How can I get you to believe me, Dad??! It was all Charlie’s fault, no matter what she says!! She was the one that took my binoculars AGAIN, she was the one who did exactly what I told her not to AGAIN.

Okay, so, yes, I could have put the binoculars in my bag and not left them on the seat in front of Charlie, but I wanted her to have to look at what she did. She broke my one physical connection ...

“Hand it over, now!”

I stared at the man before me, the man I thought I knew. In my hand I held a journal. It had been bound, but the lock was easy to break. I broke it earlier, and read through his journal, the one he had been keeping for years. Ever since we met, he wrote in it each night. And I thought he’d be writing about how much he loved me and our time together. But I found . . .

“You’...

EXT. ABANDONED WAREHOUSE - NIGHT

The warehouse stands alone in the dark, with only the moonlight peeking through the broken windows.

JACK

yelling

Hand it over now!

Jack, a rugged and determined man, stands in front of a group of people. His eyes are fixed on a young man, who is clearly terrified.

YOUNG MAN

I-I don't have it anymore. I swear.

The young man holds his hands up in surrender, but Ja...

“Hand it over, now!”

“What does this achieve?”

“A life of living”

“A life where you leave”

“So what if I leave?

Why do you care?”

“I care about you”

“Something I do not share”

“We’ve never been liars”

“We lie to ourselves”

“Better than hating”

“Hatred is our wealth”

“I will not hand it over”

“What does this prove?”

“That we can still fight”

“We always fight to lose”

“But that ca...

Aurelius said nothing as he looked into the pretty face.

Behind him, Yulio came up the steps with a gag and rope.

"How could it be you? What happened?" Aurelius cried.

"I need you to learn that leaving. Has. Consequences. Yulio, mind doing the honors?" the woman asked.

"Gladly." Yulio laughed.

Aurelius spun around too slowly and Yulio quickly had the gag and ropes on him. Aurelius grunted and...

"And what is that?" Yulio grunted.

Aurelius ignored him. "Cosmia. Please, stay here. Come on, Yulio, we have to go to the museum."

Cosmia shivered on the couch as they left. Yulio headed straight for the car. Aurelius lingered by the front door.

"Comin'?" Yulio stopped with the passenger door open.

"Yeah yeah." Aurelius slowly made his way to the car. "I'm just worried I Cosmia feels I'm ignor...

“Hand it over, now!”

Cassius froze. He’d been alive long enough to know that those words were rarely good. He edged closer to the wall, peering around the corner.

Three guards loomed over a slim figure in the loose clothing of a non-Rider. She was clutching something to her chest—a book, he thought. She couldn’t be more than twelve years old.

The girl glared up at them. “No.”

“Um—no?” The guard ...

“Hand it over, now!” He hollered, the expression from his face changing into a more sinister look. “I didn’t want it to come to this, so please, before you get hurt.”

I gawked with broken eyes, confused and surprised by this news, holding the ring tight in my hand. “W-w-what? But, why?” I questioned. He sighed and glanced downwards before looking back up pointing a gun at my head. Terror filled my...

“Hand it over now!” The man wearing the cloak said.

The girl looked fearfully into his eyes. They looked red. A slight shudder went over her. He is the demon. He was the one her grandfather warned her about. But why now? Why here?

“N-no!” I yelled, looking down at the amulet around my neck, touching it softly.

The man walked closer, picking her up by the collar of her blouse. “Oh, you’ll regre...

“Hand it over, now!”

The toddler looked back at his mom with daring defiance and then dropped her phone into a full bath tub. The phone bobbed at the bottom of that tub for a long while. She had to catch the kid and anyways could the phone get more wet?

The naked little boy had tore past his mother while she registered what had just happened, a true opportunist at work. He had rounded the corn...