Chasing After My Wife

With one shot, Travis killed the man who was sitting on the left side chair of Ryden. When the man fell, he slumped on to the table where they placed their drinks and snack and other stuff. He even toppled the candle and caused a little fire but Ryden immediately threw a rug to put it off and to darkened the place once again.     

But he was too late.     

Travis saw that there were just the two of them who remained which made him feel even more angry. It wasn't just the anger towards Ryden but also towards himself. He was angry because he let down his guard which caused his wife to suffer.     

Jackie turned off the laptop and took out her own gun. She placed the laptop somewhere, walked around the house and found that the back door was opened. 'I can't believe that this idiot managed to fool my sister. Tsk!' Jackie snorted mentally as she made her way inside the abandoned house. It wasn't completely dark inside. The light of the full moon passed through the window glass, illuminating the place to give them the brightness they needed.     

"F*ck! What the f*ck?!" Ryden cursed in a whisper as he looked for a place to hide. One of his men died and there were only two of them left. Jackie was closing in from the back door while Travis used the front door to get in. He wasn't afraid at all.     

"I know you are here so no need to hide. Why don't you face me head on? Such a coward! You only know how to deal with women." Travis provoked him. "You must be so weak which was why you kept targeting my woman instead of looking for me."     

No one responded and only the sound of his footsteps can be heard. "Oh! Never mind. I don't need to act myself." Travis sat on the couch where Ryden and his men had a drink earlier. The dead man was still slumped on the table and Travis even raised his feet, placing it centimeters away from the dead person's face.     

Jackie wanted to laugh hard when she got inside from the back door. What came into her view was Ryden looking for a place to hide and it just so happen that he was at the kitchen side of the house, the place where the back door would lead Jackie to. She didn't have to exert so much effort and the person came right in front of her.     

"Are you playing hide and seek?" Jackie asked with her soft and angelic voice but when Ryden turned around to face her, he didn't see an angel but rather a devil appeared behind him. He was just about to pull the trigger when Jackie shoot his hand and took his gun away.     

Blood dripped, painting the cold wooden floor with an art that no one would be able to understand. It was an abstract art made of human blood. Ryden groaned, holding his bleeding hand close to his chest. His clothes were dirty and stained but nobody cared.     

She hauled him up and shoot the back of his knees, making him stumble and fall once again. He endured the pain of the bullet wounds, groaning in pain but he never screamed or yelled at her. Jackie pulled him up and dragged him towards Travis. "He's all yours to play with. I am going to play hide and seek with his companion."     

Travis nodded his head and smiled towards Ryden. "It's nice to finally meet you. I didn't know that you would be so capricious and ambitious to even hurt my wife in order to exact your revenge."     

"I was never wrong and I will never admit that I am wrong. Your wife was the one in the wrog!" Ryden shouted and spat towards Travis but he evaded it immediately.     

Travis still smiled at him but his eyes held the murderous gaze. He placed his tools on the table and walked towards the wounded man. He picked him up and helped him sit on the chair, beside the dead man. "Stop moving or I might really kill you." He threatened without a single expression on his face. Travis found a rope and tied Ryden's hands, disregarding the blood that was dripping. He tied his feet after to make sure that he won't run around or walk and escape.     

While he was busy preparing his toy, noise came from upstairs as Jackie fought with the other man. The man wanted to jump from the balcony but Jackie shot his legs. Even though he was wounded, he still moved and fought with her. They exchanged blows but it didn't even take her five blows and the man was already weak from all the hits he got.     

Jackie didn't care about the place and dragged the man from upstairs down to the living room. She was even holding his arms as he dragged him down, groan after groan, whenever she took a step down the stairs. Blood trailed down the floor and she gave him to Travis like how she gave Ryden to him.     

She sat on the other couch and watched her brother-in-law do his own work. She already did her part in capturing them. "Aren't we going to chase after his family?" Jackie asked while eyeing Ryden who stiffened on his seat.     

"No need. I am not like him who targets the helpless." Travis responded while tying the other man as well. In front of him, he's got two men to play with and collect some debts. "What should we play first?" He looked at his tools and found a long nose pliers. He picked it up and held it close to Ryden's face. The coldness of the metal touching his face made him shiver down his spine.     

"You are insane! Crazy! A psycho!" Ryden yelled at him, squirming on his seat trying to loosen the rope on his hands but Travis tied it into a dead knot to make sure that no one will escape from his game.     

"My toys shouldn't talk back to me." He ripped the couch's cover and placed the cloth inside Ryden's mouth to stop him from screaming. He did the same thing to the other man who was battered and bruised beside him. "Now, we're all set. Let's play a game now." Travis sat in front of them and smiled with the long nose pliers in his hand.     

"This is for my daughter that you traumatized." Travis clipped Ryden's fingernails with the pliers and removed it, blood oozed out and dropped on the floor. Ryden screamed and squirmed but his voice was muffled so no one heard him. "You scared my daughter twice so, I will take two of your fingernails to repay her."     

Jackie had never seen Travis like this and it was the first time that she felt fear towards this man. His anger was bone deep and he was venting it to the person in front of him. "You killed Walter's subordinates and there were six of them." He plucked six fingernails from Ryden's hands once again. "You threatened our two neighbors." The neighbors he meant was the Shans and the family of five who helped them cover the escape route of Jackie and everyone else.     

"Ten finger nails aren't enough. Let's go for your fingers this time." Travis spoke in his soft voice as if he was talking to a child. Every single mistake that Ryden committed was exchanged for his fingers. When his fingers weren't enough, Travis took a knife and stabbed Ryden's thighs.     

Tears and snots were mixed together while Ryden screamed from agony. A scream with no one to hear him. The man beside him was also crying from fear and he even peed his pants. Every time he stabbed Ryden's thighs, he would grip the knife handle and turn the knife to make a bloody hole. Ryden was getting weaker from the blood loss and pain, so Travis let him rest for a while and switched to the other man on his side.     

He couldn't find many reasons to pull his finger nails or to break his fingers but the fact that he was an accomplice, Travis let him taste the hell that Ryden experienced earlier. He plucked his fingernails, broke his finger and stabbed his thighs as well. While giving them time to rest, he walked towards the kitchen and looked for an alcohol.     

Jackie looked at the mess that Travis just made and she couldn't help himself but shiver as well. "You asked this for yourself. If you didn't mess up with his wife, you wouldn't end up like this."     

She didn't do anything else, just watching on the sideline was more than enough for her. After a little while, Travis came back with isopropyl alcohol, the once that doctors used to disinfect the wounds. However, he poured the whole content to the stabbed wounds that he just created earlier. It stung so much that Ryden banged his head on the couch but since it was cushioned, his agony wasn't relieved at all. No matter how much he wanted to die that moment, Travis won't allow him to die yet.     

"Let's have fun. Didn't you have fun putting my wife's and baby's life in danger? Why don't I do the same thing to you?" Travis questioned but the glint in his eyes told them that he wasn't there to make fun at all.