Love's bullet

Part 5

The heist had gone off without a hitch, while Mikey had been new to it, the other three seemed like they had done this a few times before. A year goes by and they've done it three more times. They were assigned to another hit, the big guy, that they called Brick, said this would be his last job before he left, Mikey thought he was talking about his expiration date, but the other two, Carol and the skinny guy, which they called Pick, mainly because he reminded everybody of a toothpick, warned him not to leave and just stay until his expiration. Nothing they said helped, he was dead set on leaving. A few days later it was the day of the hit. They went in, masks on and guns drawn, Brick and Carol were demanding the teller open the vault, the teller complied without hesitation and all the civilians in the bank also compiled without hesitation when Pick and Mikey told them to gather in the main room and lie down on the ground. It was going much more smoothly than the other hits they have done. Ten minutes later Brick and Carol returned with four duffle bags full of cash. The getaway van was just around the corner, first out of the bank was Pick then Mikey, Carol and just as Brick was exiting through the front door a loud BANG sounded as Brick fell to the ground screaming, his knee had gotten shot, they were too far away to go back and help, so they continued running as Brick let out many blood-curdling screams for help, they could hear him screaming all the way to the van. Once they were in the van Mikey signed to Carol, "WHAT JUST HAPPENED", she calmly responded with, "He tried to leave, he will now be kept alive but in a constant state of pure agony as they carefully torture him for the rest of his miserable existence.".
They dropped the bags off at their usual place, a nice little apartment that looked relatively new, it was in an apartment complex, they walked to the usual room, 378, but when they got to the door they all froze, the door was open, Pick entered first. He signaled for the other two to come in and they did, but they didn't find an intruder or anything out of place, except for one small thing, a large man was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Carol pulled off the bag that was over his head and jumped in shock, it was Brick. Both of his knees had been mutilated, all of his fingernails had been removed and his right ear was just hanging off the side of his face, she checked for a pulse and surely enough there was one. The room's phone rang, everybody hesitated, but Pick answered the phone, he soon put it on speaker and a male on the other end softly spoke, "there...is...no...leaving", and hung up.
They were on their way to the van when Carol stopped Mikey and pulled him aside, she asked him out on a date, of course, he was confused given the timing of it, but he said yes to her. Mikey was to pick her up at 7:00 pm at her place for a ride to Gustavo's since she loved Italian food. 7 arrived very quickly for Mikey, he went to pick Carol up and they went to Gustavo's. They signed for hours before they knew it, it was already 10:00, for the first time in a very long time Mikey had felt happy, he felt pure unequaled joy, almost like he didn't want to die anymore. He had gone home and all he could think about was her amazing smile, her beautiful eyes, and how happy he had felt. He pondered about trying to leave the cult with her, but he remembered what happened to Brick and he couldn't even fathom how to bring it up with her. He knew his expiration date was just under a year away, so he had time