Destiny's Wrath (Destiny Series - Book 3) by Straight, Nancy (read full novel .txt) 📗

“Right before you got here.”

Jimmy turned his attention to Jessie, “She’s waited ten years to contact you; she can wait a little longer. Noah’s going to do some of my Algebra homework for me. There’s something I want to show you in the other room.”

Noah lunged at Jimmy, but Jimmy had the reflexes of a cat, and punched him hard in the nose. Blood went everywhere. Jimmy kept his palm on the back of Jessie’s neck; when she let out a scream, Jimmy hardly seemed to notice. He reached in his pocket with his free hand, pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, and tossed it at Noah’s doubled-up body. “Here you go. Check the numbers for me. I want to talk to Jessie - alone.”

Noah took in a deep breath and with all his force yelled, “Jessie, ruuuun!” She couldn’t run if she wanted to: Jimmy pulled out the knife and held it to her chest. He looked at her with vacant eyes, “Noah’s having a rough time concentratin’. I think we should give him some privacy.” Jimmy’s knife was razor sharp. He eased it onto the button of her blouse and the edge sliced through the thread holding the top button. Jessie whimpered and Jimmy laughed.

Jessie began to shake uncontrollably. The knife that had just removed her button sliced the fabric of her blouse and pierced her skin. Crimson began oozing onto the fabric. Jimmy looked at Noah, “How much time you need? Jessie and I’ll be righ’ nex’ door. The longer you take, the worse it’ll be . . . for her.” With his last threat, Jimmy backed out of the room dragging Jessie with him.

Noah unfolded the piece of paper and looked at the scribbles on it. The paper had numbers on it, in what looked like a formula, but the numbers didn’t make any sense. It was a modified formula for a volume multiplied by a coefficient that didn’t seem to come from anywhere.

Not only did the formula not seem to make any sense, but the values were all skewed. Words were scribbled all over the paper: kill, die, death, mutilation, explosion and boom. Next to each word was a hand drawn violent cartoon. Noah couldn’t hear anything coming from the room next door, and he didn’t want to waste one more second than he needed to. He did as he was asked. He checked the calculation. The math was correct, but he modified the formula, reducing the volume. He scribbled the new calculation down and swung the door open to dash into the other room.

Noah stepped through the doorway and directly into Jimmy. Jessie was nowhere to be seen. Noah shouted, “Where is she? What’d you do with Jessie?!”

Jimmy answered almost absently, “She’s fine, Noah. She’s tied up in the other room. And out of respect for you, I didn’t do nothin’ to ‘er.”

Jimmy offered a smile, but Noah didn’t buy it for a second. He handed Jimmy the paper and said, “I found the problem with your equation. It’s fixed”.

Jimmy acted as if nothing outrageous had just happened. “You know, math isn’t as exact a science as everyone thinks it is.” Noah eyed him closely but didn’t try to find meaning in any more of his stupid rants.

Jimmy examined the sheet Noah had just given him and was excited to see Noah really had fixed the formula. Jimmy seemed almost cheerful when he said, “Here’s a good one - three guys go out on the town drinkin’ and decide to crash at a cheap motel to sleep it off so they don’t get a DUI. The manager tells ‘em the room is $30, so they each pitch in $10 bucks. But when they get to the room, it’s all nasty, and they call the front desk to bitch. So the manager tells the motel clerk to go ahead and give the three guys a partial refund and hands the clerk five $1 bills. The clerk knows he can’t divide $5 bucks three ways, so he gives each of ‘em a $1 refund and keeps a two dollar tip for his self. So, each of the guys didn’t pay $10, they only paid $9, right? The clerk kept the other two dollars. $9 times 3 guys = $27. $27 plus the $2 that the clerk kept is $29 not $30.” Jimmy looked at Noah as if he had just shared the most complicated mathematical problem of our time, and Noah only half understood what Jimmy had said.

Jimmy saw that Noah didn’t follow him, so he repeated, “You know what I’m saying, right? 10x3=30. 30-5=25. If a simple math problem like 9x3=27 and 27+2=29 when it should be 30 – then math flat out don’t work, am I right?”

Noah didn’t understand what Jimmy was getting at, and he very nearly asked him to repeat the math problem a third time when he felt the blade plunge into his lung and knew he would drown in his own blood. He reached out to Jimmy and asked one thing, “Why?”

“Don’t take offense, bro – I have a mission and don’t want you gettin’ in the way. Besides if you’re a religious guy, Miss Abbey and Jessie are waitin’ for you in the light.” Noah felt the sting of the blade a second, third, fourth, fifth time. He collapsed to the floor, watching the blood escape from his body.

Chapter 5

Jimmy looked at his watch, it was just before 6 p.m. Noah had been one of Jimmy’s closest friends for almost two years, which probably wasn’t saying much. The two rarely spent time together outside of school. Jimmy had heard all about Miss Abbey but hadn’t spent that much time around her. He could tell from the first second that she didn’t like him; he knew it. When Jimmy first met Jessie, Jimmy thought she was cute,