright, Longbottom, shut up!” Terrence raises his hand. “In short, either you go with us to the place we tell you to go at your will, or we use force and drive you there by force.”       “I shall go nowhere with you!”       “Nobody asks you if you want it or not!” Edward replies determinedly. “You will go – that’s out of the discussion!”       “I repeat, you cannot fool me. I have enough brains. I know all your plans in advance.”       “Calm down, you have no place to run,” Daniel puts his hands on his hips. “If you try to, we will catch you anyway.”       “No, tough guy, you are wrong… Deeply wrong… You three have no place to run. I can run. I can escape. And I shall do. And you will not the fuck catch me.”       “M-m-m, do you want to play cat and mouse?” Terrence smiles slyly. “We are cats, but you are a mouse?”       “Vice versa, likely: I am a smart cat, but you are pathetic mice. Mice that I am fucking done with. Who must be killed and buried in the ground.”       “Stop wasting time, dude, you ain’t in a movie where a villain spends like three hours making a full confession,” Theodore encourages confidently, walking around Peter. “Kill these bastards. Kill. End them before they kill you. Nobody can stop you. Nobody will know anything. I swear!”       “If I put aside all my doubts and fucked off my coincidence, I would kill you much earlier,” Daniel says in a low, rude voice. “Because I am sick of you. Fucking sick! Even a psychiatrist would probably not be able to deal with your tricks and hysterics.”       “You are a bone in my throat too,” Peter says, looking at the knife in his hand with an arrogant look, with his head proudly raised. “You sucked on me like a leech and spent five years sucking blood out of me.”       “Let’s kill him first,” Theodore suggests, coming to Daniel with a sly smile and running his knife sharply over the man’s throat. “Let’s cut the throat of this bastard. And then deal with these bastards. Break the neck of one and stab another.”       “Alright, Rose, stop showing off here!” Edward throws gloomily. “Just do what you are told so that you can be free. Free forever.”       “Do you really think you can leave this place quietly after you realize your loss?” Peter asks with an evil smile. “Realize the fact that you will stay here forever. As the fertilizers for the ground.”       “If you make us rage, you, asshole, will become the fertilizer!” Terrence roars.       “Oh, wow… Someone is threatening me… It actually can lead to a criminal penalty.”       “Hey, as for a criminal penalty…” Daniel raises his head proudly and starts walking around Peter with his arms crossed over his chest. “Do you, jackass, know I can go to the police and report you, blaming you for your attempt to kill me?”       “Oh, are you serious?”       “Yes, I can file an application against you. And they will approve it. And you, bastard, will get arrested. End up in prison and have to wait for a judge’s verdict.”       “Oh, oh, oh, hey, tough guy, why are ya so sassy?” Theodore laughs evilly. “Aren’t ya scared at all?”       “I regret not doing this much earlier. I should have reported the police about you on the day you attacked me for the first time. When you cut my vein so deeply that blood kept flowing for a long time. A little bit before I would have died. Before you would have become a killer. Taken after your daddy when you did not know about him.”       “You will prove nothing, Perkins,” Peter says determinedly. “Nobody will believe your words.”       “Oh, no, everyone will! I have witnesses.” Daniel glances at Terrence and Edward. “Terrence can tell them everything he saw, but Edward can confirm everything again. And lie a little if I ask him about it. Ask him to tell them that you, for example, tried to get a knife to his throat.”       “They saw nothing! One MacClife left somewhere, but another was not with us at all.”       “Wrong, buddy!” Terrence exclaims. “I did not forget how you tried to strangle him with a guitar string with my pretense. How several people tried to take you far from him after hearing your shouts.”       “And if not for all of you, I would have put this case to an end! I would have killed this bastard! Once and forever!”       “We are ready to support Dan. Me, Edward, and those who work at the studio. We are even ready to lie and make this story much more interesting with some facts. That would make you dumbfounded. But everyone would believe them. I can use all my acting skills and play my role so that everyone cries bitterly. I can lie and tell them how you tried to kill me. Lie that I almost got a knife in my heart.”       “And you do not have any protectors,” Edward assures. “Because you fought with everyone: starting with your neighbors and ending with the men and me. If our girls were here, you would try to harm them, too. Nobody is going to protect you and say you are a good, innocent boy who is wanted to be slandered by bad boys.”       “You see, Theodore…” Daniel smiles slyly. “Everyone is against you. This whole world is really against you. You are absolutely right in this. But you are the only one to be guilty of it. You thought you were much smarter and sassier than everyone and pronounced yourself nobody the fuck knows who.”       “Are you kind of trying to scare me now?” Peter sneers contemptuously. “Are you hoping to have my pants wet from fear?”       “Are you not afraid of the perspective to spend half of your life in prison and leave it when you’re an old man who has nothing and nobody? While the guys and I are very, very happy.”       “You will not dare to report me!”       “Oh, I shall dare! I shall call Mr. Johnson tonight and ask him to help me make an official report. And tomorrow, photos with your precious face will be hanging in the whole city. And one day, you will get arrested and put in prison. The day when you are on a trial as a defendant. When I tell them many things, so that you have no chance of getting a suspended sentence. No fucking lawyers will save you if I do everything right!”       “Do not dare, bastard!” Peter threatens, pointing the edge of the knife at Daniel. “I shall get your guts out if you dare to report me.”       “I am not afraid of you! And since you, bastard, decided to choose war, let it happen. You made your turn, but now it’s my time. My time to give you a check and mate.”       “That’s how…”       “Besides, do not forget that Edward and I can tell everyone about how you tried to kill us two,” Terrence crosses his arms over his chest. “At Marcus’s home. When you destroyed everything in your way.”       “We would even pay those stinkers whom you wanted to kill, so that they gave false testimony against you,” Edward says. “Trust me, they would be happy to shower dirt on you for some money.”       “Kill all of them…” Theodore encourages. “And nobody will report anyone. And you will live quietly and keep taking revenge on everyone who has ever hurt you.”       “Nobody is going to report anyone, bastards,” Peter raises his head proudly and spreads his shoulders, clenching tightly the knife tightly in his hand. “There will be nobody to report. Because you will die now. I shall not keep you alive. NO WAY.”       When Peter barely raises his hand with the knife and tries to attack him, Daniel grabs it immediately, twists it sharply, and pushes the guy off himself with a strong hit of his foot in the solar plexus. Then Rose attacks him again to give him a knife wound, but Perkins does not get confused and fights off his opponent cruelly with hands and feet, using also powerful hits with fists against the face. At some moment, Edward and Terrence help him out, hitting Rose painfully on everything they can and using some self-defense tricks so that the blond has to fight three people at the same time.       “You have a little time to wave your wings,” Peter hisses through his teeth, dodging Terrence’s hit with a fist against his jaw, trying to hit Edward in the temple, and almost falling to the ground after Daniel grabs his foot and pulls it sharply. “You will get tired soon… But I shall have you caught.”       “I doubt it!” Edward exclaims and throws Peter easily on the scapula when the blond tries to attack him with the knife. “I really doubt it…”       “Who laughs last, laughs the best.” Peter gets up sharply and gets a strong hit of the foot against his stomach from Terrence when he tries to get close to him with the knife.       “We’re going to laugh hard when you wake up and understand what you are doing now,” Terrence says and twists Peter’s hand sharply, making him wince strongly from pain.       “I completely understand it all!” Peter roars, pushes Terrence off himself with a hit of the knee against his groin, and bends backward sharply after Edward smashes his foot against his spine, making him feel burning pain in his whole body. “Ah, fuck…”       When Peter tries to attack Edward, he gets a strong slap in the face from him and falls to the ground after the guy grabs him by the hair and pushes him aside strongly. However, the blond gets up quickly and starts fighting off Edward, Terrence, and Daniel with hands and feet, while these three men surround him from all sides and help each other protect themselves from the attacks of the one who is now out of his mind.       “Why are ya fighting like a girl with extended nails?” Theodore wonders. “Can’t ya strike three men down? Why do they get a victory all the time?”       “You will not hide from me anyway,” Peter says in a low voice and growls irritably after his unsuccessful attempt to wound Terrence, who grabs both of his hands immediately and holds them in front of himself. “I shall not let you run.”       “But we will not get off you until you do our claims,” Daniel says and squeezes Peter’s neck tightly in his elbow. “Until you, bastard, are overwhelmed by what you see.”       “I shall not let you kill me! I SHALL NOT! NEVER!”       Peter sets himself free from Daniel’s grip, hitting him strongly on his ankle with his foot, and tries to get the knife into him again, but the brunet grabs it with both hands, biting the bullet. Meanwhile, Terrence uses a chokehold on the blond and pulls him far from his friend quickly enough, while Perkins smashes his foot against Rose’s chest, depriving him of the ability to breathe for some time.       “Yes, yes, we know you are full of demons that you can only release with intense workouts at a gym class,” Edward sneers evilly. “But even such psyches as you get tired early or late.”       “I AM NOT A PSYCHO!” Peter explodes. “NOT A PSYCHO!”       “We’re not waiting for your confession of this fact,” Terrence states. “We understood it all a long time ago.”       “You all are sick here! YOU! AND JUST YOU!”       Peter wants to smash his foot against Terrence’s face, but the man squats down in time, grabs the guy’s foot and pulls him sharply, making him fall harshly and hits his elbows. While the blond shouts from pain and tenses all his muscles unconsciously, Edward hits his foot against the blond’s nose with an irritated growl so that a thin flow of blood starts getting out of it.       “Ha, we three would be much healthier than you!” Edward sneers evilly, clenching his hands into fists.       Growling irritably, Peter gets up on his feet sharply and attacks Edward with a knife, but the guy shows a brilliant reaction and great fighting skills again. And when Terrence is behind him, the guy pays attention to him, but the man keeps the indifference on his face and dodges skillfully all the attacks of the opponent skillfully.       “Focus better!” Theodore exclaims. “These assholes are mocking you like a kitten, but you do the fuck nothing to fix it. KILL THEM TO THE FUCK! KILL!”       “Give up, bastards!” Peter demands rudely. “Do not waste my time!”       “But you do not force us to take radical measures,” Terrence snaps, grabs Peter by the hair, and pushes him toward Edward, who strikes him down with a powerful hit against his chest.       “You will not kill me! I shall not let you!”       “Ha, as far as I remember, someone squeaked that they didn’t want to die,” Edward sneers. “Someone resented that nobody let you bring your case to an end.”       “I shall not die until I take revenge on everyone who has ever hurt me. Who has ever used me as a doormat.”       “Uh-huh, and will you decide to die after this?” Daniel surprises and strikes Peter down with a hit of the foot when the blond wants to get up. “Will you no longer have goals and come back to what you started with?”       “Ha, my whole life would not be enough to take revenge on all the bastards who have ever stabbed me in the back. When I get older and die, many assholes will keep walking on the ground, thinking they remained unpunished.”       “It’s clear that they kicked your ass for the reason.” Daniel grabs Peter by the hair and pulls it strongly, leaning his head back. “They hung you by the balls, locked you in a school locker, or pushed you into a ladies’ restroom again and again for the reason. You got through all of that for a reason. And it seems that it was not enough for you if you understood the fuck nothing.”       “Hey, jackass, shut the fuck up.”       “Oh, no, you will not shut me up. You will not scare me. Now I am as determined as never ever. I am determined to report you to the police and blame you for trying to take the lives of my friends and mine.”       “Do not dare to go to the police…” Peter hisses through his teeth. “Do not even dare to think about it!”       “Or what?” Daniel pulls Peter’s hair much more strongly. “Huh? What would you do to me, undeveloped bastard?”       “Your sister and girlfriend can prepare a lot of handkerchiefs. Because they are going to cry bitterly and a lot over the one whom I SHALL KILL RIGHT NOW!”       Peter gives Daniel a strong hit of the elbow against his groin, making the man double over from the burning pain. Using the moment, the blond pulls Perkins’ leg sharply, creeps to him, and raises the knife he is squeezing with both hands above the brunet’s chest to get it into the one deeply. But Perkins, biting the bullet, grabs the cold gun tightly and makes much more effort to hold it a few centimeters away from himself. And Edward helps him out, squeezing Rose’s neck in his elbow and pulling him far from his friend, who gets up on his feet with Terrence’s help.       “Hey, yo, bastard, you actually promised me something epic!” Theodore recalls. “But now all I see is just babies’ games. Chickens waving their wings with a disgusting squeak for nothing. I DO REPEAT, KILL THESE BASTARDS! I WANT A LOT OF BLOOD! I WANT FUCKING EPIC!”       Peter growls irritably, gets out of Edward’s grip with a deafening shout, and pushes him as strongly as possible. And while the guy falls to the ground like a stone but gets up quickly in a jump, the blond spends several seconds fighting hand in hand with Terrence before he hits him strongly in the chest with his foot. Then he starts fighting with Daniel, who is holding on pretty well but loses in the end when Rose grabs him by the hair and pulls it strongly, leaning his head back sharply.       “You have been caught, fucking bastard,” Peter hisses through his teeth.       But when Terrence and Edward move off to help Daniel, Peter points sharply the edge of the knife sharply at them, roaring at the top of his lungs:       “DO NOT MOVE! STAY WHERE YOU ARE, I SAID!”       “Do not be stupid, Longbottom,” Terrence pronounces quietly. “Stop this show right now.”       “GET BACK!” Peter puts the knife tightly against Daniel’s throat, while the brunet tries to keep calm. “IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP, I SHALL CUT HIM!”       “Enough, Theodore!” Edward exclaims. “It is too much! Wake the fuck up!”       “I shall deal with him first and then do this to you. I SHALL DO MY BEST FOR YOU NOT TO SAVE EACH OTHER, JUST LIKE YOU DO IT ALL THE TIME!”       “There was a time when you saved all of us, too,” Daniel recalls. “The time you forgot about so easily.”       “SHUT UP, SCUM!” Peter roars, putting the knife much tighter to Daniel’s throat and pulling him by the hair much more strongly. “I SHALL KILL YOU FIRST!”       “Try! I am not a weak, cowardly girl who would be crying and begging for mercy. While I can fight, I WILL FIGHT!”       Daniel hits his elbow against Peter’s chest as strongly as possible and smashes his fist against his jaw. When the blond tries to attack him, he pushes the guy off himself and hits him right in the nose with his foot in a jump, making the man squeeze it tightly and double over.       “I do not know what you expected, but I will not give up on you so easily.” Daniel exhales sharply.       “Ich bring dich um, bitch!” Peter hisses through his teeth with a heavy breath. “DU BIST TOT!”       When Peter wants to move off, Terrence runs to him, strikes the knife out of his hand with a foot, so that it gets a few meters high and falls not far from them. However, the blond does not care about it. He strikes MacClife, Sr., down on the scapula super easily and strikes down Edward rushing to help with a determined hit against his solar plexus. Then he spends some time fighting cruelly with Daniel, sharing strong hits with fists and hands, dodging one attack but not avoiding another.       “Give up, bastard!” Peter demands and gives Daniel a slap in the face, which he avoids successfully by grabbing his hand and twisting it in time. “You will die anyway!”       “No, you give up!” Daniel snaps and gives Peter a hit in the jaw. “You have no place to run!”       “Do not be so confident!”       “I advise you the same, bastard!”       Peter and Daniel’s fight continues for several seconds before the latter loses his balance after a strong hit in the groin and gets thrown two meters away. He tries to get up and keep fighting, but when he stands on one knee, Rose grabs him by the throat and pulls him to the ground by force to the place where the knife fell.       “Hey, let me go!” Daniel roars at the top of his lungs. “Let me go, I said! HEAR ME, BASTARD! LET ME GO, I SAID!”       “This time, I shall bring this case to an end and kill you,” Peter says in a sinister, rude voice. “AND NOBODY WILL DARE TO STOP ME! EVEN YOU!”       With these words, Peter grabs the knife from the ground and puts the edge of the knife in the area between the chin and the throat of Daniel breathing heavily.       “AND YOU, BASTARD, WILL GO WITH ME TO THE PLACE I WANT RIGHT NOW!”       “Enough, Theodore!” Terrence and Edward shout at the same time, coming determinedly to Peter.       “GET BACK NOW!” Peter points the knife sharply at Edward and Terrence. “GET BACK, I SAID!”       “You must not be in prison, you must be in a mental hospital!” Edward states. “GET THERAPY! Because you are ILL!”       “I AM NOT ILL!”       “If you do not stop it all right now, we will drive you there personally,” Terrence threatens. “So that they DRESS YOU UP IN A STRAIGHTJACKET!”       “SHUT UP, YOU TWO!”       At this moment, Daniel sitting on his knees tries to twist Peter’s hand with the gun, but the blond sets it free sharply and strikes the guy down to the ground with a hit of the knee against Perkins’ chin.       “Stop waving your wings, asshole,” Peter hisses through his teeth. “You will become dogs’ food anyway.”       “Get off Daniel now!” Terrence demands.       “I SHALL DECIDE IT!”       “We will not let you kill him!” Edward states.       “WE WILL SEE IT, BASTARDS!” Peter grabs the collar of Daniel’s t-shirt tightly and pulls him onto himself, making him get up on his feet. “GET UP, BASTARD! NOW! STAND THE FUCK UP!”       When Daniel barely starts standing, Peter prevents any of his attempts to resist and puts the knife tightly against his throat.       “Catch me if you can,” Peter smiles slyly. “Save your friend if you have the strength to fight Theodore Longbottom. DO THIS IF YOU ARE NOT COWARDS!”       Holding Daniel by the collar and threatening him with the knife, Peter moves off sharply and starts going to where his eyes look in a quick step.       “FOLLOW ME, BASTARD! FOLLOW ME! DO NOT DARE TO RUN AWAY! FOLLOW ME! OR I SHALL KILL YOU, BASTARD! KILL!”       “Don’t give up, Daniel!” Edward encourages. “Resist as hard as you can!”       “Don’t worry, guys, I’m gonna be okay!” Daniel assures.       “Hold on, buddy, we won’t leave you and will help you!” Terrence promises.       “I’ll handle it! But you call the police, a mental hospital, and everywhere you can! This bastard must not stay free!”       “FOLLOW THE FUCK ME!” Peter roars. “AND SHUT UP BEFORE I SEW YOUR MOUTH!”       At some moment, Peter quickens a step and actually starts running when Edward and Terrence get close to him determinedly. He pulls Daniel after him by force, while the brunet does his best to try to get out of his strong grip but fails again and again, starting to be really afraid that he may die, and Rose gets what he wants and kills him this time.       “We can’t let him go!” Edward exclaims. “That bastard is about to kill Perkins.”       “Follow him, quick!” Terrence orders. “We can’t let him do this!”       Terrence and Edward rush to chase Peter running fast further and further into the deep woods where his eyes look, not even thinking of letting go of Daniel and not stopping to threaten him with a knife, while the brunet has nothing but to follow him and try so hard to keep calm and pretend that his heart is not beating strongly like crazy from fear and is not about to get out of the chest.       “It seems like it’s time to give a fuck about any moral principles and any kind of pity,” Terrence says. “If we keep believing that kindness and understanding are our everything, we won’t get anything and will die.”       “You’re right, we have to do what Father said,” Edward agrees. “Knock this bastard out, drive him somewhere, and tie him up.”       “Yeah, but how do we get close to him?”       “I dunno. But we must bring this case to an end. At least, for Helene.”       “I doubt she’s gonna need this crazy bastard when we tell her how he’s running after you with a wish to bury us in the ground.”       “So, he’ll be dying in his apartment in the company of his imaginary friend, and nobody will need him.”       “Stop talking, kid!” Terrence exclaims with a heavy breath. “We’ve gotta save Daniel before Rose makes a cutlet out of him.”       “Then move your ass instead of walking here as if you’re on a runway.”       Edward fastens a lot and starts running much faster than Terrence, who catches him quickly enough, however. Together, they keep chasing Peter getting through the thickets furiously as fallen leaves rustle under her feet. The blond looks back at times and quickens a step, growling irritably because Daniel does not keep up with him, stumps over trunks getting out of the ground, and falls several times. Nevertheless, Rose does not even think of letting his victim go and keeps pulling the guy after him, not paying attention to his own loud, heavy breath and beat of the heart. He does not notice that the cold wind slides over the skin and leaves a bunch of goosebumps on it under the influence of adrenaline in his blood. He does not care about the dirt that gets stuck to his shoes. He does not care about everything but the wish to deal with those he called his best friends some time ago right here and now.       “We’re doing well!” Theodore exclaims funnily, running wild next to Peter, while the wind is blowing his clothes and hair. “That’s what I need! It’s way better! Unlike some babies’ games you played some time ago!”       “Fuck, why are you moving AS SLOWLY AS A SNAIL?” Peter gets enraged, grabs Daniel tightly under an arm after another fall, makes him get up by force, and pulls him after himself. “MOVE, THE FUCK! DO NOT IRRITATE ME!”       “Why are you doing all of this?” Daniel wonders with a heavy breath. “What are you trying to get?”       “SHUT UP AND MOVE SILENTLY!”       “Exactly!” Theodore smiles slyly. “Relax and live the last minutes of your life. Say farewell to those who are waiting for you. You still have a little time to do it.”       “You all will pay me… You all will pay me for my sufferings. For doing dirty tricks on me this whole time. For depriving me of EVERYTHING I HAD!”       “We deprived you of nothing!” Daniel protests. “Vice versa, we gave it to you! But you, thankless pig, are now acting like THIS?”       “Yeah, you gave! A LOT OF SUFFERING! AND YOU STRENGTHENED MY WISH TO DIE MUCH MORE!”       “We actually tried to save you! But you rejected any help by yourself. You rejected all our attempts to do something. As if you love suffering!”       “Hey, fucking savior, you better shut your mouth up. And STOP WALKING LIKE NOBODY THE FUCK KNOWS WHO!”       “Where are you taking me to, idiot? What are you going to do to me?”       “What I should have done a long time ago. What you, bastard, have been asking so determinedly for so long.”       “You will not dare!”       “You know me badly.” Peter pushes Daniel sharply in the back. “And actually, shut up and run. DO NOT IRRITATE ME! DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD, ASSHOLE!”       “Stop the fuck scaring me, Theodore! I have already said that I am not afraid of you.”       “YOU HAVE TO BE AFRAID OF ME! BECAUSE I SHALL KILL YOU! AND I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR WORDS OF PLEA!”       By this moment, Peter takes Daniel at a long enough distance, choosing the hardest-to-reach places to gain as much time as possible. That’s why Edward and Terrence lose the track and do not know where to go now.       “Fuck, we’ve lost them…” Edward swears with a heavy breath, stopping slowly and leaning on his knees with his hands.       “We can’t stop,” Terrence says determinedly with a heavy breath. “Dan won’t deal with him all alone.”       “But where do we do? That bastard has already run far from us.”       “It’s okay, we’ll find them. Let’s go!”       Taking Edward under his arm, Terrence keeps running as fast as he can, getting through the sweeping sticks of the big tree along with him.       “Fuck, couldn’t Perkins shout?” Terrence swears. “It would be easy for us to find him!”       “But we can find Dan by Rose’s shouts,” Edward notices and glances aside. “Hey, I think they ran there!”       “Right!”       Edward and Terrence’s way lies through the thickets, high bushes, dry sticks that may get into the eyes if they are not careful, and pools of dirt, which their white sneakers are dirtied in. Also, they have to spend their strength to climb up to the hills or make sure they do not fall down these hills. The brothers run wild, barely being able to see something because pictures run by their eyes immediately. They do not pay attention to the leaves rustling under their feet, a mild lack of air, and tiredness. They only have one goal – to save Daniel. And they do their best to reach out, being able to orient more or less thanks to Peter’s shouts, but understanding that they are still too far from him.       “Don’t worry, buddy, these assholes are far from us,” Theodore assures with a wide smile. “Far from here… You are far away from them already.”       “These bastards will not catch me…” Peter says confidently. “No way… They would rather get loose here and eat the ground than eat me and kill me.”       “That’s good! You’d have less work! You can deal with this asshole, but these ones will die by themselves without food and water.”       “FUCK, HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO IRRITATE ME LIKE THIS?” Peter stops sharply, slaps Daniel strongly in the face so that the guy falls to the ground, grabs him tightly by the hair, and puts the edge of the knife against his throat. “YOU WERE THE FUCK TOLD TO FOLLOW ME! WHAT WAS THE FUCK UNCLEAR?”       “Do you naively think I will not deal with you without the guys’ help?” Daniel sneers evilly. “Do you think I will pee my pants from fear and let you kill me?”       “YOU WILL DIE ANYWAY, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU SHOW OFF!”       “We will see it, bastard!”       Daniel pushes Peter off himself with a strong hit of the foot against the abdomen, making him fall to the ground. However, the blond gets up on his feet quickly with an irritated growl and smashes his fist against his face two times, not letting Rose realize what’s happening.       “I told you not to wave your wings when you have a little time to live,” Peter says in a low, rude voice.       “Be careful, because I may fuck off all the laws and rules and throw you off the mountain,” Daniel threatens. “And if I do this, I shall have no regret.”       “You would rather fall down the hill with your head first and die INSTANTLY!”       Peter grabs Daniel by the collar and starts dragging him after himself right on the ground, pulling him rudely in case the brunet tries to resist.       “Hey, drama queen, let me go now!” Daniel demands. “LET ME GO, I SAID! GET OFF ME! HEAR WHAT I SAY? LET ME GO!”       “SHUT UP, ASSHOLE!” Peter roars and smashes his fist against Daniel’s nose.       “HEY, YOU ARE ABOUT TO PULL MY HAIR OUT!” Daniel shouts when Peter drags him after him, grabbing him rudely by the hair. “HEY, LONGBOTTOM! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? HEY, THEODORE! THEODORE, THE FUCK!”       But no matter how hard Daniel resists, Peter keeps dragging him after himself on the ground for some time, taking him deeper and deeper into the woods, while the darkness comes to the city. And the gloomy weather is the reason why it’s hard to see something without an additional source of light.       “Daniel!” Terrence and Edward’s deafening voices pronounce somewhere far away.       “Don’t worry, Peter, we’re awesome, we’re too far from them,” Theodore assures. “They won’t catch us.”       “Why are you smiling, jackass?” Peter roars, noticing a slight smile shows up on Daniel’s face. “They will not help you!”       “Ha, why do you think the only thing I am doing now is waiting for them to save me?” Daniel sneers evilly.       “Do not even hope, Perkins. Nobody will save you! Neither these assholes, your girlfriend, your sister, nor anyone else!”       “Even if a hero is standing in front of the enemy face to face, they do not give up, and they do fight them until the very end. Because their power is not a quantity of aliases. Their power is an unbending will.”       “Oh, oh, it is so emotional!”       “So, I am ready to fight you even all alone. And I can repeat again and again that I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU! NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU WAVE YOUR KNIFE IN FRONT OF MY NOSE!”       Daniel sharply twists Peter’s hand, with which he is holding him by the hair, using the moment to creep back and get up on his feet, while the blond shouts from pain.       “Come on, Theodore Longbottom, try to catch me,” Daniel challenges. “Come on, show me everything you can do. Of course, if you are not a coward. Come! Go!”       “Hey, Perkins, are your pants wet from fear already?” Peter sneers evilly after he gets up on his feet. “Your legs are shaking and can barely hold you? Your heart is beating as fast as a bunny’s one?”       “Ha, it’s funny! You have peed your pants already, but you are pretending to be sassy, yet? Is the knife giving one plus one hundred points to your bravery? Is this the thing that makes you so sassy?”       “This knife is about to get into your heart. And the more you play on my nerves by talking, the sooner it shall happen.”       Peter attacks Daniel with the knife and tries to get it into his heart, but the brunet grabs both of his hands immediately and twists them to the suspicious crack that makes the blond scream hysterically.       “Maybe you started this war, but I shall take a victory!” Daniel says with his head proudly raised. “But you, bastard, will have to spend the rest of your pathetic life in prison or a mental clinic.”       Daniel gives a strong hit of the fist against Peter’s jaw and strikes the knife out of his hand so that it gets high and falls a few meters away from them. At first, Rose wants to find it and take it, but he decides to deal with Perkins, starting to fight him cruelly with fists. None of the men is afraid to get blood on his hands and barely thinks about the threat of seriously harming the opponent.       “Stop failing these hits, bastard!” Theodore throws rudely. “He is winning again! Find the knife and kill this bastard to the fuck. Do not waste your time!”       “I do know it, bastard!” Peter snaps.       “So, is your imaginary friend working as your coach and commentator?” Daniel sneers evilly. Showing good enough boxing skills and the power of hits that make Peter barely stand on his feet. “Telling you that I am your biggest enemy?”       “It is true!” Peter tries unsuccessfully to smash a hit with a fist against Daniel’s jaw and gets the same one back. “You are my enemy!”       “And what did I do to become the one?”       “As if you do not know!” Peter roars and hits his foot against Daniel’s chest.       “I do not know! I have no idea what my fault is.”       “The fault is being the pain in my ass.”       “You are acting like a girl who cannot explain why she is mad. But when you ask her what her problem is, she says everything is alright.”       “If I start calling all my claims for you, it will get dark already.”       “Come on, call it all!” Daniel strikes Peter down with no problems and grabs him by the hair tightly, pulling it strongly to cause pain. “Come on, Longbottom, tell me why the fuck I have to handle all of this! WHY THE FUCK YOU TRIED TO KILL ME! SEVERAL TIMES, TO YOUR INFORMATION!”       “Yeah?” Peter sneers evilly and gets up sharply after he pushes Daniel off himself. “Who spread the rumors about my sex issues several years ago? Who said I was AN IMPOTENT WHO WAS NOT ABLE TO PLEASE A GIRL?”       “What?” Daniel opens his eyes widely. “Are you fucking out of your mind?”       “Do not pretend that you do not understand what I mean!”       “Are you kidding me? It was not me!”       “What are you talking about?”       “It really was not me! Why did you think I was the one to do it?”       “Because there was nobody else!”       “And do you want to say you tried to kill me because of THAT? Because you made yourself come up with some bullshit and believe it?”       “DO NOT DARE TO DENY IT, ASSHOLE!” Peter slaps Daniel strongly in the face. “I KNOW IT WAS YOU!”       “No, it’s not the truth! I said nothing like that about you!”       “LIE!” Peter explodes. “IT WAS YOU!”       “Why do you think it was me?”       “BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS FOUND THIS THING FUCKING EXCITING! YOU ARE FUCKING OBSESSED WITH SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS!”       “I have never spread these rumors about you! And we talked about similar things with each other only.”       “LIE! YOU TALKED ABOUT IT WITH EVERYONE! YOU HAD THE GREAT PLEASURE TO SUPPORT A TALK WITH GIRLS WHO SAID THE SAME! YOU DID NOT REFUSE TO HELP THEM MAKE ME A MOCKERY!”       “Dude, what are you talking about?” Daniel wonders with a heavy breath. “Who I talked about you with? Whom I helped?”       “DO NOT IRRITATE ME, SCUM!” Peter explodes and pushes Daniel off himself a couple of times, killing him with his icy look and tensing every single muscle with his hands clenched into fists. “IT WAS YOU! I DO KNOW IT! NOBODY BUT YOU COULD DO THIS!”       “You were my friend! How do you think I could do that?”       “You have NEVER been my friend! You indisposed yourself on me ON PURPOSE to stab me in the back! IT WAS YOUR PLAN! YOUR FUCKING PLAN! YOU NEEDED TO GET CLOSE TO ME!”       “What kind of plan? I do not understand!”       “Who sent you?” Peter grabs Daniel by the collar with both hands and shakes him. “WHO SENT YOU! ANSWER ME! WHO PAID YOU?”       “You are out of your mind, idiot! Did you go fucking insane?”       “WHO ARE YOU SERVING, BASTARD? MY FATHER MARCUS? HIS HENCHMEN? WHO, THE FUCK?”       “I DO NOT SERVE ANYONE!” Daniel screams at the top of his lungs. “NO-BO-DY!”       “He’s lying…” Theodore protests with a sly smile. “It was his work… He told everyone that you were worthless at sex. He helped those girls spread the rumor about you. They were not happy with your unrestful attempts to get your dick into them and bring them to an orgasm.”       “STOP LYING!” Peter opens his eyes widely. “I AM SICK OF YOUR LIES! SICK OF BEING BETRAYED AGAIN AND AGAIN!”       “I have never lied to you!” Daniel states.       “You were indisposing your friendship on me all this time for the reason. You were chasing me and pretending to be a kind and decent guy who was ready to come to help at any time for the reason. You did it all on purpose…”       “Maybe someone really said these things about you, but it was not me. I would have never thought about anything like this.”       “BUT YOU DID!”       “You made a conclusion just because I joked badly about your problems with building relationships?”       “Not just this, Perkins, not just! You always cared about three things much more: my orientation, the number of my sexual partners, and my sex skills. And when I told you to stop talking about it, you, bastard, DID NOT CALM DOWN! YOU KEPT DOING THIS AGAIN AND AGAIN!”       “Yes, I am guilty, I admit it!” Daniel throws his hands up. “But I do not have to do with spreading those rumors.”       “But EVERYONE knew them! Everyone we worked with when being in Albert’s band. They ALL laughed at me. They said I was an impotent. I was worthless at sex. And I had a dick that was smaller than the little finger.”       “I do not know where these rumors started!”       “STOP LYING, BASTARD!” Peter explodes and slaps Daniel in the face strongly enough. “I KNOW IT WAS YOU! YOU WANTED TO HURT ME!”       “WHY WOULD I THE FUCK NEED IT?” Daniel shouts. “WHY, TELL ME?”       “I DO NOT KNOW! I do not know why you hate me so badly! Who you the fuck are servicing and whose orders you do.”       “Stop saying bullshit, idiot! You are out of your mind because you have a mess in your head. You are confused about who you are, what you are, and who your friend or enemy is.”       “Wrong, cad. I do know everything. I know everything I should know.”       “I know just one thing – you must get therapy. Sort out the mess in your head and decide who you are: Theodore or Peter. The guys and I are the fuck confused and do not understand how to address you.”       “I repeat, I am not ill! I AM ALRIGHT! YOU ALL ARE SICK! YOU ALL ARE!”       “My mental health is alright. Even after all the shit I had to get through. Even after I lost everything and literally had to learn to live over again. On my own. Without counting on anyone.”       “No, I had to live in shit. SINCE CHILDHOOD. I HAVE NEVER known what normal life and normal surroundings are. EVERYONE BETRAYED ME AND HURT ME!”       “BECAUSE YOU DESERVED IT!” Daniel explodes. “You are not a victim of events. It’s a pay. Your pay for all your tricks and the tricks of your family. And now we see that you are not better than them. You are the same as they are. Or maybe even worse. Since you managed to inherit everything you could from your family: depression, schizophrenia, and a tendency to commit crimes.”       “Ah, does it mean it’s all my fault?”       “And I am not sorry for you. You are guilty of everything. You are guilty of turning your back on the LAST people who were ready to do JUST SOMETHING for you. Fine, Longbottom, congratulations, you GOT what you wanted!”       “Be a man and confess that those rumors are your work. Be fucking honest!” Peter grabs Daniel by the collar again and shakes him. “Confess! CONFESS IT, BASTARD!”       “I am not going to lie!” Daniel throws rudely, pushing Peter off himself.       “Because you are a coward! You are a coward because you are afraid to be honest!”       “I have always been honest! And I give a fuck whether you believe it or not. Think what you want.”       “Excellent then!” Peter exclaims. “Your lies are one of the real reasons to kill you here and now. WHILE NOBODY CAN SEE IT!”       “GREAT! Nobody can stop me and persuade me not to beat your fucking face. That SHOULD HAVE BEEN CRUSHED AGAINST THE WALL A LONG TIME AGO!”       Daniel slaps Peter strongly in the face and attacks him with fists, starting a cruel fight with him.       “Don’t give up, buddy, hit him stronger!” Theodore encourages. “If you make everything right, this bastard will die soon. I am here and will always support you.”       “Your life is fucking bad, but you do not appreciate everything you have been given on the golden dish,” Daniel sneers evilly and gives several successful hits on Peter’s face. “You were given a chance, but you turned your ass on them…”       “I need nobody!” Peter states and tries to hit Daniel in the jaw with his fist, with no success. “NOBODY! I SHALL STAY ALONE! ALL ALONE! AND I SHALL FEEL FUCKING GOOD!”       “That’s right! Nobody should get in touch with you! Nobody should know you are a bastard.”       “But I know you are a bastard now. The bastard who thought he would remain unpunished after everything he had done.”       “You will not remain. I shall personally take care of it and tell about your tricks to someone who should know.”       “Do not dare!” Peter grabs Daniel’s throat tightly and squeezes it with his fingers, while his bloodshot eyes make a hole in the brunet’s forehead. “I SHALL KILL YOU, BASTARD, IF YOU DARE TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH!”       “I shall dare…” Daniel throws rudely and makes a great effort to push Peter off himself. “I shall dare!”       “SCUM, I SHALL KILL YOU!”       “No, I SHALL kill you! YOU ARE DEAD, BASTARD!”       Daniel pushes Peter off himself with a hit of the foot against his chest so strongly that the blond gets thrown two meters away and falls to the ground, choking from a lack of air. Using the fact that he is still lying, Perkins does not refuse to beat Rose a little. He smashes right into his nose, chest, stomach, and groin and sneers evilly, while the blond racks his vocal cords from the intolerable pain and barely has time to wipe off the blood that starts getting out of his nostrils.       “You made a mistake by standing in my way, bastard,” Daniel says with a heavy breath, clenching his hands tightly into fists and looking at Peter still lying on the ground with hatred in his eyes. “I am not a boy for beating to you. Not a punching bag that you can kick as much as you want. And I am not going to be silent when any scums dare to scare and kill me.”       “I SHALL KILL YOU, BASTARD!” Peter explodes. “I SHALL KILL YOU!”       After wiping the blood off his nose with a sharp movement, Peter gets up on his feet for two moments and wants to attack Daniel with his fists. But the brunet cools him down immediately with a couple of strong hits of the fists against his face and keeps attacking him successfully enough, protecting his vulnerable areas, and showing a brilliant reaction not to let the opponent harm him. And when Rose wants to try to hit his foot against the man’s face, Perkins dodges immediately and answers with the same thing successfully.       “Wow…” Peter sneers evilly, fighting with Daniel hand in hand. “As it turned out, you are not a weak boy anymore.”       “I have learned a lot over the past few months,” Daniel states with pride that he can barely hide. “And I realized that I really loved boxing.”       “It will not save you anyway. I shall get what I want.”       “I repeat, brainless donkey, DO NOT CONFUSE ME WITH A GIRL!” Daniel smashes his fist against Peter’s temple. “YOU CHOSE THE WRONG GUY, JACKASS!”       Daniel grabs Peter by the hair, doubles him over sharply, hits his knee against the blond’s groin, and strikes him down with a powerful hit of the foot.       “Even if you are a psycho, I am not afraid of you at all.”       Not thinking a lot, Daniel moves off sharply, finds the knife that Peter lost, folds it, and hides it underneath his t-shirt. Then he starts running where his eyes look as fast as he can.       “STOP NOW, SCUM!” Peter roars and gets up on his feet by force, suffering from a lack of air and wincing strongly from pain in his whole body. “STOP, THE FUCK!”       “Catch me if you can!” Daniel challenges.       “I SHALL KILL YOU, BASTARD! KI-I-I-I-IL-L-L-L!”       Breathing heavily and making himself bite the bullet and forget about any pain and discomfort, Peter rushes after Daniel, who is already at a long enough distance. Looking back at times, Perkins gets through the high bushes and sticks that want to get into his eyes, jumps over small pools of dirt or trunks, climbs up hills, and gets down slopes. If he understands that he cannot move on, he just turns aside, barely thinking about where he goes and whether he can get out of here.       “STOP, PERKINS!” Peter’s deafening roar is heard somewhere from afar. “STOP, I SAID!”       “Ah, you’re weak!” Theodore sighs resignedly, following Peter. “You let that bastard go! He’s run so fucking far that you can hardly catch him.”       “It’s alright, he will not hide from me. I shall not calm down until I get rid of that so-called sassy guy. He will pay me for everything… FOR THE FUCK EVERYTHING!”       “Faster, faster, move your ass! If you are slow, you will catch and kill nobody!”       “I DO KNOW!” Peter roars. “You better shut up! I feel lousy without you!”       “FASTER! YOU ARE ABOUT TO LOSE HIM!”       Peter growls irritably and spends some time running wild after Daniel before he suddenly loses his track and does not know where to go.       “FUCK!” Peter screams and looks around nervously. “Where is that miserable one? Where did he run?”       When Peter hears a deafening noise in the bushes, he decides to follow the sound with the thought that it’s the place where Daniel ran. Speaking the truth, he does not understand where he is now and whether he can get out of these woods. However, the guy does not think about it now a lot and is too obsessed with the thought of how to get rid of those whom he thinks are ruining his life all the time.       “Good job, boy!” Theodore exclaims. “You decided to run after three rabbits, but you caught the fuck nobody in the end. All of them ran on different sides.”       “It’s alright, these bastards will not hide from me,” Peter states confidently. “They will be running here until they get lost. And I shall find these here and get rid of them.”       “Ha, you cannot the fuck catch one of them, but you want to catch three!”       “If I had a plan, everything would be alright! But I wasn’t just ready. Everything happened spontaneously.”       “Ah, yeah, of course!” Theodore rolls his eyes. “It’s easier to excuse your failure than to admit it.”       “Hey, bastard, shut up and do not irritate me! I am fucking enraged because I cannot do the fuck anything.”       “You’ve been able to do nothing all your life because you’re a pathetic loser. Who is, however, guilty of what happened to some extent.”       “Ar-r-r-r, you decided to teach me life?”       “Speaking the truth.”       “Fuck yourself with your truth, bastard!”       “You just said it all to yourself, just saying.”       “I SAID, SHUT UP!”       Theodore says nothing more and just laughs evilly as he runs after Peter getting confused and not knowing where to go. At some moment, the blond stops again and looks around the plan approximately. And he decides to run on the sound of the rustling leaves that he can hear a few meters away from here, but he meets a failure in trying to find Daniel or at least Edward and Terrence.       Meanwhile, Daniel himself breaks away from Peter enough, but he keeps running nonstop, not paying attention to the heavy breath and fast heartbeat, and only thinking about how to save himself and find his friends, who may be anywhere. However, at some moment, he stops in the end to look around and listen to the sound with the hope that it can help him find his friends and let them know that he is alright. And when he hears a very, very deafening voice that can hardly be recognized and says something unclear, the guy decides to follow it. At some moment, Perkins understands that he is not too far from the road because he can hear the sounds of the transports going by. It gives him hope that he did not get lost and can come back to the place where he was before.       His path lies through the high thickets, bushes, and pools of dirt. And some time later, Daniel manages to end up on the wide path, which he keeps running wild on, even though he is already too far from Peter and no longer hears his resentful shouts. He makes sure of it after he looks around several times and sees that nobody chases him. And after one of these checks, the man breathing heavily stops sharply and looks at the suspicious movement in the bushes for several seconds. But he relaxes in his mind when the anxious Terrence shows out of these ones, looks around twice before he sees Perkins far from him, and exhales with relief at the thought that he is alright.       “Daniel!” Terrence calls.       “Terrence!” Daniel reacts.       Terrence gets out of the bushes and runs to Daniel, who goes toward him too.       “Oh, shit, bro!” Terrence pronounces with a slight smile and hugs Daniel tightly. “Finally…”       “I’m okay,” Daniel calms down after he steps away from Terrence. “I managed to escape.”       “Did that crazy man do nothing bad to you?”       “Nope, he didn’t. It’s okay.” Daniel clears his throat quickly, wipes the blood under his nose, and massages his jaw, which hurts a little. “Of course, I got tons of hits, but it’s okay anyway.”       “Thank God… I was afraid that he’d kill you.”       “Hey, where’s Edward?” Daniel wonders and, frowning slightly, looks around. “Why isn’t he with you?”       “I dunno, we missed each other at some moment. I was distracted for a second, but that idiot ran somewhere.”       “We’ve gotta find him as soon as possible. Rose is out of his mind. If your brother stands in his way, the blond is gonna kill him for sure.”       “I know, I’m fucking worried!” Terrence confesses excitedly. “But I have no idea where to find him.”       “It’s okay, we can do this. Let’s find Edward first and then think about what to do to Peter.”       “Fuck, I wish the kids didn’t end up somewhere together,” Terrence prays. “Rose is really outta mind and doesn’t understand what he does and says. He’s gonna kill us without moving an eyebrow.”       “Don’t worry, buddy, it’s gonna be okay,” Daniel assures, clapping Terrence on the shoulders. “You know that it’s hard to strike MacClife down. The sun would rather fall from the sky than this guy let someone take a victory over him.”       “Didn’t you find anything that could help us?”       “Nope, sadly. But I know for sure that there’s a road not far from here. We can get out of here and leave in case we wanna give a fuck.”       “And where did that crazy man go?”       “No idea. I was running from him like crazy. He was chasing him for some time, but it seems like he lost my tracks some time later.”       “I see…”       “Alright, MacClife, stop talking! We’ve gotta find your brother earlier than the blond.”       “If that bastard dares to touch him with a finger, I swear I shall bury him in the ground,” Terrence clenches his hands into fists tightly. “Alive.”       “C’mon, brother! We can’t waste time!”       Daniel looks around quickly enough and runs to one of the sides, while Terrence follows him shortly. The truth is that they do not know where to run and where to find the missing Edward, who does not raise a voice and is sitting somewhere secretly as quietly as a mouse and waiting for a moment. After two minutes of a senseless walk in the woods, they do not manage to find any tracks of MacClife, Jr., and do not know where Peter is.       “Edward!” Terrence calls at the top of his lungs. “Where are you?”       “Edward, say something!” Daniel exclaims. “Edward!”       “Hey, kid, stop fucking my brain! Show up now! I promise I will not beat you with a rod. I will just give you a hit on your head. And a kick on your ass.”       “MacClife, what the fuck! If you dare to fight Rose all alone, do not even think about it. He’s gonna kill you! Don’t even think, hear me!”       While Daniel and Terrence run in the woods, they keep calling Edward at times with the hope that he will hear them and let them know where to find him. But all their attempts do not lead to anything good yet: no voices, no signs. They can only hear the singing of birds or the rustling of leaves under their feet every time they take a step. Although the men start to be worried and think something terrible happened, they try to keep calm and not to let their emotions control them and make them fall into hysteria.       Meanwhile, Peter keeps walking nervously through the whole woods, checking all the bushes, getting through the thick thickets, and getting his feet out of the dirt pool they get stuck in at times. And every second makes him more enraged because he cannot find anyone from the company after so much time of searching, and has to waste his time on it.       “Ar-r-r, holy shit, you’ve wasted so much time on these bastards, but they aren’t still lying at your feet yet,” Theodore moans tiredly, barely moving his feet.       “What can I do if they run on different sides?” Peter asks irritably, opens another bust, and looks around.       “You shouldn't have spent it on senseless talks. You should’ve taken a knife and killed them.”       “I did it! But these bastards started to resist!”       “It means you don’t wanna kill them so hard.”       “What?”       “If you wanted, you’d do this, even if there were ten of them. But you cannot the fuck deal with three men.”       “Listen, maybe you will leave me alone at least now? CAN’T YOU SEE I AM FUCKING NERVOUS?”       “Yeah, how could you be a bloodthirsty killer if you’re so cowardly and weak? Your dad wouldn’t be proud of you, huh. He wouldn’t be proud to have such a terrible successor.”       Peter growls loudly and irritably and decides to ignore everything Theodore says as he keeps checking the territory in search of Terrence, Daniel, and Edward. Again and again, he looks around, looking for his victims and waiting for their appearance at any time, just like a wild animal. His hands are clenched into fists so tightly that his knuckles get white, and his muscles start to hurt from painful tension. The guy reacts immediately to even the rustle of leaves and rushes to the source of the sound, growling disappointedly every time he fails. The anger takes control of his mind and turns off his sense of tiredness and lack of air, making him focus on the goal of getting rid of those he pronounced his enemies.       “FUCKING BASTARDS!” Peter screams at the top of his lungs. “I SHALL FIND YOU ANYWAY! I SHALL KILL! DO NOT EVEN DARE TO TRY TO HIDE FROM ME!”       “Oh, yay…” Theodore rolls his eyes. “While you walk here in circles and stare at every bush, these guys have a lot of time to escape.”       “No… They will not escape. First, they got lost in the woods. Second, they want to kill me. And third, I shall not let them escape if I find at least one of them.”       “Uh-huh, Perkins got out without any problems! You only had time to open your mouth!”       “The guy just made his life a little longer. That’s all. The next time I catch him is going to be the last one for him.”       “I kinda doubt it.”       “Fuck yourself with your doubts. And actually, I didn’t ask your opinion.”       After looking around again, Peter chooses the path he starts running wild on. He runs for a long time, a very long time, gets through the bushes and thickets… At some moment, he trips over the trunk in the ground and falls to the ground like a stone. It makes him confused for some time, but he gets up on his feet quickly enough and looks around with a heavy breath, promising himself not to forgive himself if he does not find and kill anyone.       “Where are these bastards?” Peter resents, putting his hands on his hips. “Where do I find them?”       And several seconds later, Peter listens to the sounds that surround him very closely. Among them, he recognizes the noise and finds out where it comes from. He even thinks that something moves in the bush placed not far from him, and makes him think that there is something in there.       “Uh-huh, I have caught you!” Peter smiles slyly. “So, someone’s head is going to be cut now.”       Laughing evilly and not moving his eyes off the bush that he pays attention to, Peter starts getting close to the source of the sound slowly but confidently.       “Ha, I wonder how you’re gonna cut their heads if you don’t even have a knife?” Theodore crosses his arms over his chest. “You saw that Perkins took it with him.”       “It’s alright, it will not stop me,” Peter says determinedly. “If I don’t have a knife, I shall deal with them with my own hands.”       “I’d like to see it! Since you can’t even strike them down with a knife!”       Peter says nothing and just rolls his eyes as he keeps getting closer to his goal. But when he comes to the bush and spreads the sticks sharply, he finds nothing and nobody that made sounds. Another failure makes the guy much more enraged, so he tries to release by smashing his fist strongly against the thick trunk of the tree and winces strongly after the burning pain echoes in every part of his body. Then Rose sees a much more active movement in the bush and comes to it again. But he finds nothing. Next, something starts to shake in different bushes. He checks them – he finds nothing. Nothing again. And again. It happens several times. As if someone or something tries to get his attention on purpose.       “Bastards!” Peter explodes. “Stop teasing me with your fucking jokes! Get out now!”       “M-m-m, I wouldn’t keep moving on,” Theodore says thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “These bastards may arrange a trap for you and lure you somewhere.”       “You’re right, it all happens for a reason. They want to lure me somewhere again. They think I will succumb.”       “I think it was evident.”       “Thank you, fucking Mr. Evidence!”       Again, Peter looks around in search of at least one victim and keeps walking in circles, still listening to every sound. And even if he understands that the movements in the bushes may be a trap from the men, Rose comes to all of them because he just cannot go by. That’s why he does not notice that he starts checking all the bushes again and following a certain plan that someone came up with. But at some moment, he loses track and moves his eyes sharply aside when he hears a caw of a raven that flies near him. It makes him a little sober and makes him stop thinking about following the sounds next. Instead, the blond starts moving in the opposite way in a quick step, barely understanding where to go, what to do, and whether he really needs all of this. All this time, he does not look under his feet and is more focused on what’s happening ahead.       That’s why Peter does not notice that something is dragging him down at some moment, so that he loses his balance and falls to the ground. His body rolls down the high hill, hitting against trunks getting out of the ground several times. Since the hill is at a high angle, his fall turns out to be harsh and rapid. The guy barely bites the bullet not to scream from pain that gets through his body every time he runs into a barrier, and the open parts of his skin scratch against something.       A lot of time goes by before Peter ends up somewhere down without an opportunity to stop due to the high speed of rolling down the hill. He opens his eyes widely when he sees the abyss getting closer and closer with the thought that the fall is inevitable. And he almost screams when he ends in free fall, falling deeper and deeper into the gap with no end. The guy starts reaching out his hand to the edge of the abyss that gets further from him, feeling that his heart stops from fear as well as his breath. He only thinks about living the last minutes. About falling from a high height and getting traumas incomparable with life, and kind of paying for everything he has lately done.       But probably the most real miracle happens when Peter manages to grab one of the stones at some moment and hang in the air. He stares into the distance with widely open eyes and can barely breathe, while his heart is beating like crazy, and his shaking fingers cling tightly to any chance not to fall. Glancing down and seeing the high trees with sweeping sticks that seem too small from the height, the blond suddenly feels dizzy, and a sense of panic and fear of death possesses his mind more and more.       Nevertheless, Peter finds the strength to put himself together and makes a great effort to try to climb up to the stone he is holding on to so hard. The wonderful physical data becomes his excellent helper in this case, but everything turns out to be more complicated after a long and intense run in the woods and a cruel fight with his friends. The guy uses several attempts before he finally climbs up to the stone. And he literally stops breathing when he looks up and understands that he has to spend a lot of time climbing up. Thinking he does not have a choice, Rose grabs every hole and stone to climb up slowly but confidently. He is happy everything is doing well so far, and he is about to get up. Though a shake and tension possess his body immediately every time he looks down, and his fear of heights and death gets stronger and stronger.       But when he needs a little before he is on the up, Peter, holding one of the small stones stuck in the mountain, grabs another stone with his second hand and lifts himself up. And he understands that it does not handle his weight and starts breaking, judging by the sound it makes. It makes the man’s heart stop, and he gets immediately pale, stops breathing, and feels that his hands get sweaty due to the growing panic. And he does not hold a heartbreaking scream when the stone breaks and falls down. That’s why the blond is now holding just one. He looks around in panic with a wish to find another stone, but he understands that there is nothing he can grab.       “Fucking shit…” Peter swears in a shaking from fear voice. “I’m in trouble…”       Peter’s face freezes in a scared grimace when he understands that the stone he is holding with one hand starts breaking, hanging in the air at a high height, with the thought that he is about to fall and die at any moment.       “No, no, no, not this… Please… Not this… No, no, no…”       Peter screams again when the stone crushes much more under his weight and shakes his head when he looks down and feels nauseous. The guy tries so hard to find a way to get out of this situation and not to let himself die. Yes, there are stones he can hold, but they are too far from him. He would have to do his best to reach out to them, putting himself at great risk of not holding on and falling. Rose tries to do it once, but this attempt turns out to be a failure, and the stone breaks much more as long as he is hanging in the air.       “Fuck, it’s too far… Can’t cling to it…”       While Peter has to grab the stone, tiredness lets him know about itself more and more, and his arm, which he can barely hold himself on, starts shaking from strong tension. He understands that it’s getting harder to hold his weight and starts to panic since he is in a hopeless situation. He feels so scared that he is waiting for help from anyone: a friend or an enemy.       “Fuck, I can’t take this anymore…” Peter pronounces in a shaking voice with a heavy breath. “My arm is getting numb… Fuck! I can’t take this anymore!”       Peter’s scream gets much more heartbreaking when the stone breaks so strongly that he needs a little not to be able to avoid the inevitable fall from the high height.       “HELP ME, SOMEONE! HELP ME! GET ME OUT OF HERE!”       Peter tries so hard to grab the stone that is barely hanging with the second hand. When he barely does it, he tries to lift himself up. But at this moment, the stone does not handle this pressure and crushes. That’s why the man ends up in free fall with a deafening shout and a stopped heart, reaching out his hands and setting his widely open eyes into the distance. But at the last moment, to his happiness, someone grabs his wrist and starts holding him tightly. The savior is Edward, who saw what was happening from afar, then heard the scream for help and ran here to help, even realizing that he would hardly get any kind of thankfulness.       “Edward!” Peter screams desperately. “Edward, get me out of here! Help me! I don’t want to die!”       “Don’t worry, I’m holding you!” Edward exclaims. “Pull yourself up!”       “I have no strength! I’m tired!”       “I can’t pull you up all alone. You must help me too!”       “Don’t let go of my hand!” Peter jabs loudly. “Don’t let go! I don’t want to die!”       “Stop talking, whining boy! Pull yourself up!”       Edward pulls Peter on himself so hard while the blond is breathing heavily enough, looking at him with widely open eyes full of fear, and grabbing his hand tightly.       “Don’t look down!” Edward warns. “Don’t look down, I said!”       “Faster, boy, faster!” Peter shouts. “I fear heights! I feel dizzy!”       “Look at me! Look at me! It’s gonna be alright!”       Edward pulls Edward on himself much more.       “Pull yourself up again! I can’t grab you! You’re too far!”       “My arms are gonna become numb now!”       “Stop whining like a girl! Do what I the fuck tell you now!”       “NO-O-O!” Peter squeaks when his hand slides out of Edward’s grip slightly. “DON’T LET IT GO! DON’T LET IT GO! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”       “I told you to stop whining!” Edward throws gloomily. “Better help me instead of working your tongue!”       “HELP ME, PLEASE!”       Edward growls irritably and pulls Peter onto himself as strongly as he can again, while the blond grabs his wrist with the fingers of both hands.       “PLEASE!” Peter screams after he glances down. “IT’S TOO HIGH HERE!”       “Wait, a little bit before you’re up!” Edward calms down. “C’mon, blond, brace yourself! Pull yourself up!”       After pulling Peter on himself two or three times, Edward manages to choose the moment to grab him by the collar and get the guy up without problems. Feeling the ground under his feet, the exhausted blonde lies on it like a stone and starts breathing very heavily, while all his muscles shake from painful tension. Meanwhile, MacClife, Jr., himself gets down to his knees and tries to catch a breath, doubling over with a sense of tiredness after a long run and the attempt to save the man from falling off the height.       “Yo, moron, you asked for trouble?” Theodore sneers evilly, bending to Peter setting his tired eyes up to the gloomy sky. “A little bit before nothing could have left of you!”       “So what, calmed down, at last?” Edward asks with a heavy breath. “Or the fight is still up?”       Peter says nothing and keeps coming to himself after what happened for several seconds. But at some moment, while Edward gets up on his feet and looks at him suspiciously with the thought that everything will hardly end like this, Rose starts laughing snidely.       “Ah, MacClife, MacClife…” Peter pronounces and sits up slowly. “You are such an idiot… Just a naive idiot…”       “If you think I understand nothing, I want to upset you,” Edward says determinedly.       “No, you do not understand anything… You do not understand what kind of trouble you got in.”       Peter gets up from the ground, shaking slightly from weakness in his feet that he decides to ignore, however.       “You should not have come here alone. You should not have…”       “You know me well, Theodore,” Edward puts his hands on his hips. “I fight until the end, even when I have nobody to help me. When I feel I am about to die at any minute.”       “And so, are your pants still not wet? Are you not afraid not to have your protectors by your side?”       Peter comes closer to Edward with his head proudly raised and sets his confident look into his sly eyes.       “Your brother is far and cannot save your ass. He cannot stand up for you as he usually does.”       “The important thing is that he is safe now,” Edward notices. “Because you are here, with me. I shall deal with you immediately if you dare to touch me with a finger.”       “Oh, do you think I shall not dare?”       “If you dare, you will get the cruel answer. I am not a boy for beating, whom you can strike down easily.”       “I have to agree with you in this case.”       Peter starts walking in circles around Edward.       “You and your company are too hard to be struck down because you all resist like cats. Scratch and bite even when you are struck down and have your faces pressed to the ground.”       “When you decided to kill us, you should have remembered this. And remember that none of us would be silent, watching you kill our close people and us.”       “My blame, I admit it,” Peter smiles slyly. “My fault is that I planned nothing. If I had a plan, only bones would be left of you.”       “Make sure bones are not left of you, blondie.” Edward crosses his arms over his chest. “As far as I understand, you are afraid of this so badly.”       Edward sneers evilly.       “You peed your pants so hard when you almost fell off the abyss. You must have seen your pale and scared face.”       “By the way, about it…”       Peter walks around Edward and grabs him by the collar from behind.       “For your information, this is a very good place to deal with you quietly and quickly. It would be enough for me just to push you to the edge and give you a strong kick on your ass so that your body goes in free fall.”       “If you show off, I shall personally throw you off this abyss,” Edward threatens in a low voice. “The one I pulled you from, by the way.”       “Try.” Peter grabs Edward rudely by the hair and pulls it so strongly that the guy winces slightly. “Try. But you cannot do this.”       “Why do you think so?”       Edward hits his elbow against Peter’s solar plexus, turns sharply on him, and grabs him by the sleeveless shirt.       “Do you think I can do nothing? I cannot kick your ass and even kill you?”       “You do not have the guts,” Peter sneers evilly. “You are a coward. The coward who is fucking worried about his skin. Who can pee his pants at just one thought about having to come back to prison after you magically avoided it.”       “I would go there if I had to commit a crime for the safety and calm of my close people.”       “Aw, it’s so noble…” Peter rolls his eyes.       “By the way, I forgot to say that what happened to you was my little plan that worked like magic.”       “I understood it. I understood that someone tried to lure me somewhere on purpose.”       “And you succumbed to my provocation.”       Edward pushes Peter off himself rudely and starts walking around him with his head proudly raised.       “Even if you doubted, you followed the sounds that I made. And I was sure that you would not notice that slope and would fall down the one. And end up in a trap.”       “Ar-r-r-r, fucking bastard…” Peter clenches his hands into fists with an irritated growl. “You all wanted to kill me, after all… I was sure about it.”       “Nope, I was not going to kill you. I just wanted to wait for a while and then pull you out. I thought it would calm you down a little and wake you up.” Edward looks at Peter with contempt from head to foot. “But as I see, this shock therapy did not work at all.”       “Oh, no, MacClife, you cannot fool me,” Peter says determinedly, coming closer to Edward. “I am not as stupid as you think. You and your company can try to kill you as much as you want, but I have bitten your plans through. And I shall keep biting through those you have not come up with yet.”       “If you keep showing off, we will lose our patience and will surely give you to a wild bull as food. So that only bones are left of you.”       “Oh, oh, I am so scared, puppy! You scared me so much that my pants got wet!”       “Ha, just like they did when you almost fell off the mountain?”       “Hey, yobbo, shut your fucking mouth up,” Peter snaps and grabs Edward by the collar. “Or I shall quickly cut your tongue!”       “You threaten me, but I am not fucking afraid at all.”       “Yo, too sassy, as I can see?”       “I would bet who is sassy here!”       “You say you are not scared… Not scared at all… Alright… I shall do something… You will get in trouble now. You will fucking whine from pain and fear.”       “Come on, try,” Edward challenges and stands in a fighting position. “Come on, Theodore, show me all your power! Do your best for me to get overwhelmed by your tricks.”       “You will be, I promise you. You will be as overwhelmed as you have NEVER BEEN IN YOUR LIFE!”       Peter growling irritably attacks Edward with fists, but the brunet does not get confused and starts fighting off determinedly and confidently enough, not missing any hits and giving them back.       “Huh, is this your thankfulness for saving your skin?” Edward surprises and pushes Edward off himself with a strong hit of the foot against his stomach.       “Oh, yay, you love playing a hero,” Peter sneers evilly. “You want to be praised every time you save someone. You try to prove to people that someone still needs you.”       “Many people need me! But if we ask if someone needs you, there will not be fools.”       “Uh-huh, they will need you until your nearest mistake!” Peter tries to hit Edward in the face with his foot unsuccessfully, but the guy dodges in time. “When you show your worst side, everyone will turn back on you.”       “Edward Lockhart acted like this!” Edward gives Peter the same hit in a full-twist jump. “But Edward MacClife is his full opposite.”       “No matter what your name is, everyone remembers you acted like a bastard.”       “Ha, I am the innocence itself, unlike you!” Edward states and protects himself successfully from Peter in a hand-in-hand fight. “Though we all are clean and innocent, unlike you! You suppressed all of us ten times more.”       “I have finally become the one I was supposed to be all my life. Not the one I was forced to be.”       “Are you sure you want to be the one?” Edward pushes Peter off himself rudely. “Are you sure you will be happy if you become a bastard for everyone and get rid of those who used to be ready to come to help you?”       “I shall be MUCH happier if all my enemies fell!” Peter shouts at the top of his lungs and starts walking in circles, not stopping to look at Edward with an icy look, while the guy answers him back. “If I take revenge on EVERYONE who thought they must have given me pain.”       “When you finally wake up and realize you are a bastard, it will be too late. Everyone will be dead, or everyone will just turn their backs on you and want to have nothing in common with you.”       “It’s MY business!” Peter roars and attacks Edward with fists again. “FUCKING MINE!”       “Alright, I give a fuck!” Edward starts pushing Peter off himself as strongly as possible, while the blond tries to push him off, and both of them are fighting hand in hand. “Anyway, you have lost everything! You have lost all the chances to keep being our friend and counting on our help.”       “Not so much to lose… I am not afraid to lose those who were waiting for the good moment to get the knife deeply in my back.”       “Think what you want. The guys and I don’t fucking care now!”       After pushing Peter off himself, Edward gives him a strong hit of the foot against his face. The blond just massages his hurt jaw a little, but then grabs the guy by the ankle, making him fall to the ground painfully. Then Rose falls over him and tries to give him as many strong slaps as possible. Though the brunet does not get confused and protects himself successfully with all the tricks he knows before he hits his feet against the opponent’s chest as strongly as possible, striking him down, and gets up quickly. Using the moment, the guy grabs the blond tightly by the hair and pulls it painfully, then squeezes his neck with his elbow and holds him like this for several seconds, not giving him a chance to get out. But Peter finds a way to set himself free, throwing Edward over his shoulder with no problems and striking him down. The brunet does not get cowardly and presses his opponent to the ground, and after he turns around sharply and stands on his knees.       “Yeah, I thought you would surprise me,” Edward says thoughtfully, pressing Peter’s neck with his knee. “But you are fucking predictable. I am not even interested in fighting with you.”       “Wait, MacClife, I shall become your nightmare very soon,” Peter promises in a low, rude voice. “The one that will make you wake up with cold sweat. Of course, if you do not die in a magical way.”       “If you do not stop showing off, the guys and I will be your nightmare.”       “I gave you a chance to live! But you did not use it. So, I do not accept your protests.”       After grabbing Edward by the hair, Peter throws him aside sharply and gets up on his feet in a jump.       “And no matter how hard you all hide and resist, I shall destroy you anyway,” Peter threatens.       “We will see it, bastard!” Edward throws coldly, gets up quickly from the ground, and starts protecting himself from Peter’s attacks with fists and hits in the most vulnerable areas, considering him a great enemy, not a friend. “I am not going to give up! And I shall cut your throat if you touch the men with just a finger.”       “Oh, yeah, you are so threatening,” Peter laughs contemptuously. “So horrifying…”       “Do you think I am kidding?” Edward smashes his fist against Peter’s jaw, making him feel severe pain. “Do you think I shall not bury you in the ground if Terrence or Daniel suffer because of you somehow?”       “You will have to work hard to catch me. Of course, you wave your wings well, but I am smarter and faster anyway.”       Peter twists Edward’s arm with a clever fighting technique, turns him with his back to himself, and squeezes his neck with his elbow, while the brunet tries to get out of the grip.       “Remember, puppy, you are not my opponent. Because I am not a fool.”       Peter pulls Edward forcefully to the edge of the abyss, where he almost fell off some time ago, despite his opponent’s hard resistance.       “Hey, let me go, asshole!” Edward demands. “Let me go now! HEAR ME! FUCK, THEODORE!”       “You can say goodbye to your life, bastard. You will be the first one I shall finally destroy.”       Peter pushes Edward rudely to the edge and wants to make one more push with a sinister smile so that the brunet goes into free fall. Despite the dangerous situation, the guy saves himself thanks to an unreal miracle. The magically instant reaction. When he runs aside literally at the last moment and tries to throw the blond off the abyss in anger, even if Rose does also get confused and finds a way to solve the hard situation.       “Fuck, fucking bastard…” Peter swears and slaps Edward strongly in the face two times. “Fucking shit… The one that cannot drown at all…”       “Love of my close people is my real guardian angel,” Edward states and smashes his fist against Peter’s face. “While it’s near, I want and will live and fight.”       “Of course! Love…”       “Maybe I would have also become the same bastard as you are. But since I met the people who loved me in the end, I remained myself. My mind is clear, my heart is not poisoned with anger and offenses.”       “The case is not about love. The case is about cowardice. You just peed your pants. Because you are a coward. A pathetic coward.”       “Loving someone does not mean being cowardly and weak.”       “Uh-huh, if you love someone and open your heart to them, they will eventually put a knife in your back!” Peter growling irritably tries to push Edward off himself with a hit of the foot against his chest. “But you can keep trusting someone even after this…”       “If you have problems, you must solve them!” Edward exclaims, barely jumping back and performing a tornado kick brilliantly, but Peter dodges from it as well. “With those they have to do with. Or at the office of the psychologist. But in your case, a psychiatrist and a straitjacket are the only things that can help you.”       “How many times do I repeat that I AM NOT SICK?”       Roaring deafeningly, Peter tries to give Edward as many strong hits of the fist against the vulnerable areas as possible, while the brunet covers them successfully.       “If you were not sick, you would not talk to your imaginary friend, would not go crazy, and would not try to kill us,” Edward says confidently.       “Now I am the one I should have always been,” Peter states. “I am Theodore Longbottom. The one everyone must fear. The one who will not let any bastards harm him anymore.”       “Alright, if you like being a bastard so much, nobody minds. We will get through the loss somehow.”       “Yeah, you will. You will get through it to the bottom of the lake, in which YOU WILL FALL FROM THIS FUCKING ABYSS!”       Peter grabs Edward by the collar and pulls him to the edge of the abyss by force, while the brunet resists this much more determinedly and cruelly and tries to give the blond strong hits and turn his back on the edge of it. But Rose turns out much more determined this time and eventually brings MacClife, Jr., to the edge, holding him tightly by the hair and pulling him sharply every time he resists a little.       “So, what do they say when they say goodbye in Spanish, remind me,” Peter sneers evilly. “What do they say? Huh, I think something like adios. Yeah, right! So, adios, boy! Only bones will be left of you now.”       Understanding that he will die if he stands and does nothing, Edward does not give up on trying to resist and tries to go further from the edge of the abyss he is about to fall from. Peter does not let him run anywhere and tries to throw the guy off with an evil laugh for two or three seconds before he feels something sharp get into the nape of his neck and hears the low, rude voice full of threats say determinedly and confidently:       “Do not dare, bastard. If you push him, I shall cut your throat.”       While Edward exhales with relief in his mind, Peter sneers evilly when he immediately recognizes the voice of Terrence, who keeps the knife against his neck.       “Oh, look, the threatening daddy with mental issues has shown up,” Peter says cheerfully. “He tracked the puppy by smell, as I understand.”       “Do not irritate me, bastard,” Terrence continues. “I repeat, if you harm my brother, you will be dead.”       “Oh, oh, I am so scared…”       “Did you understand what I said? DO NOT DARE TO HURT EDWARD! NOBODY DARES TO HURT MY BROTHER!”       “Oh, come on! Take this kid out!”       At first, Peter pretends that he wants to push Edward toward Terrence, but then he tries to throw him into the abyss. However, the guy starts resisting hard, making a great effort to put his opponent in his place and not to let him do anything to him.       “Do not give up, buddy, do not give up!” Theodore encourages, skipping around Peter. “Kill this kid. Kill! Let him be the first one.”       “Resist as much as you want, puppy,” Peter hisses through his teeth. “You will die anyway.”       “We will see it, bastard!” Edward snaps, pushing Peter off himself, or trying to take control of the situation when the blond resists. “Ar-r-r, I am not going to die yet!”       “It’s a fucking pity that your plans will not come true.”       Peter manages to push Edward to the edge of the abyss again with a greater wish to send him in free fall. But the guy himself resists it hard and gets help from Terrence, who grabs the blond by the hair and starts to pull him aside. But at some moment, he falls after a powerful hit of the foot in the solar plexus. And then Daniel shows up out of nowhere, hitting Rose with the foot against his jaw in a jump on the run and making him shake sharply. And Edward himself makes a brilliant tornado kick, with which he strikes the opponent down.       “Anyway, I feel bored with fighting with you!” Edward says with his head proudly raised and pulls down his denim waistcoat sharply. “I had much more interesting fights.”       “M-m-m, the gang is together again…” Peter smiles slyly and gets up slowly on his feet, massaging his hurt jaw. “The older guys ran to save the younger one…”       “It’s clear that we have to continue it since you understood the fuck nothing,” Daniel hits his fish against his palm.       “We have to continue it because YOU did not the fuck understand. AND YOU DO NOT THE FUCK WANT TO GIVE UP!”       “It would not have happened if you had done our claims. If you had done what you were told, we would have fucked you, bastard, off, and told you to do anything you want.”       “You have NO right to tell me what to do,” Peter says rudely. “NO RIGHT! You are NOBODY to me! But I am an ADULT man! And can do ANYTHING I WANT!”       “DO THIS THEN!” Daniel explodes. “EVERYONE GIVES A FUCK ALREADY!”       “Remember, bastards, none of you will live until tomorrow. Nobody will be able to run from me. I CANNOT CALM DOWN WHILE YOU WALK ON THIS GROUND.”       Peter tries to hit his foot against Daniel’s solar plexus on the run, but the brunet dodges the attack skillfully, twists his arm behind his back, and turns it so that the man cannot hold down a deafening shout. Edward comes to Rose determinedly and smashes his fist against his jaw as strongly as possible.       “Alright, Theodore, you won,” Edward says confidently. “Since you love being beaten cruelly on every part of you, it means you will keep getting hits even after you stop begging us to stop doing this.”       Peter growling irritably starts to fight Edward and Daniel at the same time with fists, dogging one hit but getting another, while the dull pain echoes in his arms and feet. Under the influence of adrenaline, nobody feels tiredness, a lack of air, or a crazy beat of the heart. All the attention is on the opponent. The stubborn opponent who literally clenches his teeth into the smallest chance to take a victory in this battle.       “Are you not dead of tiredness yet, blond-haired?” Daniel sneers evilly, removes Peter’s hand from himself sharply, hits his elbow against the blond’s chest, and smashes a fist against his jaw.       “I can ask you the same,” Peter snaps and gives a hit of the foot against Daniel’s head, but the brunet dodges it successfully.       “Okay, you can keep waving your hands,” Edward approves, gives Peter a hit of the foot against his temple, jumps aside, and squats down when the blond tries to hit him back. “Maybe this is how you can release all the stupid things. After waving your hands and getting tired, you may probably calm down.”       “Then you also can keep pretending to be the stars of fights without rules.” Peter winces strongly when he hits his elbows cruelly as he falls after Edward pulls his foot sharply on himself. “So that you get fucking sick and are unable to resist me when I want to kill you.”       When Peter gets up on his feet in a jump, he grabs Daniel and Edward by the hair rudely and knocks their heads against one another sharply. That’s why the guys fall to the ground, rubbing the painful area with painful moans. And when the blond wants to hit his foot strongly against the back of both of them, Terrence runs to them from behind, uses a chokehold on him, and pushes him far from his friend and brother, while they try to come to themselves a little.       “Hey, bastard, I shall tear you apart if you dare to attack them again,” Terrence threatens in a low, rude voice. “I shall kill you personally. HERE AND NOW.”       “Try…” Peter growls, grabbing Terrence’s arms tightly and trying to move them off himself. “You will die earlier…”       “Edward is right: we need to get you exhausted so that you get rid of all the stupid things in your head. Maybe it can help you calm down a little.”       “You have enough strength? You are not a young boy to make tornado kicks like your brother! You are probably already a has-been one.”       “You say, a has-been… Well, alright… I shall show you WHAT has-been I am! I shall show you everything I can do. I shall do my best for you, bastard, to get thrown A FEW METERS AWAY!”       Terrence smashes his fist strongly against the spine of Peter, who bends his back backward immediately with a heartbreaking scream and a sense of pain that paralyzes his whole body. The blond does not realize how he is grabbed by the hair and struck down. How MacClife, Sr., falls over him and starts beating him on everything he sees, while Rose himself protects himself furiously and tries to hit him back.       “Ar-r-r-r, I have a one-ton bull lying on me,” Peter growls irritably.       “You know well what happens to those who dare to hurt my close people,” Terrence says confidently, hits the back of Peter’s head against the ground, and gives him a fist of the foot against his temple. “You know WHAT I do to them.”       “And now you will know what I DO to those who have ever dared to PUT A KNIFE IN MY BACK!”       Peter throws Terrence off himself with a sharp hit of the knee against the groin. And while the brunet lies on the ground and winces from pain, grabbing the painful area, the blond takes the knife his opponent let go of at some moment, and tries to get it into his heart deeply. Butting the bullet from pain, MacClife, Sr., grabs the cold gun tightly with both hands and keeps it above himself by force, feeling that all his muscles start shaking because of the strong tension.       “M-m-m, are you starting to show off again after you got the knife back?” Terrence smirks contemptuously. “You felt too bad without it, huh?”       “Just like you…” Peter snaps back. “You cannot strike me down with your own hands, but you decided to play with the knife.”       “We will see it, blond-haired!”       Biting the bullet, Terrence makes a lot of effort to remove the knife in Peter’s hands off himself, while it’s literally several centimeters away from his chest.       “Stop wasting your strength, MacClife,” Peter encourages. “You have no place to run. You will not save your brother and cover the ass of your friend.”       “Too bad you did not appreciate our wish to come to you with peace and decide everything quietly.       “It’s too late to talk about the world after you gave pain to the man’s soul.”       “The guys and I did nothing bad to you!”       “Oh, no, you did! YOU HAVE DONE A LOT!”       Peter shouting scarily and deafeningly clenches the knife tightly with both hands and tries to get it into Terrence’s chest, while the brunet keeps doing his best to protect himself and not to be hurt. At some moment, Daniel rushes to help him out, pulling Rose by the hair from behind and squeezing his neck with his elbow as strongly as possible. It gives MacClife, Sr., time to sit up and catch his breath, feeling how strongly all his muscles hurt.       “So, since you do not want to understand it all, I shall try again in a worse way,” Daniel hisses through his teeth.       “Oh, oh, I am scared!” Peter laughs contemptuously. “I did pee my pants from fear…”       “Shut up, bastard!”       “Do not dare to shut me up!”       “I said, SHUT UP!”       Daniel gets up sharply on his feet, pulls Peter after himself, and, still squeezing his neck in his elbow, brings him to the edge of the abyss by force.       “I am done being nice to you! I was silent when wiping off your fucking snots and listening to you whining. But what you are doing now crosses all the lines. And I am not going to close my eyes to this.”       “And what would you do to me, asshole?” Peter smiles smugly. “You would rather pee your pants than dare to harm me again.”       “Want me to show you what harming really means?” Daniel grabs Peter by the hair painfully and pulls it strongly. “What you can really call an attempt to put a knife in the back. Huh? YOU WANT? OR NOT?”       “You have already done everything you could have done,” Peter snaps and pushes Daniel off himself strongly. “You three have done.”       “Oh, no, not at all… Not everything… Not everything…”       Raising his head proudly and setting his confident, icy eyes on him, Daniel starts getting close to Peter slowly but confidently.       “Your nightmare has not begun yet,” Daniel says confidently in an evil voice. “You have not been in real hell yet. You have not been where they would put hundreds of knives in you.”       “Erm…” Peter opens his eyes widely and, getting a little pale and putting his head on his shoulders, starts going backward hesitantly. “Hey, hey, c’mon? What are you doing?”       “So what, pitiful bastard, are you happy now? Are you happy with what you have done? How much pleasure would you get from murdering your close friends, who considered you literally a brother?”       Peter oohs quietly and holds his breath unconsciously as he recalls one of his nightmares, in which Daniel pronounced almost the same words.       “Is this how you are thanking us for everything you have done for us? For wasting our precious time wiping your ass?”       “Erm, what are you doing? Perkins… Perkins!”       “It’s your time to pay for all your tricks. These you want to forget. These you forgot. These everyone knows about. These, which can help everyone see your real rotten side.”       Calm down, Perkins, CALM DOWN!” Peter squeaks in a high-pitched, excited voice, choking at the thought that the invisible hands are squeezing his throat strongly. “Hey! Hey! Perkins, come on?! Perkins! PERKINS, STOP!”       “So, are you scared? Are your pants wet? Or are you pretending that you are not afraid? Huh?”       Still going backward, Peter stares on the edge of the abyss, to which he gets closer and closer every second, with horror in his widely open eyes. And seeing that the guy starts scaring seriously, Edward and Terrence look at each other slyly and catch the wave, joining Daniel and starting to get close to Rose slowly but confidently, and literally making a hole on his forehead with their close, icy looks that would make anyone uncomfortable. The eyes, which remind Peter of one of his nightmares when all his friends showed up to him as demons looking at him with the same glances full of evil.