Justify His Murder

Our First Glimpse Outside

The atmosphere in the parking lot was a bit strained as we watched Reed try to shove the bag full of supplies under his seat and the clock ticked down the minutes to the Purge. He kept insisting that if he angled it just right, the bag would be snug and safe. I was getting tired of hearing the words "snug and safe". Especially on a night like tonight. That wasn't the only reason I was upset. I was also upset because I had just found out why Sienna was here.

"Reed, just put it on the backseat." I pulled the bag away from him and pushed it over to the far end of the seat.

Reed nodded, "That works too."

Sienna smiled a bit as she slid into the backseat, zipping up her black sweater. I closed the door softly before pulling Reed aside.

He fixed the collar of his shirt, "Hey, I ironed this shirt yesterday."

"So you thought it was a good idea...to post where we were...on the night of the Purge." I whispered loudly.

"Wrong, okay? I didn't post where we were. I posted...a picture of where we were. No caption or location, so she's just a really good picture detective."

"A picture detective." I shook my head and got in the passenger seat of the car to avoid strangling him.

Sienna and I made eye contact in the rearview mirror and she smiled wide. I gave her a small smile back. Reed got back in and shuffled through his central console. The crinkling of empty wrappers and the crumpling of dollars filled the awkward silence.

"Oh, gummy worms. Want some?" He pulled out a bag of sour gummy worms. Reluctantly, I accepted the red and blue ones he was offering.

"Are there orange ones?" Sienna held out her hand. He hummed as he rifled in the bag and handed her some orange ones. As he dropped some in his mouth, he started the car.

"Alright, where are we going?" He said through the candy in his mouth.

"We can drop Sienna off at her place." I put on my seatbelt

Sienna leaned forward in her seat to look at both of us, "You kind of can't. My building turns on their system by 6:40. And it's about 6:52 now. So I guess I'm rolling with you guys tonight."

Reed rested his forehead against the steering wheel. I rubbed my temples and was wondering what we should do next. Sienna focused on trying to fish out more gummy worms from the bag. Other than the rustling of plastic, I heard a fainter sound start. It was almost like a cat purring. Then, it turned into a cat screeching. We all swapped glances when we heard it get louder. I was the first to spot the source.

A striking blue glow painted the asphalt of the parking lot. Slowly, my eyes traveled up the LED-lit motorcycle and fell on the masked figure.

"Reed, drive." I whispered as the figure twirled a bat slowly and deliberately. The motorcycle's engine revved with a pop that hurt our eyes, but we could still hear the Purge announcement start.

Sienna opened the duffel bag we had on the seat and grabbed a handgun, "Drive anywhere, Reed!"

"I don't do well when people yell at me!" Reed said and sped out of the parking lot. The motorcyclist gave chase.

Sienna tapped my shoulder and handed me a gun. I nodded, surprised she was so ready to go along with all of this. Reed focused on driving as fast as he could while also not crashing into the buildings that lined the sidewalks surrounding us.

"We could try shooting their tires." Sienna spoke in my ear since I wouldn't have been able to hear her otherwise.

"Alright." I agreed. We rolled down our windows and tried to aim at the tires of the LED motorcycle. If I'm being honest, during my training I never accounted for the chance of trying to shoot at a person with a LED mask on a matching motorcycle as the three of us were depending on Reed's driving skills.

We let off a couple of bullets, but they hit the street behind the motorcycle. Sienna ducked back in the car to tie up her hair. When she popped back out, she had a focused glare in her eyes. This time she took a couple of seconds to aim and shot. There was the loud bang and hiss of a tire popping. The motorcycle went on a little longer, before it spiraled out of control and crashed into the wall of a nearby bank.

"You got it!" I yelled as we fell back into the car, rolling up our windows. Sienna clapped with a bright smile that lit up her face. What a weird time we live in, I thought.

"Don't celebrate yet, guys." Reed gestured with his head to road ahead Sienna and I looked and I immediately wished I hadn't. It wasn't a question of our safety, we were fine right now. It was a question of how gruesome a scene we were about to pass and quickly it must have happened. A group of people I guessed to be a family were left lying in the street. There was no chance of saving them. The amount of blood smeared around quickly showed that.

Sienna grabbed my arm that had been resting on the central console, "Oh."

Oh. Indeed.