Chapter 69: How Terrifying!
"Put down the baseball bat."
Chuck heard the footsteps and finally looked up to remind Justine, who was standing there in a daze.
She had been rescued from these psychos, but could still end up shot by the cops who showed up too late to understand the situation.
Justine dropped the baseball bat when she heard this.
"Police! Nobody move!"
As the shout rang out, several officers with drawn weapons appeared.
"Detective."
Chuck nodded to the lead detective.
"One of ours!"
The lead detective looked at all the gang members zip-tied on the floor, breathed a sigh of relief, waved his hand to signal his officers not to aim their weapons at Chuck and Justine, walked over to Chuck and asked, "What the hell happened here?"
Chuck handed the hooded punk girl's phone to the detective.
"Jesus Christ!"
The detective took it, looked at the screen, and immediately let out a classic American expletive.
A webpage was open on the phone screen featuring a livestream promoting the idea that hunting down God-fearing women like Christie was equivalent to hunting God himself. It encouraged everyone to do the same and upload their own videos for the world to see. The site was filled with real snuff films of people killing people.
As a local detective, he immediately thought of the recent disappearance of a college party girl and the brutal murder of another girl found in the woods. After scrolling through, he found the relevant videos.
This group had committed those crimes, and there was video evidence!
The detective dispatched officers to escort the group to the station. The female officer accompanying them looked at Chuck with curiosity. Chuck's professional handling of restraining the entire group made her wonder about his background.
"Thank you," Justine said, finally shaking off her terror after taking a sip from a bottle of water.
Chuck nodded.
"Don't worry, we'll handle everything from here. You're one hell of a tough Princeton student, managing to escape these lunatics," the detective reassured her.
Justine tried to smile in response, but it was too forced—she couldn't manage even a fake smile.
"You don't trust us?" The detective frowned.
"No." Justine shook her head, then suddenly asked: "What's going to happen to them?"
"They'll be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," the detective explained. "They killed the janitor, security guard, and campus administrator tonight. Combined with their other cases, they won't be a threat to you anymore."
"Who is that woman?" Justine wasn't reassured at all. Instead, she pressed: "Her accomplices seem pretty confident. Sounds like she's got connections to someone powerful. Will she actually be convicted and locked up?"
"No matter who they are or who they know, anyone who commits crimes like this will face justice," the detective said firmly.
Justine remained silent, her expression unchanged.
"..." The detective was thrown off by Justine's reaction.
This wasn't the response he was expecting!
"Go ahead and work the case," Chuck said. "She's smart enough to understand what she's really up against."
The detective was about to argue, but caught Chuck's look, glanced at stone-faced Justine, and shook his head before walking away.
Was this what Princeton students were like?
So young but so sharp? A normal person would at least feel some relief from his reassurances, but Justine, despite his repeated attempts at comfort, wore that same expression of grim disbelief, which made him deeply uncomfortable.
He couldn't say it out loud, but the truth was complicated.
In the eyes of someone truly savvy about how the system worked, his promises meant very little. He might work his ass off on the case, but subsequent decisions—prosecution, trial, even prison sentences—were completely out of his hands.
If that hooded punk really did have powerful connections, the "justice" she'd face would likely be very different from what most people expected.
Chuck followed the detective toward the interrogation room and positioned himself behind the one-way glass, watching as events unfolded.
Justine followed closely, observing the hooded punk girl who remained defiant during questioning, and whispered, "My middle sister is only twelve, and my youngest sister is barely a year old."
"There's always a solution," Chuck glanced at her sideways.
Justine paused, then, hearing Chuck's steady voice, her eyes regained their focus. "Yes, there's always a way!"
She left the rest unspoken: if fate truly wanted to destroy her life, then she'd risk everything to carve out a new path.
The group, mostly young people, quickly provided crucial information during separate interrogations by the detectives.
"Thank God!" Justine looked up slightly and offered a silent prayer when one of them revealed the true source of the hooded punk girl's arrogance.
It wasn't some billionaire's kid, a powerful political family, a military connection, or some other influential figure's child running wild, but rather the hooded punk claimed to have a father whose existence was questionable.
The hooded punk's accomplices described her biological father as incredibly powerful and terrifying, more dangerous than any conventional authority figure—practically the devil incarnate.
If he discovered that Justine and Chuck were responsible for his daughter's arrest, he would unleash the most horrific, brutal, and relentless revenge imaginable.
Compared to that, their hunting game would seem like child's play.
For Justine, as long as he wasn't some untouchable power player with political connections, even the supposed devil himself didn't seem like such a terrible prospect.
She had her brilliant mind as her shield, her determination as her weapon, her knowledge as her ally, and if all else failed, she'd find a way to fight fire with fire. With all her intellect and resources at her disposal, she had no reason to fear some boogeyman.
Chuck pushed open the interrogation room door and asked the hooded punk directly, "Who's your father?"
"Scared?" the hooded punk sneered.
"I'm not the one who's scared—you are," Chuck studied her face and said calmly. "You claim to have this powerful father, but you won't even mention his name, not even a hint. Either you're living in a fantasy or you're terrified of him. Which is it?"
"I'm not delusional! I'm not afraid of my own father!" the hooded punk girl shouted. "He's both my father and my hero. I'd die for him!"
"So you teamed up with this group of losers to play this hunting game just to copy your father and impress him?" Chuck slowly pressed. "If that's true, it only shows how small-time your thinking is. Your father isn't as powerful as you claim. Only ignorant wannabes like you and your crew would get off on this twisted idea that hunting Christie is like hunting God."
"I'm not an idiot!" the hooded punk girl snapped angrily. "I joined this game because I was bored. Eventually, I'll become a legendary figure like my father, bringing death to the world while also bringing rebirth!"
(End of Chapter)
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