In the corner of the room stood a dirty, smelly bed. The mattress was worn out and torn and it had stains all over. Pete sat down beside Annie who was still crying. He wanted to comfort her but couldn't really think of something helpful. The best he could come up with, once again, was "D-d-don't c-c-cry, Annie."

Annie lifted her head to look at Pete. He immediately saw trouble coming the moment she opened her mouth.

"Don't you dare tell me not to cry, P-P-Pete," she mocked him very accusingly. "This is all your fault."

Pete pulled a questioning frown. He didn't want to open his mouth seeing as she was insulting him, but he did want her to elaborate on how this could be his fault.

"Yes!" continued Annie. "If it wasn't for your stupid stuttering, we would have been out of the bank already by the time the robbers came!"

Pete let his head down. He felt ashamed of himself. Annie was speaking the truth. If only I could speak like a normal person! I should rather just not speak at all, he thought to himself.

Just then, the sound of a key turning inside the lock shook him out of his misery. It was one of the robbers. He looked very scary and was still without his balaclava. His cruel eyes stared at Pete and the long, deep scar on his face made it even scarier.

"Get up, boy!" the robber instructed. "Come with me! And hurry up!"

Annie suddenly grabbed onto Pete's arm just as he was standing up, and pulled him back down. "Don't leave me!" she pleaded. But the robber quickly stepped forward and yanked him to his feet, pulling him away from her grip.

In the same direction as they came in before, he was pushed back towards the spot where the telephone was. To Pete's surprise, that's exactly where they stopped too. The robber picked up the receiver, dialed a number and handed the phone over to him.

"You tell them that you are one of the hostages and that if they ever want to see any of you alive, they will give us three million dollars in two hours. That's it! Got it?"

Pete shook his head to show that he agrees once he felt the gun sticking into his ribs.

"Sergeant Williams," answered a voice on the other end of the receiver.

Oh man, why couldn't they choose Annie to do the talking? Pete thought. He hated talking already, and even more so when he has to talk on the telephone.

"H-h-hallo. This i-i-s P-P-Pete. W-w-we a-a-are h-h-hostages from th-the b-b-bank. Th-th-they w-w-want th-th-three mi-mi-million d-d-dollars..." he said, seeming as if he had been talking on the phone for hours.

Source

The robber was getting annoyed. The longer Pete took to complete the sentences, the harder he pushed the gun into Pete's flesh and then grabbed the receiver from his hand and slammed it down.

"Are you trying to get killed, little boy?" asked the robber impatiently.

Pete felt like crying but that would just make him look even more pathetic. He swallowed the tears that lay shallow in his eyes and just shook his head from side to side. With a gun at the back of his neck, pushing him back to the room, he stumbled back in to where Annie was sitting before. This time, she was standing in the corner of the room and helped him back onto his feet as the door once again closed behind them.

Suddenly, a strange noise could be heard that came from a distance but it sounded like it was getting closer by the second.

To be continued...

For Part 1, click here
For Part 2, click here

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