This morning, while Butcher was still deep in sleep, the phone on the nightstand suddenly started ringing nonstop.
At first he ignored it. After working all night he was so exhausted that even if a missile dropped right then he still wouldn't have opened his eyes.
Beep beep beep!!!
The person on the other end clearly had no intention of letting him go. The urgent ringtone kept going for a full five minutes.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, Butcher sat up in a fury, grabbed the phone, and hit the answer button. "If this isn't important you're dead. I'll shove this fucking ringtone straight into your skull and then throw the whole phone into a washing machine on the highest spin cycle!"
"Billy? Is that you?"
A soft, familiar voice shot through his heart like one of Cupid's arrows. In the same instant his heart clenched, every trace of sleepiness was wiped away. He forced down the surge of emotion and answered with a trembling voice. "Becca?"
"It's me." On the other end Becca's eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth, choking. "Ryan's missing. He hasn't come back to me for several nights. I asked Vought's vice president Greevs. He just keeps brushing me off. I know something's happened to Ryan."
Hearing his wife keep repeating Ryan's name, a nameless fire rose in Butcher's chest.
"Where are you right now?" He frowned, a little irritated.
After a series of questions he learned that his wife Becca had taken advantage of loosened Vought supervision and escaped the high walls.
Even though Becca kept insisting that no one knew she had slipped out, Butcher understood perfectly well that without Edgar's order she never could have left that heavily guarded prison.
Facing Edgar's compromise, Butcher had no intention of breaking the deal either. Ryan was a hot potato in his hands.
If Becca found out he was the one who had kidnapped her son, the trouble would be massive.
So once he learned her current location he hung up immediately. "Stay right where you are. I'm sending people to pick you up."
After that came the scene of Ryan being thrown from the car.
During the time Ryan was held captive, no one should have expected Butcher to take good care of him. The boy had been locked in a sealed storage room the entire time, wrists and ankles wrapped in iron chains.
Aside from Kimiko, who delivered the meals, Butcher forbade anyone else from getting near the room, especially soft-hearted Hughie and Starlight.
Butcher watched those two like a hawk, determined not to let the pair of naïve idiots stick a knife in his back.
He'd seen enough backstabs in his life. He never dropped a single necessary precaution.
Cut to Ryan's side.
The pitch-black environment filled him with extreme unease. The noisy sounds around him only made the fear worse. Whether from terror or from courage, he longed for stronger power so he could protect himself.
A pair of deep crimson eyes slowly lit up in the darkness.
The next second an extremely dense red light erupted from the depths of Ryan's eyes!
Sizzle!
The black sack was instantly melted by the laser Ryan fired. The beam kept extending outward and even pierced straight through a bystander's head.
With a sizzling sound the headless corpse of the pedestrian staggered and collapsed. The horrifying scene made the surrounding crowd scream in panic.
Even more deadly, Ryan actually groped his way up from the ground and looked around.
By the time he fully stepped out of the melted sack, blood was already flowing like a river around him.
Severed limbs and arms lay everywhere. Staring at the hellish scene, Ryan stood frozen in place, not knowing what to do.
He had no idea he was the one who had caused all of it. When the sharp, metallic smell entered his nose he instinctively wanted to escape this terrifying place.
"Help! Somebody help!"
"Devil! He's a devil!"
The few survivors who had luckily lived stared at Ryan with the eyes people use for demons.
Seeing him walk toward them, they screamed for help while crying and begging for their lives.
It wasn't that they didn't want to run. Their legs simply refused to obey, trembling violently and feeling extremely heavy.
"Homelander never dared kill people out in the open street. Who would've thought his own son would pull off this great achievement." Ivan, who had watched the whole thing with his own eyes, couldn't help the quiet thought.
At the same time the other supes noticed the strange noise and gathered at the floor-to-ceiling windows.
When they looked down, the glaring red covering the ground made every face change.
What the hell?
Someone launching a terrorist attack right under Vought Tower?
How many people had to die to leave that many bodies? Their hearts were racing. Even the usually unflappable Edgar had a trace of fear in his voice.
"Get down there and find out what the fuck is going on!"
Homelander's sharp eyes immediately locked onto Ryan standing in the middle of the corpses. He recognized the cut and charred bodies right away. Heat vision. That meant Ryan had killed all those people.
Looking at the dazed, helpless Ryan, Homelander felt both relieved and a little wary. Still, no matter what, Ryan was his son.
He smashed the glass with one palm and flew straight out.
"Now this is going to be fun." Stormfront crossed her arms, wearing the expression of someone who never minds watching a bigger mess unfold.
"Greevs, you think Vought will protect Ryan all the way?"
Ivan shook his head and said quietly, "They can't. There are cameras on site. Some people already filmed it with their phones. Even if you kill every single one of them, the videos will hit the internet fast. When that happens, not just Vought, even the U.S. government won't be able to stand against a tsunami of public opinion… unless…"
"Unless what?" Stormfront looked at him with curiosity. She really couldn't think of any way to fix something this big.
"Unless there's evidence that proves Ryan was forced."
Just like there's no such thing as a perfect crime, with strong enough methods and power any crime can be minimized. Slap a mental-illness label on a murderer, swap identities on a death-row inmate, get medical parole for someone serving life…
"If I wanted to, I could fake a whole pile of evidence. But why should I help Ryan?" The corner of Ivan's mouth lifted slightly. Under Stormfront's heavy gaze he walked out of the conference room.
"This guy…"
For some reason the smile that had just appeared on Ivan's lips gave Stormfront a strangely familiar feeling, like she had seen it somewhere before, but she couldn't place it right then.
Been on a business trip these two days, sorry. Heading back tomorrow.
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[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69