It Burns For a Moment, but Then it Molds You

Chapter twelve: fighting with Robin

You threw the wad of cash out of your pocket, and onto the counter. And dear god, did you look shady as all hell.

Thin grey zip up jacket with your hood up under a denim jacket, black crumpled T-shirt and jeans so ripped to hell that they looked like they lost to a fight with a wood-chipper. you had to wear a pair of leggings under it just to keep warm from all the cold air that would be pressing against bare skin. The muddy boots you wore that tracked dirt wherever you stepped only annoyed the clerk at the gas station to a level where she didn't really care if it showed or not.

Gotham, well? It was a place a kid could buy cigarettes at a gas station if they pulled out enough money. It was a place where a kid could be alcohol from the right type of person and get away with it too. Since the cameras in half the gas stations in the district of Gotham didn't work, it's something you came to do a lot. But normally you just grab a six case of beer in glass bottles, never cans, you're not that trashy, but this time? It was more than just the six pack on the glass counter above the lotto cards.

"Pack of Menthols."

You jutted your weight to one foot and leaned against the glass counter slightly, watching as the clerk behind said glass counter looked around the gas st

ation to make sure nobody was watching before turning on her heel and grabbing a pack of cigarettes in the mint green box.

"Hey kid, it's your lungs you're screwing up. And your liver too." She said, taking the six pack and putting it in the bag with the pack of menthols. She had somewhat of a dissapointed look on her face, but looking at the wad of twenties you threw down on the table washed out her guilt for even selling these to you, and her dissapointment for a child that was willing to smoke and drink at such an age.

"I wouldn't be talking if I were you, it's illegal to be selling these things to a minor." You mumbled, moving your hand around below the see through section of the glass case as you snatched a red lighter with a yellow line going down the middle, placing it in your pocket.

You reached forwards for the bag, taking out the pack of menthols and sticking it in your pocket while you held the six pack in the bag with your right hand.

That's when the entire atmosphere in the gas station shifted.

That's when you only now started to notice the flickering lights, the buzzing sounds of flies caught in the bulbs. The creaking noises of the door that shut, the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer to the way of the cash register.

That's when you noticed the feeling of something hard being pressed against your head, an arm wrapping around your shoulder from behind and restraining you, feeling a tight tension on your throat due to the shock and the sudden lack of air, you dropped the bag and the glass bottles shattered against the ground, beer getting everywhere. The liquid ran all around the floor and pooled near your feet, shards of glass sprawling from the point in which the bottles dropped to the floor.

"Gimme all the money in the cash register, or I put a lead bullet in the kid's head." The raspy voice came right from behind you, eyes widening as his grip over yourself came tighter, making it harder for you to breathe. You raised your hands to his arm and clawed at the bits of skin he showed bare, due to rolling of the sleeves of his jacket. Not a wise move.

He was wearing a grey Ski mask, bits of it too large for his face so it hung over his head and the lot of his skin around his mouth and eyes were showing. This guy didn't seem too smart.

You dug your nails into his arm, in retaliation he lifted you up off the ground just by raising his arm a couple inches, leaving you to desperately dangle your feet just close enough to the ground for the toes of your boots to slide around in the amber liquid on the ground below you.