Chapter 4

I shot back, "Even if we're still married, you had no right to put this house up as collateral! It legally belongs to my mom and has nothing to do with you. You used fake documents to take out a loan. That's fraud!"

The men from the lending company immediately became suspicious.

Seeing their reaction, Hayden quickly snapped at me, "What are you talking about? Those documents are real!"

Then he came right up to me and lowered his voice. "Alex, I'm warning you. Don't cause trouble here. Half a month from now, there'll be chaos everywhere, and no one's actually going to come take your mom's crappy house.

"If you ruin this for me today, I'll beat you to death!"

I stared him straight in the eyes. "Go ahead. Hit me."

Mom heard Hayden and me arguing and, worried I might get hurt, opened the door anyway.

She reached out to pull me inside, but one of the men immediately forced his way in. He knocked Mom off balance, and the back of her head slammed hard against the edge of the doorframe.

"Mom!"

I rushed over and grabbed hold of her.

The men immediately panicked.

Hayden clearly didn't want anything else to go wrong at a time like this, so he quickly pulled Melanie away and left.

I pressed my hand tightly over the wound on the back of Mom's head and called 911 with shaking hands.

The ambulance arrived quickly.

The examination showed that aside from the bleeding, she wasn't seriously injured.

But when Mom woke up, she kept crying and insisting that I couldn't let Melanie take the house.

I held her hand and promised, "Mom, don't worry. No one's taking the house. And not one of the people who did this to you is getting away with it."

While Mom was still unconscious, I'd already found a lawyer and was preparing to take legal action.

There was no question the mortgage agreement had been forged, so getting the title back was only a matter of time.

But I wasn't in any hurry. I could let Melanie and Hayden carry on for a few more days.

Before I even had a chance to go after them, the people who'd put Mom in the hospital came looking for me first.

It was the day before Mom was discharged. A van was parked at the curb outside the hospital. I had just stepped outside when the van's sliding door suddenly opened.

Before I could react, I took a hard blow to the back of the head.

When I came to, I found myself tied up. I recognized the place. It was the safe house Melanie and Hayden had set up for the apocalypse.

Hayden stood in front of me, dressed like he was leading the survivors in some apocalypse movie. Melanie stood behind him with seven or eight burly men who looked like bodyguards.

Furious, I yelled at him, "Hayden, are you insane? This is kidnapping. It's illegal!"

Hayden just laughed. Without answering me, he glanced back at Melanie.

Melanie looked at me, her expression blank. "30 minutes left."

I frowned. "30 minutes until what?"

Hayden slowly walked toward me, smiling. "Alex, haven't you noticed how strange the weather is today?"

"A hurricane's about to make landfall. Of course there are going to be dark clouds. They might blow over any second."

Hayden shot back, "No! This isn't a hurricane. It's the apocalypse, and it'll be here in an hour. Melanie and I found out about it a month ago.

"Since you're Melanie's ex-husband and you've supported both of us all these years, I'm willing to let you into the safe house. But there's one condition. Get down on your knees right now and tell me you're sorry 100 times."

"You're insane, Hayden. What apocalypse? You've been reading too many novels!"

The words had barely left my mouth when Hayden slapped me across the face. I instinctively tried to hit him back, but two bodyguards pinned me hard to the floor.

Hayden walked over and grabbed my chin, squeezing hard. "Talk back to me one more time, and I'll beat your face bloody!"

"Go ahead and try! Hayden, I already used the emergency call feature on my phone to call the police. They've probably tracked me here already. Hit me again, and you'll spend the rest of your life in prison!"

As soon as I said that, the bodyguards holding me down loosened their grip.

Hayden laughed. "You called the cops? The apocalypse is about to hit. The police will be too busy saving themselves to worry about you! What are you all standing around for? He didn't actually scare you, did he?

"The world's ending any minute now. You could beat him to death, and no one would come after you for it. But if you go easy on him, don't expect me to let you into the safe house!"

The moment Hayden finished speaking, the bodyguards pinned me to the floor and started kicking me.

I tried to fight back, but there were too many of them. They kept kicking me until I curled up on the floor.

Just when I felt like I couldn't take the pain anymore, Melanie suddenly screamed, "It's time! The apocalypse hits in three seconds!"

Everyone fell silent. The second hand ticked forward as the final three seconds counted down from three to two to one.

Nothing happened outside. Even the dark clouds from earlier had vanished.

But a second later, there was a loud bang.

"The apocalypse! It's here!" Hayden screamed in excitement.

Then another voice shouted, "Police! Don't move!"