Chapter 7 - Desperate Decisions
A week passed in that horrible, depressing motel room, and things went from bad to disastrous.
Nathan was fired from his corporate job after his manager discovered he had been skipping work to deal with his eviction.
His bank accounts were overdrawn, and the motel management was demanding cash for the next week's rent.
Elena had completely stopped talking to him, spending all her time texting mysteriously on her phone.
In a moment of pure, desperate insanity, Nathan decided to go back to the old house.
He convinced himself that he had hidden emergency cash in the attic floorboards and that he just needed to sneak in.
He drove to the neighborhood under the cover of absolute darkness, parking two streets over to avoid detection.
He crept through the familiar backyards, jumping the wooden fence into his former property.
The house was already partially gutted, the back door replaced with a flimsy sheet of plywood.
Nathan ripped the plywood away, desperate to climb inside and find anything of value to pawn.
The absolute second his foot touched the kitchen floor, a massive floodlight blinded him completely.
A piercing, high-decibel security alarm ripped through the quiet suburban night.
"Don't move a single muscle!" a deep, aggressive voice shouted from the shadows.
Two armed private security guards tackled Nathan to the dusty floor before he could even turn around.
They slammed his face onto the exact same spot where his mother had stood when he struck her.
Nathan tasted dust and blood as his hands were violently zip-tied behind his back.
"I used to live here!" Nathan cried out, sounding incredibly pathetic and weak.
"Not anymore, you filthy thief," the guard spat, dragging him roughly out to the driveway to wait for the police.
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For the second time in a week, Nathan was surrounded by flashing red and blue lights.
But this time, they weren't going to just tell him to leave the premises.
