Robbers

twenty - four

// twenty - four //

Ella gripped the steering wheel's rim so tightly that her knuckles blanched white. She could see the glow of the gas station's parking lot lights in her rearview mirror, from her place parked twenty-five feet down the road.

The very air around Ella's car was silent. The night appeared to be holding its breath, and the dark seemed to swim cautiously around her as though any sudden movement or sound would cause all hell to break loose. She breathed in and out deeply, the cool air rushing into her lungs and trying to calm her beating heart.

She zipped up her black jacket almost to her chin, the navy blue scarf tangled around her neck. Ella had pulled her unruly hair into a tight French braid hours ago, when she had been sitting in her room waiting for her family to fall asleep. She'd crept out her bedroom window once the house had been completely silent for nearly two hours, and then she'd eased her mother's white Honda down the driveway and started the engine when it reached the street. It had been over an hour drive to the gas station, since its location was just outside of Ella's state, and it was now nearing 3:30 in the morning.

The dark blue duffel bag was empty aside from the fake gun. Ella clutched the nylon straps so tightly that her fingers ached, desperately trying to steel herself. She had done everything she could over the past two days to prepare, but how could she possibly prepare herself mentally for what she was about to do?

There was no turning back now. Ella left the keys in the ignition and swung open the driver's side door.

The early morning air was frigid, but the cold air wasn't why Ella automatically reached up to secure the scarf over the bridge of her nose. Once the navy material covered over half her face, Ella tugged the hood of the black sweatshirt out from under the depths of the jacket's collar and pulled it low over her head. She shut the car door softly, her boots disturbing the thin layer of snow on the pavement as she turned away from the car.

Without pausing to think of how scared she was, Ella started towards the gas station.

The snow crunched beneath the soles of her shoes, but Ella couldn't hear it. A low ringing resounded in her ears and blocked out every tiny sound around her, and she kept her gaze fixed on the building that was approaching faster and faster. There weren't lines of trees to disguise Ella this time as she walked quickly towards the gas station.

Her hands didn't shake when she pulled the gun out of the duffel bag. The black metal of the handle was cool against her palm, the weight of it oddly calming her nerves - despite the fact that it wasn't a real weapon. Ella gripped the fake pistol in her right hand and broke out into a sprint.

The pavement slapped against her boots when she reached the empty parking lot, the streetlights washing down over her and illuminating the black material of her jacket. The duffel bag swung against her hip, airy and light due to its emptiness, but Ella had nearly forgotten it was there, anyway. All she could focus on was the weight of the gun in her right hand, and the image of Ryan lying broken in the snow beside the pier. Adrenaline broiled hot in her blood.

Ella tore open the gas station's entrance door and lifted the pistol.

What happened next seemed to occur as though Ella was an invisible bystander, somehow removed from her body and observing from the sidelines. Ella watched as this girl, with kohl lined eyes and a wild disposition, threw herself in front of the gas station's counter. She watched as the girl shouted something, spitting wildfire and raising the gun higher, and she saw the thirty-something man lift his hands above his head. The girl's expression was hidden behind the dark blue scarf, the black pistol slicing through the air between the man and the grey register.

Ella watched the man's hands instead of his face. They were spotted with sun freckles and wrinkled with blue veins, and they trembled as they reached for the cash register. Ella saw the girl throw the empty duffel bag onto the counter, a box of gum packs toppling to the tiled floor at her feet. The air around Ella was rushing in her ears, and she could scarcely hear a thing outside of the sudden wind tunnel inside her own mind.

"Put it in the bag. Hurry up, all of it. Keep your fucking hands where I can see them."

The words weren't her own. They couldn't be. Ella didn't sound that way when she spoke - only this girl could speak with such a biting tone, so rugged and terrifying and animalistic. This girl with the dark eyelids, piercing hazel irises, and navy blue scarf to disguise her expression. This girl who pointed the pistol at an innocent man as though it was nothing.

Ella watched the girl snatch the duffel bag off of the counter, sending a shower of white and purple tic-tacs to the floor. She watched the gun as it remained fixated on the man behind the counter, and she watched the girl back towards the gas station doors. She watched this girl's face as she did so - a face that Ella knew and yet, all at once, didn't recognize.

Reality only snapped back into place once Ella felt the freezing winter air against her cheekbones. She was herself again and the duffel bag was dragging at her shoulder, sprinting towards the empty street as fast as her legs would allow. The weight of the fake gun pressed into her palm.

Her heart was in her throat and she couldn't breathe. Ella left the gas station's door behind but she wanted to go back, she wanted to turn around and say she was sorry. The words lay against the back of her tongue, an apology that was trying to force its way out of her airless lungs and into the frigid night. But Ella's boots continued to meet pavement and she continued to run, leaving the glow of the street lights behind as she reached the road.

Ella didn't care about the company that owned the gas station. She wasn't sorry about the money some corporation had just lost, because Ryan needed the money more than that company ever could. She only wanted to apologize to the man behind the counter.

She wanted to apologize because, as she had been watching his hands instead of his expression, she had seen a gold band around his ring finger.

That meant he had a family. That meant he probably had children, too, and Ella had been pointing a gun in his face. It was a fake gun, but he didn't know that. He didn't know that Ella wasn't capable of killing an innocent man. He hadn't known that his life wasn't truly in danger.

The white Honda's metal siding rushed up to meet her. Ella threw open the driver's side door and launched herself into the seat, the steering wheel digging into her ribs from her haste. The heavy duffel bag was tossed into the flooring before the passenger seat, at the same time the driver's side door was being slammed shut. Ella twisted the key in the ignition, glancing in the rearview mirror as she did so, because she knew the old car always took an extra second to start.

But the engine fired to life with a mechanical roar almost immediately, and she threw the gear into drive without pausing to blink.

Ella slammed her foot against the gas pedal and sent the car screeching away from the sidewalk's edge.