#burn billy

You pulled up into a gas station, filling up your vehicle, and then going inside the store for any extra snacks or cigarettes. You had just finished up your evening shift at work, and in the process of driving home, decided to make a pit stop.

The gas station employee named Melinda, evident by the embroidered name on her uniform, scanned your items as you waited patiently, looking around the store and through the window. Then, your eyes trailed to the large security footage screen, showing the several different views of the property in a grid. However, one square caught your attention as you saw…

Was that a man? Tied up in a chair?

“What the hell?” You say out loud, peering closer at the footage of the struggling man in a secluded room. Were your eyes lying to you, or was this really happening?

You look back at Melinda, and pointed at the security footage with your thumb in hostility and confusion. “Hey, Melinda, what the fuck is thi—”

***

Your head was throbbing and your vision spinning. You slowly began to fully open your eyes, attempting to rub them with your fingers, except…

You realized your hands were restrained. You were restrained.

You were gradually gaining awareness of what had happened, piecing everything together in your head. The last thing you felt before your vision went black was trauma to your head, a short pain before losing consciousness. And now, you were in a room, in which its details matched the exact one you saw through the surveillance cameras with the tied up man.

And it only took you seconds later to finally realize that you were in a chair, restrained to him back-to-back. Your wrists were zip tied behind you to the chair with his, and bright orange duct tape restrained the both of you. And not only that, but your legs were duct taped to the chair legs as well. You could barely move.

“What the fuck…” you muttered to yourself in disbelief. There was no sign of Melinda in the room, however. She must have left you here while she would be preoccupied with working the store.

“Hey.”

His voice surprised you, only because it was a bit unexpected. He sounded tired and frustrated, which made you wonder even more what she had done to him and why, even.

It felt a bit weird and awkward to not be able to see his face if you’d begin to talk with him. This whole situation was weird. Having to be restrained to a man. Well, being restrained in the first place.

“Hey,” you replied softly.

There was an awkward silence. You felt like you should’ve been more afraid because you were practically kidnapped, but really, you were just more confused.

“Okay, what… what the fuck is this?” You asked before he could speak again. “Like, why were you here and tied up in the first place? And why am I here now? What the hell is this? Some kind of prank, or—”

“No, for fuck’s sake, it’s obviously not a fucking prank,” he said, which caught you off guard, because you didn’t expect him to be so hostile and vulgar after first hearing a small ‘hey’ from him. “Turns out, Melinda over there is a fucking psychopath who, first of all, burnt me with fucking coffee, then tied me up in this fucking stupid chair,” he explained with frustration and dismay. Well, at least now you knew what his favorite swear was. “Now, I have no idea why she would tie you up too, but otherwise, it probably was for a stupid reason as well.”

You pondered for a bit, actually trying to think of a legitimate reason why that woman would keep you captive here too, while simultaneously being slightly intimidated by this man due to his excessive swearing. But then again, you thought it was an understandable reaction to being held captive.

“Well… I seriously didn’t do anything at all. I just went up to the counter with my stuff and… and then I saw you on the security camera screen. And I was about to bring it up, but then… Oh…” You put the pieces together and found that Melinda would have held you captive as well because you’ve already witnessed what she had done—tie up and lock the man in a room. She definitely turned off the cameras after her encounter with you, ensuring nobody else would see them.

“Right,” he sighed. You bit the inside of your cheek, thinking of what to say.

“Hey, so… What about you, then? Was there a… specific reason why she stuck you in here, or is she entirely and wholeheartedly insane?” You urge, while wanting to know more of what kind of situation you were in.

“Yes, but… If I tell you, don’t be like… alarmed, or anything, or… I don’t know, hate me, I guess,” he says with a tone of exhaustion and fatigue.

That was definitely a questionable thing for him to say, but you figured that as long as you were both tied up together, for now you were both on the same team. “Alright. Yeah, just… Just help me understand our situation more,” you implore.

He took a short breath, then finally let it out. “Okay, so… I was robbing the place.” Alright, you definitely weren’t expecting that. “And before you say anything, it was for a good reason, okay? It wasn’t personal, I just needed the money to pay off debt from these stupid fucking bikers. But that’s all. I swear.”

It was kind of weird to you, how much you sort of tolerated this—tolerated him.

“Hm. So, you’re telling me… She tied you up here because you were a threat?” You asked, which seemed like a pretty valid reason why—like a survival instinct. But you figured that since you were also tied up as well, there were probably more layers to her as a person.

“Well, yes… and no. I don’t know. She… She wanted to go with me after I’d pay the bikers. Like, get out of here with me. Which was really weird to me, because, like, why the fuck would you want to go with someone who robbed you with a gun, you know?” He said, making you now think more about him and what he had done—how he got himself in this situation in the first place. “Look, she didn’t even call the damn cops. That’s how… weird this shit is. I don’t know what she wants. I guess she feels, like… shit—alone and neglected? She was saying how… how everyone paid more attention to her co-worker instead of her. But now she’s dragged you into this goddamn mess, and all of this just feels so unnecessary. I seriously don’t know what her motives are now.”

You nodded as you heard this. You could agree with that. This gas station employee was definitely unhinged at some extent. You just hoped you would be able to live after all this.

“Hey, so,” you began with slight hesitation, feeling more curious about this man. “What’s your name?”

You could swear you heard a light snicker escape his lips, probably from how unusually compliant and calm you two were to each other. It could’ve been the adrenaline, or something. “I’m Billy,” he answers very smoothly.

“Hm,” you hum shortly as you raise an eyebrow, looking at the same, light blue wall you had been facing ever since you woke up. “Well, I’m Y/n,” you tell him.

“Y/n,” he repeats softly to himself, letting out another chuckle. “That’s a hell of a nice name.”

You scoff from amusement and smile to yourself. “Thanks,” you reply, not really expecting that comment, appreciating it, however. “Looks like we’re gonna be here for a while,” you remark.

“Yup,” he said, followed by an exasperated sigh. “Don’t know when that fucking psycho chick is coming back, but we should use this time to make an escape plan, or something.”

“Right.” You observed your surroundings, seeing just a bunch of random junk, shelves, and a desk, gradually feeling a bit of claustrophobia. At least you were able to infer that the room you two were trapped in was the employee’s only room or office. However, something finally caught your eye, making your heart race.

“Hey, um, Billy?” You say as you try to clear your vision, squinting at the object you think you see.

“Yeah?” He answered.

“I think… I think I see a pair of scissors… over there.” Your vision had completely cleared up as you saw grey scissors sitting on top of a wooden desk.

“Holy shit, really?” You heard surprise and hope in his voice, which sort of lifted you up as well.

“Yeah,” you smile to yourself. “It’s like, on a table in the corner, I could probably find a way to get it in my hands..” You didn’t notice or acknowledged it before, but you finally realized that since your wrists were tied with his, the backs of your hands were touching the whole time. You also noted that you could feel a thin metal against your index finger—he was wearing a ring. However, the slight warmness and softness of his hand strangely brought you mere comfort.

You shook it out of your mindset though, as you focused rather on escaping. “Hey, so,” you began, looking down at your shoes, then up at the scissors. “It’s a pretty good distance away. I’m not sure how we can reach it.”

“Well, um, maybe we can try to, like, scoot at the same time to get closer to it. Like I could probably scoot back while you scoot forward.”

“Oh yeah. Yeah, good idea,” you reply. You look down at your shoes again, in which they were barely touching the ground due to the way they were taped. “Fuck, this is gonna be difficult,” you scowl.

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” Billy reassures. “We can just try to scoot our whole bodies. Like, hop or something, anything.” You listened to him, preparing to obey his plan. “Okay, on the count of three, we scoot towards that desk, alright?” You hum in agreement. “Okay, right. One, two, three…”

With the two of you scooting at the same time, you moved yourself and the chairs about an inch forward. The scissors were still pretty far, but you figured it wouldn’t take too long to continue scooting.

“Okay, good,” he praises, impressed by the progression. “Okay, again. One, two, three…”

You two did the same movement again, which brought you even closer to the desk, but still not close enough. You grinned as you sought the possibility of escaping and leaving after this, to immediately go to the authorities and detain Melinda.

“Yes! We’re-we’re almost there, just a couple more,” you observe with enthusiasm.

“Okay, okay, okay,” the way he spoke made you just know he had a big grin on his lips. “One… two… three…”

“Fuck!” You blurted as you felt a sharp pain after falling onto the floor with him, the chairs losing balance and collapsing ever since you tried to scoot forward once more.

“Goddamnit! Fuck!” He exclaimed in frustration as the two of you were now on the floor on your sides, still very much secured to your chairs. You hear him mumble a few swears, hissing from slight pain, until he heard your reaction to this, face contorting as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are… Are you fucking laughing?”

Indeed you were. You were sort of cackling on the floor, so very amused by all of this, but you didn’t really know why. But then again, humor was one of your instinctive reactions to life-threatening situations, so it would make sense for your mind to manipulate the dire reality of the circumstance. “I’m sorry,” your laugh transitioned into soft, dispersed giggles as your eyes face the wall once more. “Sorry. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t laugh,” you say as you were still grinning. “I just… cannot believe that I am… tied up to a stranger in a goddamn gas station. At the hands of a… an apparently lonely gas station worker who took things too far? It’s bullshit, man! People are fucking crazy!”

Billy scoffed from impatience. “Y/n, I get that, but this is fucking serious, okay? I know that this seems like there’ll be an easy way out of this, but Melinda is a fucking psycho. Shot and killed her co-worker, burnt my—”

“Wait, what?” You interrupted as you thought you didn’t hear it right. “She killed her co-worker?”

“Yeah, well… Technically, okay? I wasn’t actually going to shoot her, but then Melinda spilled fucking hot coffee on me which made me instinctively pull the goddamn trigger,” he explained, now making you question everything. You don’t know this man, why trust him as well? Was he the bad guy all along? Then it looked like he knew what you were thinking, because he added, “Look, if Melinda wasn’t crazy, then you wouldn’t be fucking tied up to me as well, alright?”

You sighed. That was true. “Right.” It was a bit of alarming news to you, the fact that someone died here tonight at the hands of the man tied up behind you, but also at the hands of the woman who tied you up. You didn’t really want to think about that and your possible demise, so you shifted the subject. “Hey, so… Why a gas station?”

You heard Billy scoff. He seemed to do that a lot, you presume. “Well, I figured there’d be a lot of money here. You know, gas is one of the most expensive fucking things in the world.”

“Well, true, but nobody pays with cash anymore, man. Tell me, how much did you get from the registers?” You chuckle.

“Like… less than a hundred dollars—”

“Pftt. See, y—”

“But I got into the safe. Well, technically Melinda did. There was, like, at least thousands,” he says.

“And you said you needed to pay off, like… bikers?” You asked.

“Yes. And those stupid clown assholes know I’m robbing this place, so they’ll kill me if I don’t have their fucking money.”

“Damn, dude! What exactly did you do to piss them off?” You laughed softly.

“Debt and my anger issues,” he answered. “That’s sort of what got me here in the first place. I could’ve left with the money already, but Sheila kept fucking with me.”

“Sheila?”

“The co-worker,” he clarified. Oh, right.

“Hey, maybe once this is all over, I’ll get you an anger management book in time for Christmas, alright?” You joke sweetly, hearing soft laughter from the both of you.

“Honestly, I definitely need one of those. Like, I swear I’m working on myself, but clearly—”

“Clearly, your actions have shown—” you began to add.

“That I still have a lot to work on, yes,” he chuckled. He seemed to do that a lot, too. And, if you were going to be truly honest with yourself, you thought it was charming—that he was charming.

To think, that you’d be charmed by a gas station robber who just happened to be tied up to you. Right. That didn’t sound right. It was probably some shared trauma thing that made you have these weird feelings. So they had to be fake. Right?

But you were smiling way too much. And he wasn’t even able to see your face, so why would you be smiling—other than the fact that he could be truly captivated by him?

“Y/n?”

You slightly flinched as you were brought back to the present, realizing he had been speaking to you while you were reflecting to yourself.

“Uh-yeah?”

“What was it?” He asked.

“What was what?”

“Were you even listening to me?”

“Spaced out. Sorry,” you briefly answered.

He let out a soft, amused chuckle. Despite the fact that his face had been burned, with the biker gang on their way to kill him, and the way he was tied up by a crazy lady, he sort of enjoyed this with you. You were entertaining and patient with him. It felt refreshing. And he admired that.

“I asked you what brought you to Paradise Pumps tonight,” he repeated for you.

“Oh. Yeah, um…” You thought about how your day went today. “Just finished my evening shift and when I was driving home, I realized the fuel level was pretty low, so I stopped by.”

He hums in response. Then asks, “Evening shift? What’s your work?”

“Retail,” you answer, chuckling to yourself. “I know it’s not as interesting as gas station robber, but—“

“Hey. I don’t normally fucking do this. In fact, like, this was my first time robbing a place. I needed the money that bad. I’m not, like, some criminal,” he says with urge. You could tell he was a bit sensitive about that.

There was a sort of comfortable silence for a while as you thought about it. “Tell me about yourself, then.” You ask gently. “Like, other than your… shit with the bikers and robbing gas stations.”

Billy shrugged as he tried to think of how to answer you. “Umm… I was born and raised in Kentucky,” he began.

“Go Wildcats,” you softly add, smiling to yourself.

He slightly giggled, and there was a smile on Billy’s face as well, but with your circumstances, you couldn’t see. In fact, you never really knew what he looked like, and he didn’t know what you looked like. You tried to remember from seeing the surveillance camera, but it was too quick of a memory to have a clear picture of him in your head.

“And… I don’t know. What do you wanna know?” He questioned.

You hum. “Just convince me you’re not really a bad guy.”

You heard a sigh leave his lips. “I… I told you… I’m… I’m not a bad guy. I’m not some… evil criminal guy and I’m not a killer. I’m just… currently involved in very complicated circumstances.”

You decided to hear him out, dropping it completely. “So, what were you going to do after you paid the bikers then?” You wondered.

“I was just gonna… I don’t know… get the hell out of this place. Like leave far away, probably. Get a fresh start,” he answered, which you responded with sympathy. There was another short, comfortable silence before you interrogate him again.

“You caused this much trouble here? ‘Specially with the bikers?”

“Yeah… I don’t know… I just want a second chance in life,” he admitted softly.

You sensed that he was becoming more and more vulnerable. More truthful. You wish you were able to look him in the eye. But instead, you were back to back, on the floor, tied to a stupid chair.

You didn’t know how to feel towards this man. He was robbing the place, but only because he would’ve been killed if he didn’t have the money, and he had no intention of harming anyone. Maybe there was some type of goodness in him.

“Yeah… I understand that,” you reckon. “I believe that people deserve second chances. Especially people like you.”

“‘People like me,’ what do you mean by that?” You heard a bit of defense in his voice.

“No, I meant… You seem to… You seem really unlucky as of recently… In debt with guys who could kill you, gas station robbery gone wrong and now you’re, like… practically kidnapped alongside a stranger,” you elaborate tenderly.

You could hear a warm chuckle before he says, “Well… being stuck with you isn’t really what I’d consider unlucky.” He was smiling, looking at the white tiles of the floor. “If anything, you’re just keeping any possible insanity at bay. You’re… You’re actually very kind, which is making this… ‘experience’ less shitty than it was intended to be.”

You smile to yourself, not sure if you were feeling a bit flustered as a reaction. You were glad to know he appreciated you. “Well, yeah… I can’t imagine being alone in this situation. I think I would’ve been more disoriented without you,” you add.

He hums in agreement. “Well… we’re not alone. We have each other, and we can figure out a way to get out of this alive,” he says comfortingly. “I’m sorry that if anyone were to be restrained to you, it ended up being a lousy gas station robber, but—”

“No, it’s…” you laugh under your breath. “It’s okay. And… you’re more than that. You even said it yourself. I really hope you get your fresh start after this, Billy.”

You were a comfort to him. You were understanding and patient and kind. You even made him forget he had major anger issues. “Me too…” he says quietly.