COFFEE CUPS

Chapter 11 - Anna

We meet up back at the cafe, in one of the back rooms. We sit down, in groups of three, and count the money. After about 2 hours of counting, we finish, and put the piles of money together.

“Thats… £200,000…” Spencer sighs, rubbing his eyes and placing the last stack down on the pile.

“Finally that’s over…” Marcus yawns, stretching his arms and rolling his wrists.

“We need to hand this over to Rosie!” Kenna shouts, jumping up and picking up as many piles of money as she can carry.

“How on earth does she have enough energy to do that? I can barely even move without collapsing!” Leo exclaims, waving his arms about and trying (and failing) to get up. I stand up quickly, pulling Marcus up with me.

“Let’s just… get it over and done with. Carry as much as you can so we don’t have to come back too many times. ‘Coz I swear I will collapse…” I smile as I stuff my arms with as much money as possible. Marcus follows close behind me, carrying as much as he can.

“Hey, Anna?” He whispers once we’ve placed the money down.

“Yup?” I say, turning to him.

“Be nicer to Blaire, please…” He sighs, scratching the back of his head.

“Why do you care so much?” I snap, rolling my eyes.

“She’s my friend… and I can see how much it hurts her…” He pleads, still scratching his head.

“Just leave it. We’ve got the meeting with the auctioneer in an hour, we can sort it out after that.” I sigh, turning away from him and striding off towards the remaining money.

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“Right, thats all of it. We’ll leave you two to it, then, I’ll get you both something from the bakery. Enjoy the meeting guys!” Kenna giggles, guiding the others outside so Marcus and I can meet with the auctioneer.

“Right, Anna, I’ll go get the money, you wait here for the auctioneer.” Marcus mumbles, turning and walking towards the money bags in the back room.

“Fine.” I snap, waiting beside the door for the auctioneer to appear. He appears almost as soon as Marcus leaves the room, walking in and almost forcing the door open.

“Hey, Mr Major, we called you here so we could place a bid on this coffee shop-” I begin, but he cuts me off sharply.

“I’m sorry, but the coffee shop is now in Mr Mackenzie’s hands.” He snaps, turning to leave.

“But we have the money, and the deadline for bids is tomorrow…” I plead, my fists clenched.

“I already told you, little girl, this coffee shop is now Mr Mackenzie’s.” He sighs.

“But he’s an identity thief!” I protest, my nails now digging painfully into the palms of my hands.

“Oh, little girl, I already knew that.” He smirks.

“Wait… what?” I respond, clenching my fists even harder, resisting the urge to kick this man right where it hurts.

“That’s right, little girl, he paid me off. No more bets, the coffee shop goes straight to Mr Mackenzie, or should I say Valentino Romero, the infamous identity thief?” He smirks again, picking at his nails.

“Marcu-” I shout, but this Mr Major character puts a hand across my mouth, cutting me off.

“Shhh, little girl, your friend can’t be meddling with our little ‘conversation’, now, can he?” He laughs menacingly.

“You-” I mumble through his hand, biting him, hard. He fell back, clasping his hand tightly. I took the opportunity to punch him square in the face.

“What the fuck, little girl?” He snaps, wiping his face and glaring at me.

“Hey, Anna, you called?” Marcus smiles, wandering into the room, his face falling and the bags falling from his hand as he assesses the situation.

“Anna, whats-” My hearing blocks out as I feel a sharp impact on my left cheek. I stumble back, hitting my head on the pointed table edge.

“Shit, Anna!” Marcus shouts, running over towards me.

“Marcus… get… the… others…” I mumble, the throbbing pain in the back of my head making every movement especially painful.

“No… I can’t leave you here with that monster…” He snaps, turning towards the auctioneer.

“I-I didn’t mean for this to happen…” Mr Major says, shaking violently.

“Well it happened. Kenna!” Marcus shouts, calling Kenna the others from next door at the bakery.

“I-I gotta go… I can’t stay here...” The auctioneer whispers, pushing past Marcus and Kenna and running out the front. Marcus stand up to follow him, but Kenna holds him back.

“Marcus, stay here with Anna, let Spencer handle it.” She sighs, pushing Spencer out of the double doors of the cafe.

“I-I’ll call for an ambulance…” Blaire stutters, pulling out her phone and typing the numbers in carefully.

“H-Hey, Marcus?” I whisper, my head still throbbing painfully.

“Shhh, Anna, it’ll all be okay…” He replies, stroking my hair softly. It was then that I felt my eyelids get heavy, too heavy to open. As they closed, I could feel Marcus shaking me and calling my name, a sense of panic echoing in his voice. As the last of my consciousness slipped away, I felt the soft patter of tears on my cheeks and then… it went blank.