Page 51 of Until Presley

“Come on. Leave your bags.” He waves the gun around, and we start moving toward the building.

We step inside the doors. I’m starting to worry as I hear another set of footsteps. I turn to see George walking toward us. He also has a gun.

“Why did you bring the other woman?” George asks Professor Blackman.

“I couldn’t leave her out there to call the authorities. Use the poison on her, and we’ll deal with Presley as we planned.” Professor Blackman’s voice is void of emotion.

Poison? Oh my God. I look between the two of them.

“You are both the killers?”

“Wait, there are two of them?” Morgan exclaims as she steps closer to me.

I know she’s prepared to fight, but there are two of them, and they have guns. Carefully, I step back, closer to the classroom behind us. The doors are bulletproof. A lot of universities and colleges are converting to them. Morgan must understand my intent.

“Presley, why did you marry him? If you’d just stayed true to us, I wouldn’t have had to do the things I did,” George confesses. But I don’t get a chance to answer him.

“Oh, shut up, you whiner. I should have killed you when you balked about Leah.” Professor Blackman raises his voice as he moves closer, and my foot grazes a tank someone left in the hall.

The mention of Leah’s name stops me in my tracks. I knew the serial killer was responsible for her death. But the fact that these two men, who I knew, are the killers still shocks me.

“Leah trusted you. She liked you and counted you as a friend.” I turn on George. “We worked together almost every day. How could you let him kill her?”

“I didn’t want to kill her.” George looks directly at me.

His words shock me. I thought Professor Blackman killed her, but George just confessed he did it. He turns to the professor.

“You told me it would be easy. It took forever for her to die. She screamed in pain.” Tears start rolling down his face. “It almost hurt Presley too much. She ran right tohim. You said she’d come to me. She didn’t, though. That’s why I told them.” He pauses, and I don’t know what he means by “them.”

“I don’t care. I only cared about showing Presley our prizes.”

Prizes?

Blackman turns to me, and I feel Morgan shift behind me. I don’t want to draw attention to her, so I keep focused on him.

“Ever since the first moment I saw you, when you were still a young girl, I knew you were meant to be mine,” the professor says. “I’d been taking care of the street walkers for years already, but it all changed with you. I started protecting you, by getting rid of your enemies.” He reaches for me, and I cringe back.

“Don’t touch me,” I scream as I smack his hand away from me.

“Leave her be,” George says as he aims his gun toward Professor Blackman. He moves to stand in front of me. “Let her go. She’s moved on. The FBI is on their way. I told them everything.” He stands taller, but his heroic actions are obviously too little too late.

“Then you must die, and like the others, they will die next.”

Professor Blackman fires his gun, and I scream as Morgan yanks my body away. We fall backward, and I land on her and roll as she rushes for the door, slamming it closed. She pushes the bolt into place, and I stand up. Looking out the window, I see George on the ground, bleeding out, but he’s still moving around. I watch in horror as Professor Blackman raises his gun to the window and fires. Both Morgan and I cringe back, but the glass holds. We watch as Professor Blackman starts arguing with George and leans over him.

“You’re going to die now too,” George yells, and Professor Blackman rears back with a syringe in his chest, the plunger pushed down. The puffer fish poison.

He yanks the syringe free and tosses it down before shooting George several more times.

“Come on.” Morgan grabs my hand, and we run across the room.

We exit out the back of the room and into a hallway. As we run toward the emergency exit, more gunshots ring out, and I scream when a bullet hits the wall near us.

“Freeze,” is yelled, and then more gunfire erupts. Morgan and I scream as the bullets hit the walls near us.

Ham

As soon as I see my girl calling, I answer, but there’s nothing. I hear muffled voices, then clear as day, I hear a man say to leave their purses. I turn to Jackson and Tyler.

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