Hostage

Chris grabbed Artemis and looked maliciously at Damien. "Give me my money. Not just for the 3 months, but for the full amount!"

"We can talk after you put Artemis down," Damien tried to talk Chris down. Alethia collapsed onto her knees as she never expected Chris to do this. She had worked with Chris for the past two years as they were on the same team for multiple tutoring positions. This position for Artemis was the highest paying opportunity they had in their entire tenure. However, Alethia was a straight arrow; she never believed in hurting her students for her own gain.

"Nah. How about you send Alfred here to go put the money together now or I'll just choke her out?" Chris threatened Artemis and Damien. Damien's face drained of all color. He couldn't believe that the company that he used to place these two tutors sent over this *sshole. Protecting Artemis was all Damien could think of.

"Alfred, go get the full amount ready now!" Damien ordered. Alfred tried to quickly leave the room. Damien expected that Alfred would also reach out to the police so that they could deal with the aftermath.

"Ah ah Alfred. Don't go calling the cops or I'm not sure how well Artemis's neck will be shortly," Chris predicted what Alfred would do. Artemis wasn't squirming at all even though she was taken against her will. Chris looked down at his student. What he saw scared him beyond anything. He wasn't holding a child anymore. What he was holding was a bag of black widows. Chris's greatest fear was spiders. He had a traumatic experience when he was a kid and his cousins left him locked in a shed filled with spiders. "Arghh! What the…?!"

Everyone else saw that he had dropped Artemis and Damien immediately dove to protect her. He succeeded although he did hurt his arms in the process. To Damien, nothing was more precious than Artemis. "Why did you drop her?!" Damien furiously asked.

"What are you talking about? That isn't Artemis! Why are you holding that bag of black widows like its so precious?! Ahh!" Chris screamed as he saw the black widows coming out of the bag and scurrying in his direction. He tried to run, but the black widows had already started jumping all over him. Everyone else in the room thought that he was crazy, except for Artemis. She was looking at him curiously, like he was her prey. Of course, nobody noticed that as they were still focused on the crazy Chris. As they watched him fall to the ground, his face and skin looked as if they had drained of blood. He slowly mummified in front of them.

"Jeez. What just happened? Artemis, are you okay?" While Damien was concerned by what happened to Chris, it couldn't even come close to what actually mattered to him.

"I'm okay Daddy!" Artemis replied cheerfully. Artemis was fully responsible for Chris's death and her own escape. She had started to understand how she was special.