Grey

TWO YEARS AGO

Nobody noticed her as she ran through the doors of the coffee shop, her clothes were drenched from the rain and her dirty blonde hair, now soaked, was clinging to her face. Her cream coloured trench coat was now splattered with mud from when she had slipped onto the ground not long before she had ran into Katti’s, her converse were now soaked through and her jeans had more rips in them than when she had first brought them during a sale in Topshop.

Katti’s was an old run down building that was on the corner of the town, on the outside of the building there was a sign that said ‘Katti’s Coffee’s’, the walls were covered in graffiti and not all the windows were in perfect condition from when people had fights outside the little shop. The door to Katti’s was bright red and crooked as it hung loosely from its hinges, nobody who worked at Katti’s could afford to fix it up and nobody tried to save up. The inside of Katti’s was full of booths with small wooden tables and red leather seats that were covered with tears. The walls were painted yellow with random paintings and sketches hung up on the walls to cover any cracks.

She suddenly shivered from a feeling that somebody was watching her but kept telling herself that it was down to the sudden change from the coldness outside to the sudden warmth from the heating inside the coffee shop. The girl quickly brushed all her hair back and put it into a messy ponytail while she looked around nervously as if she knew that something bad was about to happen any second, her eyes brushed past everybody in the room but nobody seemed that interested in the girl that was in an obvious state of panic.

They had all learned one way or another to keep their problems to themselves and not to get involved with anyone else’s. It became that way after the gang war started two years ago and the town was starting to become overthrown by criminals and gang members. But it still didn’t help extinguish the feeling in her stomach that somebody was watching her.

She rushed to sit down in her usual booth, even though it was at the back of the little shop and the table was covered in doodles and graffiti, it gave her that at home feeling and had the best view of the lake that ran behind the shop.

While the young girl had raced to her seat, she had failed to notice the three men who had now walked into Katti’s. They walked in a triangle formation and you could sense the danger from them with a single glance. They were all dressed in dark clothes and had their faces covered. They all started to walk in different directions looking at everybody inside Katti’s making sure they didn’t miss the slightest detail.

As if she could sense the danger that was heading towards her seat, the young girl ran to the back of Katti’s and into the storage area of the coffee shop and race towards the back door, running into several of the workers, causing them to drop the cups of coffee in their hands. The noise seemed to attract the attention of all the three men, as soon as they all heard the clattering of china and dashed towards the sound.

When the three men reached outside they all smirked at each other for what they had found. The girl was trying to climb over a wired fence that was padlocked and lead to an alleyway towards the river, but she kept struggling because of the rain that was heavily falling from the skies and the numb feeling in her fingers caused her to lose grip on the fencing

“Well, well, well, look what we found,” The man who seemed to be the leader of the group chuckled, “A little allycat,”

The girl turned around in panic and her eyes scanned for a way out, her body was now tense at the sound of her nickname, how could they know who she was, she had tried so hard to make sure they didn’t find her, it wasn’t her fault for her mother’s mistakes, they surely couldn’t come after her for something that wasn’t her fault.

“Please, you don’t have to do this,” The girls voice was pleading, and the scared look in her eyes only made the men’s smirks grow larger “You can just let me go, and I won’t say a thing, I promise, please!”

“You know what the problem with that is?” A different man had spoken this time “We made that mistake before, and that was a mistake we will never make again,”

The man had an accent that showed he wasn’t from around the area, it could have been Italian but the girl couldn’t exactly be sure, fear was overtaking all of her senses and she couldn’t quite concentrate on anything that was happening.

Before she realised it, all three mean were in front of her she took a step back only to her the sound of her body hitting the fencing and the men's evil laughter.

The Italian man looked at the leader with a questioning look, as if they were having a silent conversation. 

"Kill her,"

With those two worlds the girl could feel her world crashing around her, the third man who hadn't said a word the entire time passed the Italian man a gun. It was then that what little hope the girl had left within her was shredded and she realised that she wasn’t going to get out of this situation alive.

The girl could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and start to pour down her cheeks. Before she could even notice the boy who was running out of the back door of Katti's and start the scream her name, a sharp pain ripped through her stomach, she fell to the ground and brought her hand to the source of the pain and found it smothered with blood.

"Allison!"

A voice yelled out from behind the three men, startled they all started to run towards the fence and scaled the fencing without a trouble compared to the way Allison had, as if they had done the same thing before, a million times.

The boy ran over to Allison's lifeless body, his tears falling onto her now pale face as he clucthed her body in an embrace.

“Allison, please wake up, please wake up baby,” His voice was pleading, and the sound of his heartbreak was unheard by the crowd that was now gathering from the sound of the gunshot.

People that weren’t local to Brookstone were pulling out their phones, calling for help, while others were silent and didn’t say a thing instead they bowed their heads, they knew what life was like in gang ridden town and for a teenager to reach a tragic end in their life was heartbreaking to them.

The boy held Allison in his arms, and she reached up to touch his cheek. Her eyes were fluttering and the boy started to sob silently, a hole opening in his heart.

“I love you,”

They were the last words that were heard coming out of her mouth until she was still and her lifeless lips made no sound. The boy cried until the ambulance and police had come to the scene, refusing to let go of the girl he loved.