Facade [h.s]

forty-eight

I looked up as soon as I was thrown into the car, scanning the darkness all around me in search of anything that could've told me what was going on.

The door was shut in my face and the person moved away. I scooted closer to it and tried to open it as they walked to the other side of the car, just to discover that it was locked.

The door on the driver's side opened and someone got in, and I clenched my teeth in the instant my eyes met a pair of glacial blue ones in the rear view mirror.

"Joel," I spat, feeling a wave of anger crash through me. "Let me go in this instant."

He smirked, driving away. "Not a chance, Ray. Now sit back and don't try anything, the doors won't open so if you try to crash the car you'll die in it."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I hissed, but sat back anyway, crossing my arms and glaring out of the windshield, determined to pay attention to where we were going, supposing it would've come in handy.

"You aren't my problem, Raine."

"Then let me out!"

He shook his head, tapping nonchalantly on the steering wheel. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said, "you see, I have an issue with Harry, but I never seem to be able to get a hold of him for long enough to fix it."

"Fucking listen to yourself, Joel, you're going crazy-"

"I'm not!" He exclaimed, his voice booming in the car and making me jump. "I didn't get to this point to have him ruin everything for me."

"Ruin everything?! You mean, tell the cops you killed someone?!"

Joel let out an exasperated sigh. "I didn't do it on purpose. But the thing is, I'm rich and one day I'll inherit my dad's business, so you see how someone that doesn't know when to close his mouth would be a problem to me. I'm not losing everything because of him."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have killed anyone!"

"A bit too late for that, isn't it?"

"I'm sure Harry would never tell anyone!" I exclaimed, trying to change his mind.

He let out a sour laugh. "He's already told you, he cannot be trusted."

"There's always another way out..."

"There isn't, Raine," he replied, raising his voice. "You have no idea of the shit I've done to cover the first one up. Nobody can know."

"So what, are you going to kill me too?!"

He sent me an amused look through the rear view mirror. "Come on, Raine... everyone knows you'd never dare to tell anyone. We're friends, after all."

"If you hurt Harry, I'll tell the police."

Joel laughed. "No, you won't."

"I will."

"You won't, because I know where your dad lives."

My heart dropped at his words. "Are you threatening my father?"

He shrugged. "I'm not, if you give me no reason to, that is."

"You're fucking sick."

"Yeah, I heard that a couple of times." He stopped the car all of a sudden and I looked around, frowning when I discovered we'd just parked somewhere in the woods.

"Where the hell are we?" I hissed, feeling nervousness tighten my chest. It kept getting worse and worse, and I was starting to doubt I would make it out of there alive.