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“Eyes here, bitch,” Angus barks, as he places the chair immediately across from me.
I jerk my gaze from the blackened screen in Angus’ pocket to his angry eyes as he takes a seat before me. He lays his two objects—a black, knit cap and that scary knife—onto his lap and says, “I’m going to talk now, and you’re going to listen carefully. And when I’m done talking, you’re going to realize you’ve only got one option, if you want to see another day. You’re going to call your rich boyfriend on FaceTime, so I can see his face and make sure you’re not trying to pull a fast one, and you’re going to convince that motherfucker to a) stop fucking with me, and b) pay me five million bucks in exchange for your life.”
My thoughts come fast and furious, as my breathing becomes shallow. Angus knows about Henn? How? My Instagram is set to private. But regardless, I don’t post about Henn or tag him in photos because Henn abhors social media and doesn’t have any accounts. Also, why does Angus think Henn can afford to pay five million bucks to save my life? Yes, Henn has done well for himself lately, but he doesn’t have that kind of money. Although I suppose Henn could hack a bank to get the money or perhaps ask Josh or Reed to give it to him. Yeah, the more I think about it, I guess Henn could get his hands on that kind of ransom. But how does Angus know that?
Wait.
Angus wants Henn to stop “fucking with” him. So, that means Henn not only knows about Angus, but he’s also hacked Angus and has been doing something to inflict pain upon him. Oh, God. The draft protective order! It’s still on my laptop. Henn must have seen it when he hacked me. Goddammit! Bettina had me feeling guilty for never telling Henn anything about Angus, but Henn has known about him from the earliest days of our relationship and never once asked me about him. Motherfucker! Has Henn been screwing with Angus for months and months as some sort of revenge plot for what Henn read about in that draft protective order? And is that what set Angus off and motivated him to hunt me down and drag me here? Ha! I guess Henn isn’t quite as talented a hacker as he thinks, if someone as stupid as Angus figured him out.
“Listen up!” Angus booms, so I return my darting eyes to his angry face and nod effusively. “Listen to me,” Angus says, a bit more calmly. And when I nod again, he settles back into his chair and begins his tale. “At first, I thought it was an honest mistake—a glitch—when all those impound notices started coming to my mom’s place for cars registered in my name. So many fucking cars. I thought there had to be another Greg Smith who hadn’t paid a bunch of parking tickets and impound fees. But then, two notices turned into twenty. Then fifty. Then a hundred. Collections agencies started hounding my mother. And then, bounty hunters showed up with warrants for my fucking arrest.”
What the fuck? Henn hacked into the Department of Motor Vehicles to make it look like a hundred different impounded cars were registered to Greg Smith? I’d actually think the strategy kind of brilliant, if it hadn’t landed me here. But wouldn’t someone at the Department have noticed a massive hack like that?
Angus leaps up and shouts, “I can’t even visit my own mother, or else someone’s gonna arrest me for not paying impound fees on a hundred-fifty cars that aren’t even mine! And I can’t use my real name anymore, either. Not even for stuff relating to my mother, or twenty different bounty hunters are gonna find me and drag me to jail.”
I wince as his hot breath and spittle hit my face. The black knit something and knife both fell to the floor when Angus leaped up, and looking at them now, I can tell the black thing is a knit mask—the kind skiers wear in blizzards and bank robbers wear in movies.
Shit. I think that ski mask is a bad omen for me. Surely, it means Angus is planning to obscure his identity from Henn when we call him on FaceTime later, which therefore means he can’t let me go at the end of all this, even if he gets the money he wants. How could he let me go, when I’ve seen his face and could identify him to police? I’m sure Angus decided it was worth it to show me his face, even though it means he now has to commit murder, simply because his ego demands I know it was him who so cleverly bested Henn.
“I told you to listen to me!” Angus bellows, and it’s only then that I realize my mind has been wandering while he’s been speaking. I return my eyes to his, but it’s not soon enough. All of a sudden, I feel the shocking sting of a fist punching the side of my face.
