Chapter 156 - The One That Got Away (2/2)

Each word Laz said was like nails on a chalk board inside Jimmy's brain, yet he didn't miss a single syllable of it. He was far too scared to do anything but focus on the horror that the young man in front of him just described.

”Now then, shall we begin melting parts of you to see if you can answer my question a bit quicker?” Laz asked while bringing up his flaming hand and moving it towards Jimmy's arm.

”WAIT, WAIT... just.... just wait. OK...” Jimmy did his best to move away, but there was nowhere to move. He could only try his best to delay Laz.

Laz stopped moving but only for a minute.

”Ok, he has a place, his own place, over in Englewood. If he ran from here, he should be there...” Jimmy finally muttered. Englewood was a small town not far from where the club was located. Although Laz didn't know where it was, it would be simple enough to find it using technology.

”And his address?”

”I... don't know... I just know he has a place there.”

”Shame. Is there any other place he might be?” Laz asked again.

”He's, he doesn't have family. He might have a girlfriend's place. Imma... I'm not sure.” Jimmy stuttered.

Laz felt like Jimmy was telling the truth, or at least not actually lying to him. Even so, there was no way Laz was going to let him get away, even if he needed to use Ruby's help again. Therefore, there was no reason to keep Jimmy alive.

Laz nodded his head after hearing the information and turned around, walking away down the hallway. Jimmy, who had just survived the horror, collapsed on the ground while panting. Seeing Laz walk away without doing anything to him, Jimmy almost risked a smile. He felt like he was being kept alive in case he was lying. Although he wasn't, he really didn't know much about Fred, despite having looked into him before. But knowing that this masked killer was going after him, Jimmy couldn't help but debate whether he should sell Laz out later rather than sooner.

It would sadly be his last though. He had failed to notice that Laz had left a small spark of the black flame on Jimmy's shirt. Just as Jimmy was thinking up the things he would do once he got his hands on this bastard and his women, the spark flamed to like, quickly spreading as it started to engulf him.

Looking down, Jimmy noticed that his shirt was on fire and screamed while trying to take it off. Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough and actually ended up setting his chest and hands on fire. It was only now that he had a brief moment of enlightenment. He now knew what Laz had told him had been the truth. He really didn't feel anything. Even though he felt no pain, he still couldn't help but scream as he watched his hand liquefy while an ever growing hole expanded out from his chest. In a moment of insanity, Jimmy had ran into a wall and knocked himself unconscious. It was probably the only comfort he found as his body was soon nothing more than a random puddle in the back hall of an old warehouse. Laz hadn't turned back once as he continued on.

He knew at this point that he wasn't going to find this Fred and that Fred had already escaped. Although this disturbed Laz, it wasn't as bad as it would have been had someone like Jimmy escaped. At least Fred wasn't about to go shooting his mouth off about what Laz is. Doing so would only get him in trouble as well, something a coward like Fred wasn't going to take a chance on. The only concern on his mind was what was happening outside since he wasn't able to figure out who escaped to where during the fight earlier. He wasn't worried about Ruby as he knew she could handle herself. His primary concern was how was Leona doing?

...

On Ruby's side of the warehouse, just outside the door, four bodies were on the floor with looks of pain on their lifeless faces. Four of the escaping thugs had the misfortune of heading in her direction. She didn't even need to use any abilities to reap their lowly lives. She just used her training in assassin style martial arts to quickly incapacitate them before going through and delivering a quick heel strike to each one, destroying their airway and rendering them incapable to screaming or breathing until they died. Although she had thought about sparing one of them to ask about the situation inside, she quickly gave up on that idea. The first reason was because she trusted Laz despite the lack of time she had known him. She just felt that he was the kind of guy to do exactly what he said he would do. And the other reason was because she saw the sheer terror in their eyes as they had escaped. That feeling wasn't something a dead man could instill in them. For now, she just looked at the building and waited to see if any more fish tried to escape the net until a strange sense tickled her head and she looked over in a certain direction. She couldn't help but smile as she took off running.

...

While Ruby had quickly eliminated her opponents, Leona was still fighting with her two. The exit she was watching and that they had tried to escape out of was a narrow alley way between the warehouse the gang resided in and the next warehouse over. Luckily all the doors were locked on this warehouse so they had no where to run except for past the sexy, sparkling silver dressed girl with a hockey mask on her face. Yep, that was the mask that she had been handed from Ruby as she had gotten out of her car. She had originally thought Ruby would use a hood style mask like a ski mask, but she instead had been handed a Jason style serial killer mask instead. When she asked Ruby why she would have this, Ruby simply said,

”A full hood style mask messed up her hair so she never carried them around. Besides, something like this proved much more scary,” with a grin, allowing Leona to know that this wasn't the first time Ruby had done something that required masks.

None of that mattered right now as Leona back flipped away from the guy she was currently fighting and sent out a spin kick to knock back the other one that was trying to escape, sending him flying into the side of the building.

”God damn it,” she whispered to herself. Leona was trying her best to knock these two out, but they wouldn't stay down. Even though they both had broken a couple of bones, they wouldn't stop trying to run as though a demon from hell was chasing them.

Despite what she had been told, she hadn't yet made the resolve the kill them. It wasn't her fault, she just felt that knocking them out and leaving it to Ruby or Laz would be better. But despite her being much stronger that even a strong normal person, she just couldn't be vicious enough.

Just as she was about to jump back towards the thug she had just jumped away from, she suddenly felt an extreme form of pressure on her, one that almost made her drop to her knees. She felt her blood heat up in response and looked over, only to see two people walking towards her with slow measured steps.

She couldn't help but gasp for a moment while trying to believe her eyes. In the next moment, her hesitation had vanished while her normally expressionless demeanor exploded out in a rage.