Chapter 2
We followed Mr. Greene into a part of the bank I’d never been in.
The corridor was dark with sparsely placed sconces as the only source of light.
At the end of the corridor were two enormous wooden doors.
Mr. Greene struggled to push the heavy doors open, revealing a slight slope downwards, leading to a large iron security gate a few feet away.
Behind the iron gate was an enormous vault.
The modern look of the vault seemed out of place in the grand nineteenth-century architecture of the bank.
“Is…is he dead?” Mr. Greene’s shaky voice made me shudder.
Who was he talking about?
Then I saw it—a body slumped against the bars of the iron gate, head bowed forward. I knew him. It was Frank’s friend, another guard for the bank. His daughter was my hairdresser.
Death didn’t bother to answer, pushing me past the gate. Tears made my vision blurry. This couldn’t be real. This had to be a nightmare. Robberies and murder didn’t happen in Bentley Cove.
Something on the screen of the vault flashed red.
Mr. Greene turned to us, shifting from foot to foot, panicked. “The silent alarm was triggered. The vault is locked down.” His face had turned grey.
“Obviously.” Death turned his head to me.
“And I’ll be sure to make Happy Fingers pay for that,” he whispered my friend’s doom into my ear, chuckling at the horror on my face.
He straightened. “I know you can override it, little man. So open it.” The gun was pushed against my head again, the or else, made clear.
I swallowed against my fear as Mr. Greene turned to the vault, tapping at the screen. The robber tugged harshly on my arm, spinning me around to face him. I cowered away, but his large, leather glove roughly clasped around my jaw, holding me in place.
“The police are coming. So, I’m taking you with us.”
A shuddering breath escaped my throat as my body tried to fold in on itself. My chin trembled in his hand, defeat closing in on me like a casket being eased into the ground. I’ve seen the crime shows, I knew what was going to happen. If I’m taken to another location, odds are I wouldn’t survive.
Was this the day I die?
“Listen carefully, cupcake. If you hinder us in any way, I will shoot you. If you do as you’re told, I will let you go. Do you understand?”
My body felt numb and unresponsive. Feebly, I tried to pull away, but his grip was unyielding.
“Do. You. Understand?” His voice went even lower, and warning bells chimed in my head.
I nodded, the movement stunted by his grip. He let go of my face and I turned away quickly, a sense of dread like I’d never experienced before settled in my gut. Where were the gods when you needed them?
Mr. Greene stared at me in horror. “You said I could save her.”
Death tugged me closer with a menacing laugh. “Did I really now? How cute you are, trusting the words of a thief.”
The heavy vault door swung open. Inside it stood another robber, which took Mr. Greene by surprise. He stumbled backwards, clutching his chest.
The third robber had the same attire as the other two. Completely covered in black from head to toes. On each side of him stood sturdy steel cases on large wheels.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t expect the lockdown mech—” the female voice stopped as she caught a glimpse of us.
The robber in the vault was a woman.
“What’s this?” she gestured towards me.
“I’m improvising,” my captor responded flatly. “Let’s go.”
She gestured with her gun for Mr. Greene to take one steel case. He did as told, his face even greyer than before.
Death dragged me through the iron gates again, this time through a different door into another corridor. I looked back to see Mr. Greene watching me with a pained expression as he wheeled the heavy case behind him.
This wasn’t a dream. Mr. Greene had heard it too. He knew what was about to happen to me.
A chime sounded and a green light flashed on the bomb as we neared it, making my heart stop.
But it didn’t go off as the robber pulled me past it and opened the door.
The bright sunlight blinded me for a moment.
Death pushed me through the door, into the back alley of the building, toward a sea blue van I recognised.
It was Pete’s delivery van—our local and only delivery man.
Did Pete have a part in this? No, he wouldn’t do something like this, but no one in this town would think twice if they saw Pete’s van driving by.
It was as normal as the tulips lining the sidewalks in spring, or the coat of rust on all the metal signs in Bentley Cove.
A low whimper and panicked shuffling from inside the door pulled me from my thoughts.
It went silent behind me.
Mr. Greene!
I shook my head, my ears ringing.
This was all wrong. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not to my friends!
Gods! If I get into that van… No! I’m not dying today!
Willing my limbs to work, I spun around, yanking my arm from my captor’s grip, bringing my knee up with all the strength I could muster. His breath went out of him with an oomph as my knee connected with his groin. Just how Dad had taught me. The robber doubled over, and I ran.
I ran like hell, my muscles barking in protest. I just had to make it past Pete’s van and into the street ahead. The police sirens were blaring far off. They were coming!
I took a shattering breath, filling my lungs with sheer willpower as I sprinted down the alley, but I didn’t make it much further.
I was violently lifted from my feet, my brain scrambling to make sense of what was up or down as he slammed me, face first, into the side of the van.
A cry of sheer pain escaped me, my vision going blurry.
My captor’s large body crushed me against the van.
Struggling did nothing. He was too strong, and I was trapped.
His body was pressed so hard against mine that I battled to get air into my lungs.
An almost silent sob came out of me—it was difficult to scream or cry when you couldn’t breathe.
I wasn’t getting away. He was going to throw me in the back of Pete’s van and pull the trigger.
The robber moved behind me, easing off me just a bit, inhaling deeply to catch his breath. “That wasn’t very nice.” The way his voice sounded playful, like he’d enjoyed slamming me into the van, was terrifying.
Tears were streaming down my face. “I… I’m sorry,” I sobbed, steeling myself for what he would do next.
He pulled open the side door and pushed me in, then swiftly lifted me onto a seat against the side of the van. He roughly clasped my hands together and slipped a zip-tie around my wrist.
“You just saved me some time, cupcake,” he said, lifting his head towards the sirens, while pulling the zip-tie a little too tight. “You got to the van so fast. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted me to take you.”
I turned my head from him, and he chuckled darkly. The back door of the van swung open making me jump. Outside stood the other two black figures, each with a suitcase handle in hand.
My captor pushed out a ramp. “Hurry,” he demanded, “Seventy-six seconds.” They pushed the cases up the ramp, which seemed incredibly heavy.
He strapped them against the other side of the van, so they wouldn’t move.
Then settled next to me, on the tiny side seat, while the other two got in at the front.
I tried to make myself as small as possible; tried to breathe as calmly as possible while my heart thundered just as loud as the engine of Pete’s delivery van. As we eased out into the street, I wondered if Mr. Greene was still alive. Was Rachel okay?
Gods! Maybe not. And soon I would meet the same fate. As soon as I outlived my usefulness as a hostage.
My heart sank to the floor as the police sirens sped past us, confirming my worst fear, ignoring Pete’s van on their way to save the people at the bank. But they were too late to save me. And maybe they were too late for Rachel and Mr. Greene. If only the police had gotten here quicker.
No, Ava. Stop thinking like that. They are fine. Everyone is fine. There was no point in thinking otherwise. No gunshots went off.
Why did it take the police so long to respond, anyway? Why did the sirens come from the opposite side of the police precinct?
The driver whistled. “That was fucking close.” He didn’t sound scared. He sounded excited.
They drove in silence for a while. I kept my ears open for sirens. For saviours. Someone must have seen the van pull out of the back alley and put two and two together.
By the angle of his face, my captor was seemingly staring right at me. He ripped a piece of fabric from his black shirt, the movement making me cower even more.
“I’m going to cover your eyes,” he said while lifting the fabric to my face. I froze, my heart sinking a little further.
Would they ever let me go? Would I be able to get away? If I can’t see…
He pushed my copper hair out of my face before securing the blindfold.
I shuddered. He turned my face to him and made sure it was positioned correctly.
My hands went clammy, and my knee kept bouncing.
My most important sense for survival was taken away.
There was nothing but black, only a faint light coming from the front window could penetrate the thick material. I fought hard to keep the panic at bay.
My ears twitched as fabric rustled from beside me, and then a thud at my feet. He must have taken his mask off. I heard two more similar thuds. Masks being thrown in the back.
“Are we going through with this? Can’t we just drop her somewhere?
She’s frightened as hell.” It was the woman, no longer sounding muffled.
She sounded young, like me. They all did.
Somewhere between twenty-five and early thirties.
I held my breath, praying to the gods that the others would listen to her.
Praying for a way out, but it felt like my prayers were bouncing off the roof of the van.
I felt alone. For the first time in my life, I felt alone.
The driver sighed loudly. “It’s done, babe. There’s no going back. It’s too risky to drop her now. It’ll lead the police straight to us. Right now, they got nada. Let’s keep it that way.”
“It’s not right,” the woman quietly insisted.
There was silence for a while. I didn’t make a sound as I waited for my verdict.
The driver finally spoke again, “What do you think, man? Isn’t there another way?”
After a few seconds, my captor answered, “She comes with us.” His voice was firm.
“Well, fuck,” the woman sighed, offering no more protests.
No. No, this wasn’t happening. “But you said… you said if I did as I was told, you’d let me go.” My voice was shaky, barely a whisper. Could he hear me?
The robber’s breath fanned across my cheek. “But you didn’t, did you?” he whispered back. “All promises were off the table the moment you decided to run from me.” His chuckle was taunting. “You should’ve run faster, cupcake. Cause you’re mine now.”
The sound of his voice, his words, slithered down my spine, causing every hair on my body to stand. No words, no human being, had ever terrified me like that.
Even if I could find my voice, begging for my life was futile.
It was decided. He had decided. I will go with them, wherever they were going, and die there.
Even though it seemed that the two at the front might have a conscious, it didn’t matter.
He called the shots. And my time had run out the moment they stepped foot into the bank.
We drove, for what felt like days, in complete silence.
My mind was numb. All of it felt like a fever dream.
Like I would wake up in my bed at any second.
The only thing that kept me from believing all of it a dream was the body that bumped against me as the van jostled us.
We’d stopped only once, and I was painfully aware of the gap that widened between me and the people who knew I was in trouble—from the people who could save me.
The whole town already knew what had happened to me, I was sure of it.
Gods, my parents. They had to be losing it, not knowing where I was, or if I was alive. Just like I was, not knowing how long I would still get to live.
My captor gave me a bottle of water and offered me food, which I couldn’t take.
Just the smell of it made me nauseous. I sat as quietly as I could, trying my best not to draw attention to myself.
At some point, the utter exhaustion I’d been battling got the better of me, and I fell into a restless sleep.