Robbers

thirty - one

// thirty - one //

Christmas was to fall on a Wednesday that year. The weekend before the holidays, both Ella's parents traveled to Los Angeles for one of their richer cousin's wedding. It was adults only, so Ella and Rosie hadn't been invited – not that Ella would have chosen to leave town so close to Ryan's deadline. She was simply grateful to have her parents out of the house, and she was oddly cheerful when sending them off early Friday afternoon. She'd thought it would be a relief not having to lie every time she left the house to be with Ryan.

But if Ella had known what was going to happen that weekend, she surely would have begged her parents not to leave.

It began around 4 a.m. Saturday morning. Ella didn't know it was the end when she left the house late Friday night without telling Rosie, and she didn't know it was the end when she picked up Ryan outside of his house. She didn't know even after they had driven to a convenience store hours away and stolen 300 dollars, or even when they were speeding for home and Ryan told her that was it, that he finally had enough money.

She had nearly cried when he'd said it. They were flying down the interstate heading for home, Ella was driving and Ryan was counting the money; he'd told her, breathless, that what they'd gotten would be enough to make up the difference towards the five thousand. There had been an exhilaration in his voice when he said it, a delirious sort of relief that made Ella believe it was over in every sense of the word.

"When will you give them the money?" Ella asked. Her lips were curved up into a half-smile, and her cheeks were flushed with roses because she was filled with a mix of relief and happiness that it was finally over. "You'll give it to Kurt, right?"

Ryan shook his head and scoffed slightly under his breath, still holding the duffel bag in his hands as though if he let it go, it wouldn't be real anymore. "Kurt's not getting shit, he's nobody. I'll give it to Jackson and the rest of the guys this afternoon."

She wanted to ask who Jackson was, but there had been a bitterness in his voice when he'd said the name so she kept quiet. Ella switched into the fast lane, passing beside the roaring engine of an eighteen-wheeler. Softly, she told him, "I'll go with you."

He exhaled heavily, but Ella didn't look over to see his expression. In a low, serious tone, Ryan said, "You can't. You've helped me with so much, Ella, but this is something you can't help me with."

Ella didn't push him further. She pressed the gas pedal and held the steering wheel with one hand, glancing over at him under the glow of yellow highway lights. He was flushed, still grinning loosely in the darkness because for once, everything was right. They both believed it wasn't the end anymore, that everything would finally be over in only a matter of hours.

Ryan had leaned over and kissed her as she drove, and still, Ella didn't know it was the end. The horrible experience was far from over.

The euphoria inside the car was extinguished when they reached Ryan's driveway. Ella had been teasing Ryan about something pointless, and they'd both been laughing because they were both so full of adrenaline and excitement that laughing was all they could seem to do. The feeling dissipated as soon as his driveway came into view, because it immediately became clear that something was very wrong.

There was a black Hummer parked beside Ryan's truck. Silence fell over the interior of Ella's car as she slowly pulled into the tiny space of the driveway that was empty, her heart slowly sinking inside of her chest with an odd sense of foreboding.

Two men stepped out of the Hummer, and Ryan grabbed Ella's arm. As they shut the driver and passenger side doors behind them and started over, Ella recognized one of them under her dim headlights as Kurt from the coffee shop.