Free Web NovelChapter 7: Ch 7: Terror Rise III
Thirteen minutes had crawled by since Luke took control of the room. Thirteen minutes of pure, suffocating dread.
He didn’t scream or make wild demands. Instead, he just casually talked to them about their lives. But that was exactly what made it so terrifying. His tone, his threats, and his impossible knowledge of their private routines stripped away every ounce of their comfort.
He spoke as if he had been living inside their walls, watching their quietest moments.
The twisted, fake empathy this masked psychopath showed unnerved them more than the gun in his hand or the beeping bomb.
But behind the plastic smile, it was all a trick. Luke wasn’t some all-knowing ghost. He was just riding on surface-level stalking and basic educated guesses, letting the hostages’ own fear fill in the gaps.
As for the husband and his pregnant wife? Luke didn’t know a single thing about them. He had never followed them, and he didn’t even know their names. But he didn’t need a file to break them down.
He simply tossed out universal anxieties and common relationship cracks—the unspoken stress of an upcoming baby, the hidden resentments, the quiet, creeping fears. He dragged their deepest, most private insecurities out into the harsh fluorescent light, forcing them to face issues they hadn’t even dared to whisper to each other in the dark.
It worked perfectly. His casual guesses hit so close to home that the couple sat completely frozen, terrified. To them, it felt like this madman somehow knew their darkest, most personal secrets—fears and doubts they hadn’t even dared to admit to each other.
In their eyes, he wasn’t just holding their bodies hostage anymore. He had peeled back their very souls.
Two more minutes. Just two more minutes, and the mission would be complete.
Luke kept his breathing steady, the Joker mask’s frozen grin hiding the cold calculation ticking behind his eyes. He’d broken them all so beautifully.
The fear was visible in their eyes, the fear of this madman.
But...
Then he heard it.
Faint at first, it grew, sharpening into something unmistakable. A siren. And another behind it. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Luke’s eyes went wide behind the mask. His stomach dropped like a stone.
What? Police? How the hell did they—
His thoughts stuttered, crashing into each other. The gunshot. Someone outside must have heard the goddamn gunshot. But he had calculated for that! He’d factored in the usual response times, the apathy of this neighborhood, the empty buildings next door. Even with a 911 call, patrol cars had no business arriving this fast.
That was how these things always worked.
’Couldn’t they have dragged their feet like they always do? Just a few more minutes!’
They were supposed to be slow. Weren’t they always slow? Unsure, waiting for confirmation, tangled in their own procedures?
Wait.
Yes.
There was still one thing Luke was sure of.
The police didn’t know what was happening inside the store. There was only one possibility.
They had a gunshot report, nothing more.
’They’re still uncertain. They won’t just bust in like some SWAT team. They’ll want to confirm first’
His eyes flicked to the hostages.
Unless...
They screamed, or if the police realized it was a hostage situation, things would instantly spiral out of control. The cops would breach.
He had to crush that hope immediately.
"Well, well," Luke said, keeping his voice in that same unnerving, conversational calm. "Looks like we’ve got some uninvited guests. It appears our little chat has to end."
The hostages shifted, a few of them glancing toward the shuttered windows.
"Ah-ah-ah. Don’t get excited," Luke warned softly. "I’m still here. And this—" he tapped the backpack with the toe of his shoe, "—is still very much live."
Outside, a heavy fist pounded on the metal shutter. "Police! We received a report of a disturbance. Is everything all right in there?" a male voice shouted.
Luke bent forward, bringing his finger slowly to the red, painted grin of his Joker mask. In his other hand, he raised the remote for the bomb, letting them all see his thumb resting on the trigger.
"Shhhhh."
He straightened up and moved. Not toward the front door—toward the back. The door behind the counter led to the storage room, and the storage room led to the back alley. He’d scouted it. A clean exit.
Without turning his back fully, he kicked the door open. Then he stepped through and slammed it shut behind him.
Now I have to run.
The storage room was small, packed with cardboard boxes and cleaning supplies. It took him seconds to reach the rear exit. He grabbed the handle, already planning his route through the alley, into the next street, vanishing into the night—
"Yes, sir. We’ll keep an eye on this gate."
A voice. Right outside.
FUCK!
Luke froze. His heart slammed against his ribs. Already? Not even a full minute, and they’d found the back door? Since when were cops this competent?
His luck was cursed. Absolutely cursed.
No time to curse more. He scanned the room. Stairs. A narrow stairwell leading up. The building had only a ground floor, but above that was the terrace. Both neighboring buildings were the same height. He could jump across. It was his only shot.
He bolted up the stairs, feet hammering on concrete. The door to the roof was locked—a cheap padlock, rusted but solid.
No choice.
He raised the gun, aimed, and fired. The lock shattered with a sharp crack. The sound echoed across the rooftops.
Down below, that single gunshot was all the confirmation the police needed.
"Go, go, go!" freewebnøvel.coɱ
He heard the front shutter crash open. Then the back door splintered. They were inside. He had seconds.
Luke burst onto the terrace, cold night air hitting his face. He slammed the roof door shut behind him and ran. The dividing wall between this building and the next was barely three feet high. He vaulted it easily, shoes scraping on the gravel roof.
"Freeze!"
The shout came from behind. Officers who had entered through the back gate had already reached the terrace. Flashlight beams cut through the dark, dancing over his back.
Luke didn’t stop.
He sprinted across the second roof. And then—nothing. The next building was three stories tall, at least twenty meters away. Too far to jump. No ledge. No fire escape. The rooftop ended in a sheer drop.
"Stop or we’ll shoot!"
Luke didn’t stop. He couldn’t afford to get caught.
He ran straight for the edge and leaped into the void.
For a heartbeat, he hung in the air, feet kicking over nothing. Wind roared past his ears. The dark alley yawned below.
Then he willed it.
The phone. Appear.
It materialized beneath his right foot.
He pushed off it, launching himself upward and forward. Again. He summoned it mid-air, stepping on nothing, vaulting higher.
Come on. Come on!
Step. Jump. Step.
The magic phone flashed into existence beneath his feet again and again, each time giving him just enough lift to keep going. Air stepping. He was basically running across the sky.
The police stood frozen on the rooftop, flashlights aimed at the impossible sight. A man, leaping on thin air, climbing away into the night.
They didn’t shoot. A shoot-on-sight order hadn’t been given after all; Luke wasn’t that big a deal.
Luke soared over the gap between buildings, heart pounding, lungs burning, a wild, disbelieving grin hidden behind the Joker mask. He didn’t look back.
What they didn’t know was they were witnessing the rise of the greatest self-proclaimed Villain of all time. The master of biggest Terror Organization.
One to Terrorise All.
Terror Rising.
Terrorise.
Terror Rise
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Next Chapter he’ll get the first powers. Bakugo’s quirk, I guessed Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite’s quirk is well suited for a terrorist.
Tell me future suggestions, nothing too op for now.
Drop a comment or a review, they make my day.
Thanks for reading!
