A Bullet for my Innocence

I never really imagined living like this. I never really thought I’d be a teller at one of the biggest banks in my city, but I guess that’s what happens when your dad has as what he call “connections” within the city. Living in Phoenix was nice, and working at the Deer Valley Credit Union wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. My coworkers were nice, I felt like I could depend on the security, and my boss always treated me as if I was the one running the place. It was an early Wednesday morning, and I was working until late at night as usual, I didn’t mind it though, the pay was decent for working until closing. I walked into the bank and got set up for the day, making myself comfortable at my desk with my cup of coffee. The day went by like it usually did, people coming in, depositing their money, and leaving to go take care of other personal business. “Hey Nicole, Deborah called in sick today and so did Ana…so I guess you’re going to be the only desk open for the rest of the day. I would have told the others early before they left, but they just called in now,” My boss, Mr. Malvrick told me. “don’t worry, I’ll be talking to them about how they should have some respect for the hard workers here and call in early so I can try to run this over with everyone so we don’t have just one person stuck taking over.” I smiled and shook my head, “Don’t worry about it, I can carry my own weight, we haven’t been having as much business as usual so I think I’ll be able to manage being the only desk open.” I told him, trying to hide the fact that I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. “Your father was right about you Nicole; you really can rise to a challenge.” He said to me, as he disappeared back into his office. I sighed and decided to go get more coffee, after all I was the only one working there for the rest of the day and I was going to need something to keep me awake throughout the day.

I closed the door to the lounge area and made myself more coffee. I collapsed onto one of the couches and sighed. “Is this what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life? Trying to survive a shitty 24 hour shift with several cups of coffee?” I thought to myself. The beeping noise of the Keurig told me that my fifth cup of the day was ready, but before I could grab it I heard something no one wants to hear when working at a bank; a gun shot. I dropped my cup after hearing the first shot, the second one made me freeze and it took three shots for me to realize that the place that I thought was safe to work at was being robbed at this very moment. I looked around the lounge for anything to hide in or behind, but it was too late. A man kicked the door in and began to walk towards me, his gun aimed at my head ready to kill me if I didn’t cooperate. I could tell the person was a man by the way his body looked. He was wearing a ski mask, a dark long sleeved shirt with black gloves, and regular jeans with black sports shoes. He was tall, possibly 6’1, and I couldn’t see anything on him due to the amount of clothing he was wearing. As a teller, were trained for these situations and we’re told to try to take note of anything that could be useful to identify the robber. “Where the fuck are the others?! I know you’re not the only one who works here, I’ve had my eye on this place for weeks! I KNOW you’re not alone!” He started to yell at me.  I began to stutter, trying to form any words I could, but he aimed his gun down and grabbed me by my hair and pulled me out of the lounge and back to my desk. As he dragged me, I could see the dead security guards scattered on the floor of the main room. I could also see two other men by Mr. Malvrick, demanding to know where the code to the major safe was. The man sat me across the room from my boss, and right beside one of the dead security guards. “Alright, since it looks like no one else is here to work this shit hole, it looks like we only have you two to work with today.” the man that dragged me said with an annoyed tone.  He pulled off his ski mask to reveal a rather appealing face. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes, and he smiled as if he’s done this before. The rest of the men pulled off their masks as well as soon as he did, making it obvious that the man that had dragged me out here was the leader. The man to the right of Mr. Malvrick was darker skinned with pale green eyes and maybe around 5’8 while the man to the left of him had light brown hair with pale blue eyes and was possibly around the same height as the man that had dragged me out here. I tried to take note of everything I could but then I realized something was a bit off with this group. Any robber knows concealing your identity is a good idea and it’ll help your chances of not being caught. I looked up at him with a confused look crossing my face, “You must be pretty shitty robbers if you think we’ll forget what you look like…” I mumbled, looking away from the men and back at the corpse in front of me. He laughed a bit and knelt down in front of me, grabbing my chin with his left hand. “Now princess, what makes you think you’re getting out of this alive?” he says to me and chuckles a bit as he smacks me softly on the cheek. It was at that moment I realized my smart mouth might get me killed, and I just need to follow my training in order to, hopefully, not die.

 I looked back at the dead man in front of me, and noticed that I could easily get his gun if the men went to the safe. “Alright old man, why don’t you tell us where the code to the safe is and maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you live…and possibly the girl.” One of the other men said out loud, obviously getting tired of waiting around for one of us to finally say where the cod to the safe was. “It’s 1-2-5-8…” I said quietly to myself, the men turning towards me, “What did you say?” The man with the green eyes asked, walking towards me slowly, aiming his gun at my head. “I said the code is 1-2-5-8 and you’ll need his hand print to get in as well…” I said louder, looking at the man. He looked back to the others and motioned for them to grab my boss. “If I find out you’re wasting our time, I will personally show you why you shouldn’t have fucked with us.” He said, walking to the tall man with brown eyes. “Callum, stay there with the girl. Me and Mike’ll get the safe open and grab your cut.” He says walking to the back of the room near the safe. “And for gods sake, don’t do anything stupid!” He yelled from the back. “Callum, huh? So that’s this mans name..” I thought, making a slight smile.

“What’re you smilin’ about? We’re not gonna let you live just because you’re more helpful than the geezer you work for.” Callum said, turning his back to me to look back at the safe. I took advantage of this split second of not being watched and grabbed the gun from the security guard and hid it behind my back. “So,” he looked at my shirt in search of a name tag, “what’s your name? We might as well get aquatinted considering were probably going to be here for a while.” He said sitting down at my desk, which was now torn apart due to them probably looking for a note that said the code to the safe or something along those lines. “Nicole.” I told him, staring off to try to see if they got into the safe or not. “Nicole what? There’s a lot of Nicole’s in Phoenix.” He says, kicking his feet onto my desk. I smirk a bit. “Nicole Mason, perhaps you know my father? He’s kind of a big deal in this town..” I tell him, trying to sound more important than I probably am. He studies my face a bit and shakes his head, “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. Guess he’s not as big of a deal as you think he is.” He tells me, making his way over to me. He was half way across the room to me when we hear a shot ring out. He turns to the safe and that’s when I grabbed the gun and pointed it at him. I’ve never fired a gun in my life but it couldn’t be that difficult. He turned back towards me and smiled a rather cheeky smile. “Oh Nicole, are you really going to shoot me? After that lovely conversation we just had about your father?” He tells me, walking towards me slowly. He’s not afraid of me, and nor should he be. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing nor do I know what I would do if the others heard a shot. “Don’t come any closer to me… I swear to god I’ll fucking kill you…” I manage to say, my words almost as shaken as I feel.  He laughed a bit as he stepped closer to me. “Now Nicole, I think we both know you won’t shoot because I think it’s rather obvious you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Now, put the gun down before I do something that’ll make you regret trying to be a hero.” I kept the gun up, aimed at his head and ready to shoot if he came any closer to me. He sighed, “Y’know, I really didn’t want to do this, but I guess you left me no choice.” Callum said as he rose his gun up and shot me in the shoulder. I fell back and dropped the gun, my arm feeling as if it had caught on fire. He ran towards me and kicked the gun away. I heard the others yelling and asking if Callum was alright, in which he replied with “yes” or “I’m fine” each time he was being questioned. My eyes were clouded with tears, but I would see the two others running out of the safe, the previously empty bad filled with money. They saw me on the floor with the wound. “Just kill her already Callum. We’ve already taken care of the old guy.” Mike, the man with blue eyes said, urgently, obviously wanting to get out before any cops had arrived. Callum shook his head, “I think she’ll be useful, after all she did try to save herself…even though she didn’t know how to shoot.” Callum said, eyeing me while I was in pain. “Besides, she’d make a good distraction for our bigger jobs.”

The last thing I remember is the end of his gun hitting the side of my skull, making me unconscious and unaware of what was going to happen to me.