The Hidden Knowledge Fragment taken from: The Storyteller, Volume VIII “Please let me go, Uncle Colin. I won’t say a word, please?” I came closer and saw four men in a large room. There were wooden boxes and sacks of salt all over the place. Little Bobby was on the back wall, facing it; he was tied up to a chair. He sobbed, but I could see he was fine, at least for now. “Hush! Spoiled brat!” Colin yelled as he tried to dry his face from all the rain with a paper towel; he then threw it on the floor and said, “Okay, Stan, so what do you suggest?”

This one is for those who believe…

A big fat guy replied, “I say we shoot the little fuck and you pay us what we agreed on. We take care of the body and you go home to your wife tonight.”

I looked at the men there; they all were low-life thieves. What was Colin Stanton doing with them anyway?

“That doesn’t work for me. If I wanted him dead I would have done it myself, Stan. I’ve told you I have my personal reasons for all this.… Look, Stan, the way I see it: you are backing out on the deal and I don’t like that…,” Colin said, irritated.

A skinny man walked toward Colin as he said, “Well … how about paying us double for all the stress we have gone through?”

Colin turned around to face the man and said, “What?”

“Yeah,” another one said as he took a step further, “We have gone through a lot of trouble to keep the child here. We are going to kill him anyways.”

It was clear the deal was going bad on Colin.

Someone hit me on the back of the head. I felt my head exploding and everything went black for a minute or two. I started to open my eyes only to find I was being dragged by one leg over the floor trash.

I tried to look around but all I saw where colorful stars; I tried not to lose consciousness again.

“Anyone you know, Colin?” the man who was dragging me asked.

He let go of my ankle. I slowly rolled over on my side.

“No … he’s not with me…,” Colin said nervously, trying to sound convincing.

I tried to get up. Someone kicked me in the face and I fell on my back as I gasped for air.

“Well, he must have come from somewhere, don’t you think?” Stan said.

He then picked me up from the floor and sat me on a chair that someone kicked in his direction. He added, “It’s not like anyone would just come to this place on the evening bus, you know? Were you being followed, Colin? Is this a friend of yours? Were you trying to screw us?”

My nose was bleeding, I was certain it was broken. I spat blood out; I tried to get up. Stan’s big hand fell on my shoulder like a huge rock and made me sit back down. I looked at Colin.

I felt very scared. I looked at the little boy out of the corner of my eye; our chairs were almost back to back. He was not crying anymore, he was just holding still. I thought if he could be that brave, so could I.

Bobby and I were pretty much on our own.

“I’m with him all right. Tell them the truth, Colin!” I said as Stan held me tight on the chair.

Colin looked at me nervously and tried to smile some as he said, looking at the other men, “He’s crazy! I’ve never seen him before in my life!” he said as he walked around the place a little. One of the men conveniently blocked the only exit.

I had to buy us time, in case the police had been dispatched, at least to check the place out. The way I saw it, those thugs would have to go through me first before they could harm Bobby.

“You and I were at that pizza place in Manhattan! Remember, Colin?” I raised my voice over everyone else’s.

Colin looked at me, and as we made eye contact I said, “We wrote the note together, remember? The ransom note … last Saturday,” I said, trying to ignore the pain of my broken nose.

That piece of information was more than enough to make Colin remember; his eyes widened as he remembered me. He then tried to act natural. However, that single gesture of recognition was all I needed.

“What the hell is he talking about, Colin?” the skinny man asked.

“You double-crossing son of a bitch!” Stan yelled, letting go of me. He took his gun out from his belt and walked toward Colin.

“Kill him!” Colin said as he pointed his finger at me.

Everyone in the room was confused for a minute.

Colin saw an opportunity to save his own ass; he took a step toward me and said to the men, “If he were someone I know and supposedly partnered with, I would mind you killing him. But I don’t. So, go ahead and kill him.”

Oh God, that was not good. I had to think of something else.

“I have called the police like you told me to do, Colin…,” I said trying to sound convincing.

I had already lost all hope for help to be on the way.

Colin took Stan’s gun from his hand; everyone drew his gun out. Colin pointed it at me; he then hammered the gun and pulled the trigger.

It all was moving as if in slow motion: the smoke coming out of the gun’s barrel; the pain in my chest … the sound of the shot ringing in my head like a slow-motion explosion.

I started to fall backwards on the chair, going down, slowly; I was able to have a few thoughts as I fell back and after a second I ended up looking at the lamp hanging from the ceiling by a very long string; I was on my back, smoke coming out of my chest.

I couldn’t breathe.