"What?

  Glenn's face tensed, the world around him went into slow motion, and his mother's house was going to explode. What a joke! But if it were true... He wanted to turn around quickly and made a sudden movement backwards.

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

  Glenn paused, watching the woman who had just spoken, and he gritted his teeth.

  'Of course, they thought to come here! They knew I was coming, so they took their time, the bastards!'

  He wanted to run, to get his mother and get away. He knew that if he wanted to, none of his men would be able to stop him from leaving, but his mother was not; she was old and weak, and she could not move quickly.

  Besides, if the house was really in danger of exploding, it was probably Lucy who had control of it. So she could probably activate the explosion before Glenn could even get in, and his mother would die.

  Also, he was currently in front of the window, where she could see him. Turning his gaze, he saw her. She wasn't smiling but had a trace of curiosity in her eyes. At the same time, it wasn't every day that one could see a dozen giants with his son's supposed girlfriend in front of his house; just the fact that his son had a girlfriend was a crazy enough idea in itself.

  Glenn stopped dead in his tracks and forced a smile towards Lucy; he had to fight not to wince. Honestly, he didn't give a damn about his life; he'd been living off the grid for a long time, and he thought he should have died in the caves. But his family wasn't; they were the only thing he had left, and he didn't want to lose them. He didn't care about the rest of the world either, as long as his family was safe.

  "What are you doing here? No, rather, why are you doing this? In a way, I kind of value my life, you know? Why would I come with you?"

  Lucy looked at him quizzically, then looked out the window and met Glenn's mother's eyes. With an expression full of understanding, her jaw widened sharply into a bright smile.

  "Hooo, I was wondering why you looked so nice all of a sudden. But you don't want your little mother to worry; how sweet." Despite her bright smile and words, she looked very threatening to Glenn. Plus, her sarcastic tone wasn't helping at all. "But as you can see..."

  Glenn noticed a movement coming from the woman's arm; she had pulled a rectangular object out of her pocket that looked very much like a phone, and on it was a black button. Glenn instantly understood what it was.

  "We have your mother as a hostage, and the house too, although I think it's less important. In any case, I'll repeat my question: "Do you want to come with us and become a test subject?"

  Glenn's answer, in regular times, even if one might question the normality of the situation, would be an emphatic no. But here, with his mother's life at stake, he couldn't act rashly in this situation.

  "Well... What about some time to think about it? A few days would be great."

  Glenn's expression looked relaxed, and his mother, inside, absolutely had to think that this was a normal conversation, the most normal possible at least. However, deep down inside, it was chaos—total chaos.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  'What the fuck? What am I supposed to do? I can't run away; I can't leave Mom here. If I want to save us both, there's no way out!'

  Lucy thought for a second—an interminable time for Glenn. Anyway, it was the first time he'd really looked at her; he could see that an extinction of madness was flaring up in her eyes; she hadn't been healthy all along, and Glenn cursed himself for not noticing it at first.

  She seemed to have finished thinking and cast her gaze over Glenn with obvious mockery on her face.

  "No!"

  The answer was simple to understand, at least.

  'Well, the answer was obvious; I wonder what took her so long to think of it'.

  Before he could think any further, Lucy moved quickly towards him, but he couldn't move. A second later, she whispered in his ear.

  "Now come on, let's talk some more."

  Glenn smiled naturally for the first time all day. If they got out of his mother's line of sight, he would have a much better free hand.

  "Very, very well..."

  Together, they walked away from the window and into a dark and rather narrow alley. Strangely, Glenn thought this was more to his advantage than anything else. Even if she was holding her mother, hostage.

  Lucy stopped in front of Glenn, surrounded by his guards. Glenn was literally the opposite of his men; he was short, even average, frail, and pale white with heavy black circles. His hair was medium-length and untidy. In short, he did not look good.

  "So, what do you decide? Either you come with us nicely, or your mother dies. Which is it?"

  Glenn frowned. No matter what he thought, she had an undeniable advantage; there was nothing he could do. Besides, if he really had to choose, it wouldn't be a hard choice to make; he would go with them without a doubt. He couldn't let his mother, who had suffered so much, die because of him; he wouldn't let them.

  Raising his arms to the sky, he announced without further hesitation.

  "Alright, I give up; take me away."

  Lucy stared at him for a second before giving him the most vicious look he'd ever seen. He shuddered. She was crazy, completely.

  "You think it's that simple?" Her gaze changed for a second, from vice to anger to greed to even amusement. "You ran away once; we'll ensure it doesn't happen again."

  Lucy stepped back and let the group of bodyguards advance towards Glenn, smiling. Then Glenn heard her voice from behind the wall of giants.

  "I'll give you five minutes with them, so they can give you a clean slate—a little payback for disobeying me, you understand?"

  Glenn looked once more at the giant cohort in front of him.

  'Fuck! She's really crazy!'

  Before he could react or formulate another thought, one of the men attacked him, aiming for his head. Glenn struggled to react but managed to dodge, rolling on the ground. When he got up, there were already two other men on top of him. There was nothing he could do.

  Yet, as if an unknown energy invaded his body, he rushed forward. He was so close to the three men that none of them could touch him; he passed between them and pushed them with all his strength. They flew more than five meters forward.

  'What?'

  Glenn had noticed earlier that he'd managed to send several giants flying more than five meters; he'd put it down to adrenaline, but in fact, for some reason, he didn't know, he'd become stronger.

  Without having time to formulate another thought, two more giants charged at him and grabbed both of his legs, lifting him up and sending him flying into the wall, head first.

  'Argh!'

  A sharp pain echoed in Glenn's head. He could no longer think straight; the world was spinning around him. The only thing he could be sure of was that the cohort was approaching him, arms in the air or legs cocked, all ready to crash into him.

  But before that could happen, the pain disappeared. Touching his skull, he could feel no wound; he was healed. Perfectly healed. So he got up quickly, shocking many. Taking advantage of this moment, he quickly walked away. One of the men, however, seemed smarter than the others and charged at Glenn with a devastating punch.

  But before the punch could reach his head, Glenn dodged to the side before throwing his own punch. He could feel the bones cracking under his knuckles, and then the unfortunate man ended up like the others, flying more than five meters away from Glenn, who could now see blood dripping from his hand—the blood of the man he had just injured.

  It was the first time he'd hit someone; it wasn't a pleasant feeling, but it was certainly more pleasant than the feeling of getting hit or being beaten to death.

  The general shock had worn off, and everyone was running at Glenn. Just then, a high-pitched, wildly excited voice echoed down the aisle.

  "Four minutes left!"