Worth it

Robbery

"You sure you can close the store on your own?", Sadie smiled to Lars as she grabbed her coat. Had it been any other day, she would stay up until closing, but she had a doctor's appointment.

"Yeah yeah," he waved her off as he leafed through his magazine at the counter, slacking off like he normally did on these lazy afternoons.

"Alright," she smiled, "Remember to lock up the back once everything else is taken care of."

"I know," he sing-songed, still not paying attention.

"And to take inventory."

"Got it."

"And to-"

"Sadie, I got it. Don't you worry your pretty little head," he sneered a little, tone still playful.

She rolled her eyes, "Just making sure you know what to do, especially since I'm usually the one doing all of this."

He stuck his tongue out at her, and grumbled at her to go to her appointment already, and she waved as she headed out. When it was about five o clock, and no customers seemed to be arriving, Lars decided it was time to call it a day, flipping the sign on the door from 'Open' to 'Closed', and just to humor Sadie, decided to go through the checklist she'd given him. Finding most of the tasks unnecessary or boring, he skipped to the part about putting away the unsold donuts into the giant fridge, but complained to himself when it noted sorting them by type. Boring.

Lars was busy working to take out donuts from the trays on the shelf, his back turned from the door when he heard the all too familiar chime, and rolled his eyes, wondering if people were too dumb to read signs anymore.

Not even turning to face the customer, Lars answered with sublime teenage snark, "We're closed, so-"

A sleeved arm wrapped around his neck, and a low voice growled against his ear, "Shut up, and get down on the ground."

Lars felt a shiver run up his spine, and struggled a bit, "W-what the-"

"I said DOWN," the intruder spoke threateningly, giving Lars a second to drop to the ground.

Instead of doing as the man instructed, Lars whirled around to face him, in time to see his hands fumbling to open the till, and both out of fear and indignation, shouted, "Hey, stop!", he yelped, and took a step forward.

The man then grabbed him again, a glint of something sharp and metal appearing in his other hand.

A knife...!

Lars, never having dealt with a robbery at any point in his life, had no idea what to do. He tried to scream for help, but all that came out was a garbled shriek of terror.

"Shut up!", the burglar hissed, pinning Lars against the racks on the walls.

When Lars failed to silence himself, the intruder decided to do it for him.

Lars' whole body froze as the blade was suddenly plunged harshly into his abdomen with a sharp twist, and then roughly pulled out with a warm gush of blood following after it.

His knees locking for a few seconds, Lars stared down at the growing red stain above his stomach, and gave a choked gasp of terror and disbelief, then crumpled to the floor, hands gripping his wound in shock as the burglar got away with the contents of the cash register.

While Lars lay on the ground behind the counter, curled in pain, he was only thinking two things, 1. He'd just been stabbed, and was probably going to die, and 2. Sadie was going to be so mad that the store was robbed under his supervision and that she was probably never going to let him handle things on his own again if this didn't kill him first.