Human Nature (Book 4): Human Nature IV by Borthwick, Finlay (book recommendations website .TXT) 📗

“Yeah, I guess so.” Emile candidly agreed, though his battle was still very much going on at this minute.

“Well, I enjoyed riding it out with you guys.” Rajan nodded appreciatively to the couple.

Before Emile could respond this gratitude, however, his walkie-talkie – and only his – began to buzz away.

“Emile—Are you there?” It was Marianne, her voice sounding rather shaky.

“Is that Marianne?” Alek asked, recognising her voice.

“Uh, yeah. It is.” Emile stood frozen to the spot, for although he was expecting this call, he was unsure of how to go about answering it in such a way that it would not arouse suspicion.

“Well, where is she?” Alek further asked, not submitting to memory the fact that Marianne was addressing only Emile and not the open frequency.

“I’ll ask,” Emile declared as he pulled the radio up to his mouth, “Marianne? Where are you?” To keep things as simplistic and secretive as possible, he jumped straight to the location question rather than ease in with asking her how she was doing.

“I’m at the pizza place near the old school,” she answered, revealing herself to be in a rather peculiar location, seeing as not many residents would wander through this rather neglected area of the safe zone, “I need your help with something.” She cryptically requested.

“I’m on my way.” Emile affirmed immediately as he tucked his Glock 26 tighter into his trousers, fearfully believing that Marianne had taken drastic action to get rid of Tia.

“Be safe, babe.” Alek nodded to his fiancé.

Emile nodded back to him in kind, “Always.” He departed from the cottage with a fake smile that not even Alek could see through.

The bodies were piling up in the hospital. Although Erica was reluctant to the corpses being brought into her infirmary, she knew that a count needed to be carried out.

Whilst Sandra and Rylie were surveying the faces of the deceased, Cora was in charge of radioing around to see that everybody who had not been in touch was okay.

“Helena, is it?” Cora was reading from a list, and therefore, had erroneously assumed that the name of the newcomer ‘Yelena’ had been misspelt.

“Uh—It’s Yelena,” She corrected Cora from over the radio, “But yes, I’m okay. I’ve got Vivi and Maylene with me too. We’re all alright.”

Ignoring the fact that she had mistaken Yelena’s name, Cora crossed the three aforementioned monikers off of her list.

Now, all of the people whose names had been written down were accounted for – Except for just one.

 Cora sighed worryingly and tried the radio once more, “Kieran—If you can hear me, please, just radio in. I know you like to act all cool and mysterious but… We’re worried about you, man.” Cora confessed something which Kieran would’ve been delighted to hear.

“Has he still not checked in?” Sandra, having overheard Cora’s concerns, came over to her.

“I’m afraid not.” Cora verified dismayingly.

“We have to find him, Cora.” Sandra, having been rather close to Kieran, was adamant about locating her friend.

“We will, I promise.” Cora reassured her, “I’ll organise a search party and—”

“No!” Sandra refuted this notion, “Not a search party, everybody.”

Though she was reluctant to permit this request, Cora was also willing to pull out all of the stops in order to find Kieran, “Alright.” She activated her walkie-talkie again, “Everyone, listen to me. Whatever you’re doing, stop it. Right now, our priority is finding Kieran…”

Emile had made his way to the pizza place which Marianne was held up at.

Before he could enter, however, Marianne stepped outside and stood in his way.

“Marianne!” Emile was surprised to see her storm out so suddenly.

But Marianne wasn’t looking up at him. Instead, still firmly gripping her revolver at her side, she was staring dismayingly at the ground.

“Did you—You didn’t, right?” Emile, although wanting Cora gone, did not necessarily want her dead.

Marianne didn’t respond.

Sighing, Emile opted to comfort her nonetheless, “You did what you had to do… There would’ve been a far more peaceful approach to go about it, yes, but—I get it, Marianne. We’ve been friends for a long time now. Tia was a threat to everyone, so I understand why you did it. One more breakdown and the next bullet could have—”

‘BLAM!’

Abruptly ending his sentence, Emile felt the burning sensation a bullet rip directly through his heart. With a startled and petrified look on his face, he gawked down at the wound in his chest. As he slowly tilted his head back up, he was greeted by a sight that he had never thought he would’ve been on the wrong side of.

Marianne stood her ground, holding her Smith & Wesson revolver out in front of her with a firm grip, the 6-inch barrel emitting smoke following the gunshot.

“I only loaded one bullet into this revolver…” Marianne echoed the words that she had earlier spoken to Tia, thus confirming that she had spared the little girl’s life, and instead saved the bullet for her old friend whom she no longer recognised as such.

Blood began to leak from Emile’s mouth as he swayed back and forth for several seconds.

In these few seconds, Marianne listed off all of the reasons that she had for doing what she had just done, “You cheated on the man who would die for you, you got the girl with whom you cheated on him with pregnant, you asked me to separate that same girl’s little sister from her forevermore—Who even are you anymore, Emile?”

 Then, Emile fell backwards. Finishing himself off, he bludgeoned his head on the scuffed stone pavement as he collapsed onto the ground.

As she heard Emile’s skull crack, it suddenly came over Marianne what she had really just done; she had now made herself no better than her victim.

“Did anybody else hear that?” A panicked Rob cried out over the open