ENDURE [joel miller]

[0]

Chapter Zero
The Beginning of the End
Warnings: description of panic attack

September 26, 2003

————

AT FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, Nadia Martell was nothing more than your average teenage girl. She got good grades in school, did her chores with minimal complaint, and spent every spare moment with her best friend—Sarah Miller.

Nadia had met Sarah on the first day of third grade, the two eight-year-old girls had been placed at the same table, side by side. Nadia had just finished unpacking her supplies from her backpack and into her desk when Sarah Miller had turned to her, curly hair pulled into a ponytail at the crown of her head and lips pulled back in a wide smile that showed the gap between her two front teeth.

"I'm Sarah!" The girl had exclaimed, looking expectantly at the unknown auburn-haired girl.

"Nadia," she had quietly mumbled back, a shy smile sneaking onto her lips. Nadia had only moved to Austin a few months before, when her mother had gotten a job offer from the hospital nearby and had yet to meet anyone her age. She was nervous—what if the other kids didn't like her?

"I like your backpack, it's really pretty" Sarah complimented, eyes darting down to the sparkly pink backpack that was still in the girl's grip. She had never admitted it to the girl, even five years later, that she had been jealous of the girl. Her backpack was army green--picked out last minute, by her father.

"Thank you!" It was the most enthusiasm Nadia had shown all day, a childish grin taking over as she felt the pride of having a pretty backpack wash over her.

It was that fateful conversation that led the two girls to where they were today—waiting inside Lone Star Watch & Jewelry while the man working behind the counter fixed the broken watch that Sarah had swiped from her father's drawer that morning. It was his birthday, and Sarah planned on gifting the fixed watch to him when he returned home from work that night.

"Where did you even get money?" Nadia questioned, eyes darting over the many clocks that adorned the shop's lime green walls. At Sarah's hesitance to answer, the auburn-haired teen turned to her friend, eyebrow raising in questioning.

Bringing her attention from the knickknack she had just been observing, the curly haired girl shot her friend a mischievous grin, "I stole it."

"Sarah!" Nadia gasped, eyes wide and a grin of her own taking over her lips, "From who?"

"My dad," she admitted, rushing to get her next words out before her friend scolded her from stealing from family, "it was the emergency fund—and this is an emergency!"

"How—"

The sound of sirens cut the teenager off, her eyes flying towards the large window at the front of the store just in time to watch a cop car fly past, lights flashing. A frown settled on her face as another one followed closely after, with a firetruck and SWAT vehicle on its tail. An odd feeling settled in Nadia's chest.

"All day, I swear," the man fixing Mr. Miller's watch spoke, drawing the two girls' attention to him briefly.

In the next seconds, the beaded curtain that hung over the doorway just a bit in front of Nadia and Sarah clinked as a dark-haired woman passed through. She paused at the sight of the two girls, sparing just a second to glance over them before beginning to move towards the front door of the shop.

"We're closing," she announced, a sense of urgency in her tone that neither girl missed.

The man made a noise of disproval, getting a few heated words that Nadia couldn't understand in reply from the woman as she continued on her path.