#desperadoff

Next thing Robyn knows is waking up in her bed in the stock house. She looks to her left but there’s nobody there. No Michael, no good morning with a smile, no arm she’s laying on. She feels… nothing. There’s only numbness. She gets up, takes a shower and puts some clothes on before going downstairs. The others are already up, or maybe still. Chris is standing in front of a table filled with money.

“What’s up, everything alright?”

“Yeah. We took a lot of cash yesterday. And a lot of fucking expensive diamonds.” his voice is weird.

“Are you okay?” She asks raising her eyebrow.

“Remember when I told you about that orange saphir?”

“Yeah, the big one?”

“Yep. It’s not here. I remember J took it but he doesn’t have it either. And it’s not in your bag. That fucking stone is worth 27 fucking dollars we need to find it…”

“Damn… where did J put it you can’t just forget where you put a 27 million diamond?!”

“Yep. He says he gave it to you. But it’s not in your pocket, and you didn't put it anywhere else either?” he asks looking at her intensively.

“I… no, he didn’t give me shit. What the fuck, now it’s my fault the thing is lost?”

“No I didn’t say that calm down, but we searched everywhere in his stuff and told me crying he doesn’t have it and he doesn’t want to die.”

Robyn can’t believe what she just heard. Why the fuck did he pull her into this, this pussy ass fucking bitch.

“Well that’s his problem?! Why are you giving me this look?” she already knows what’s next.

“Robyn we need to…”

“No fucking way! You don’t trust me enough to believe my word if I tell you I don’t have anything?” she’s shaking her head at him.

“We have to! We searched everybody else too and if you don’t have it it’s gone!”

“Well then it’s gone I won’t let you search my shit.” She says holding up the key to her room and putting it into her jeans. She feels betrayed, realizing he actually doesn’t have and trust in her at all.

“Give me that shit..” he says as he grabs her arm violently and takes the key out of her pocket.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she follows him as he walks past her, up the stairs.

“Hold her...” Chris says as he’s opening the door and two guys grab her from behind preventing her from following Chris. She doesn’t understand nothing anymore.

“You won’t find shit in there! I hope you’re happy, fucking won’t ever trust your fake ass again…” she shouts hoping he’d hear it.

“Shut the fuck up…” the guy on her left says, making her spit into his face.

“Fuck off you dumb shit I won’t go up there… I’ll sit down over here…”

He doesn’t say anything and takes off. They all too dumb to actually start a fight with her. She sits down on a couch. 5 minutes later J sits down next to her. She looks over with a deadly look, just to see him smirk. Then it hits her.

“What the fuck have you done?!” she says suddenly starting to feel again. It’s fear. Just in that moment Chris comes walking out her room with her jeans in his one hand, the orange shining saphir in his other.

“Explain.” he says with a cold look. Before she could even say a word she feels someone knock her out.

Darkness.

Thin air.

Her hands are hurting.

“Where am I?” she hears herself whisper, realizing she’s tied to a chair somewhere. She’s fucked. Suddenly she hears a door open and footsteps coming towards her. Someone takes off the paper bag that’s been put over her face. It’s Chris.

“Chris what the…”

“Shut the fuck up. I won’t hear it.”

“I didn’t take the diamond, I swear! I don’t know how…” before she can even finish the sentence Chris throws his fist into her face.

“I talk. Games are over, you understand me?” Robyn just nods with tears in her eyes.

“J told me about your plans with Michael. You wanted to leave huh? Wanted to fucking screw us over? One thing I can tell you, you’re gonna meet your lover soon enough. After you told us where the money of the first coup is. I know J didn’t take it now. He’s too dumb. You’re smart, you made us think you’re one of us but you ain’t. I started to trust you, to like you.” he says looking to the ground.

“Chris please believe me, he’s lying, please…” she whispers, trying to hold back her tears.

“That shit doesn’t work with me. I won’t hurt you Robyn, cause I can’t. Someone else will. He won’t listen either. Just tell me now where the money is and I’ll end this fast. No pain.”

“Chris can’t you see he’s fooling you! I don’t know nothing about…”

“Fuck you!! I warned you! Have fun with him…” Chris screams into her face before getting up again, storming out of the room right as one of the guys that robbed the bank with them enters. With a smile. He calmly walks up close, sitting down on a chair right in front of her.

“Sweetie where’s the money? Huh?” he’s slowly caressing her cheek before punching her with all his strength. “See, I’m not playing.”

“I don’t know!” Robyn cries out but he doesn’t hear.

“Where’s the money.” he says with a cold voice, hitting her again. And again.

One hour later she’s close to passing out and exhausted by the pain on the level of wanting to die. He hit her, spit in her face, touched her everywhere, made her feel like a piece of shit.

“I…” She can’t even get out a sentence anymore. He comes close.

“I’ll give you a break. I’ll be back in a few hours and until then you have time to remember you fucking whore…” his voice is getting more and more aggressive and as he backs up again he pulls out his gun, holds it against her arm and pulls the trigger. Just like that. “This will help you think.” He says as he leaves her behind, screaming loudly because of the pain.

"FUCK, FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE YOU WILL ALL ROT IN FUCKING HELL..."

The screaming doesn’t stop until she passes out about an hour later. The hours that she’s gone feel like an eternity to her. As if she’s trapped in this dream world, waking up every now and then for a short moment moaning from the pain, passing out again for what feels like a hundred times. But suddenly something wakes her up. She tries to lift her head but it’s so heavy. She looks down to her blood drained arm, moves it to see how bad it is.

“Ah fuck this shit…”

She throws her head back and lets out a sound that’s a mixture of pain and anger. While she’s trying to somehow free her hands which are tied behind her back, she suddenly hears noise from outside the door. She holds her breath, trying to hear what’s going on. Someone is having a fight. It’s getting louder, they are starting to scream at each other. All of a sudden there is a gun noise and police sirens appear from afar.

“What the…” She doesn’t understand. “…fuck I need to get out of this fucking room…” she says to herself as she desperately continues her attempts to get rid of the ties. The shouting noises get louder and louder, there are more sounds of guns. What the fuck is going on. The next moment she hears someone fall or stumble against the door, rattling the knob. Then the door opens, it’s J. He comes stumbling in, falls to the ground holding his bleeding shoulder, gets up again and lands just before Robyn. As he looks at her he sees a different person. She looks so cold it almost makes him shiver. Blood everywhere, no emotions in her face. She doesn’t say a word as she watches him crawl  to the back of the chair and untie her with a knife, cutting off all the vessels.

“Help me…” he groans as he’s done. She get’s off the chair, for a short moment playing with the thought of just leaving him there. Her arm hurts, fuck. All his fault. But not like this. He deserves something else than this. Still not saying a word she roughly turns him to the side, grabbing the knife out his hand, cutting off a piece of the jacket he’s wearing. She puts it around her wound from the shot, pulling it tight. Then she takes another piece of his jacket, drying the blood on his shoulder and binding it as tight as possible.

“You got a gun?”

“Yeah…” he grabs into his pants, pulling out a glock.

“Okay, here we go. Stay behind me…” she says with a cold voice and helps him up roughly before walking towards the door. Now she knows where they are, right under the room where she slept in. Which means they have to get to the hall and somehow reach the back door.

“Okay as soon as we reach the door you run and get any car. If you leave me here I will find and kill you. You will drive up to the door again and pick me up, I’ll try to get some bag so we at least get money out of this crap…” she’s not joking around nomore. He nods and they get going. They almost reached the corner as the guy that tortured Robyn the whole night suddenly stands right in front of them. He looks at Robyn, at the gun, at J and just in that moment without thinking for a milisecond, she blows a bullet through his head, making him fall to the ground like a doll. She’s shocked for a moment, looking at the dead face of him. Then she remembers what he did to her and they get going. She stops again. There’s a body, leaning against the couch right in front of them. Covered in holes from a gun. Its Chris. The guy she just shot shot him.  He’s not dead yet so they run up to him. Robyn tries to stop the blood, she doesn’t even know why, he broke her trust and let her get tortured. He looks at her as if he wanted to tell her he’s sorry.

“What?” He looks as if he wanted to say something. Robyn gets close so she can hear.

“Red… Chevvie…” and with those words the last breath leaves his body. If she felt something maybe a tear would’ve run down her cheek but she doesn’t. She’s numb.

“Let’s go!” They run towards the door, as they hear someone shout.

“Down!! To the ground!” Fuck what now, they try to hide behind the next wall and suddenly theres someone shooting again. The only thing she sees is the two police officers falling to the ground, lifeless. She turns around and sees someone hold a gun against J’s head. Without thinking she fires shot after shot until her magazine is empty. The two guys fall to the ground without even making a single move. J looks at her in shock.

“GO!” she shouts, making him continue to run towards the door. Again gun shots behind them, again new police sirens appearing. But there it is. The red Chevrolet pickup. Its open, and as they reach it she notices the bags on it’s backseat. J gets in still dealing with his wounded arm.

Robyn Fenty

Jasper aka ‘J’

Chris

Michael

Brandon

It’s dark. Nobody makes a sound. Robyn is in the car with Chris, Brandon and two others. They’ve been here since about an hour now, waiting for the others to return. Right about now they should be done with the hole. They had to use a special driller, as quiet and strong as possible. This is the fourth day in Phoenix. The first few days they searched for inside connections, bribed a security guy and nervously sat around waiting for news. Now the day has come. Suddenly they hear the walkie-talkie make a sound.

“…me? Hello? Do you hear me? Chris?” It’s one of the guys inside the building.

“I, yes I’m here how’s it going?” he asks nervously. You can tell this coup is his biggest one yet.

“Yeah we’re coming out now.” Everybody lets out a sigh, Brandon light-honks the car in front of them with J inside to tell them the first step was successful.

“Okay now be careful getting out of there, make sure nobody will notice the hole.”

“Got it.” he said and the walkie-talkie went off again.

“Your turn…” Robyn says looking at Brandon. He nods and takes a deep breath. Normally he’s always calm never showing a single emotion but you can tell he’s nervous. He closes his black hoodie and get’s out the car. His part will be shutting down the power in this whole area. He has to go two blocks towards east, there’s a building site. It’s already dark so there are no more workers. All he has to do is climb down there, drill a small hole into the right spot, link his tablet, and manipulate the power supply. Sounds easier if you say it just like that but really nobody else could do this. Brandon is a genius when it comes to stuff like that. His dark silhouette disappears as he turns into the side street two blocks away. Just a few moments later four dark silhouettes quietly get into the car behind them. They’re back. Robyn takes Brandon’s seat and starts the van, driving up next to J’s car. He and two others get out and into the van. They drive around the block, to the main entry of the bank building, waiting for the power to turn off. Every now and then Robyn takes a look into the back mirror, J sitting right in her view. She can’t stand his dumb face anymore.

“What is he doing god damnit” Chris mumbles as 15 minutes have passed and the power is still on.

“He will make it, calm down. I know he will.” Robyn says looking at Chris. She’s never seen him like this, it’s all or nothing today.

“What if…” J starts but in that very moment the lights turn off. They all look at the entry. If they didn’t succeed with turning off the emergency generator it should turn on one minute after the general power went out.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

1 Minute.

The power stays out. Without a word everybody takes their bags, puts on their masks and gets out of the car. J is getting out too, he took Michael’s spot. If Michael was still here J would just be driving the car, and everything would have went differently.

“Go go go!” Chris says as he stands besides the entry waiting for everybody to go inside. Two of the others go in first, then Robyn, then J, then Chris. It all goes so fast, the big safe is in the basement. The two guys make sure everybody who’s still in the building stays on the ground and doesn’t call for any help. Chris, J and Robyn go downstairs, taking out every security that gets in their way with electro shocks, although J looks like he would have gladly shot every one of them, with them the shift boss who has the code to open it. He refuses to obey first, but after a few convincing hits by Chris he opens the door. The most important thing now: the diamonds. There are several kinds of them in this safe, one more expensive than the other. Robyn gets the small bags and Chris and J take as much money as they can get. Just as they head to the door again J trips and stumbles against Robyn making them both fall to the ground.

“Fuck, sorry.”

“Fucking watch out you prick!” Robyn shouts, punching him as she gets up again.

J still lies on the ground with that weird look and as Chris walks past him he pulls him up and pushes him to the door.

“What are you doing, go go go!”

All three packed with full bags run back upstairs towards the entry. As they reach the door, the two other guys still waiting, Robyn almost gets a heart attack. Blue lights everywhere, they’re fucked.

“SHIT!” Chris shouts. “Fuck this shit what do we do now? Fuck!”

“Calm down there has to be a way to get us o…”

“This is the police. Please come out of the building with your hands up, you’re surrounded. It’s over.” they hear one of the officers say through the speaker of one of their cars. No way this is just gonna end like that. It’s still dark so they can’t see inside the building which is good. This gives them a little more time.

“We’re going up.” Robyn suddenly says.

“What?” Chris looks at her with a confused face, this is the only way out.

“We’re going to the top of this building. And we’re going to climb to this one.” She points out the window at the building across the alley. The other’s look at each other for a moment, nod and start running. One last look back at the people they put inside the small office room so they would not cause any trouble. One of them snitched, but there’s no time to find out who now. Obviously the elevators aren’t working so they have to run up the stairs all 19 floors. It feels like forever. As they reach the top, all three stumble out of the door on the roof.

“Where?!” J asks with a desperate face.

“Shut the fuck up.” Robyn snaps back, walking towards the edge of the building to get an oversight.

“Where are you?” suddenly the walkie-talkie goes off. It’s Brandon.

“Hey! We went to the top of the building, where are you?”

“I managed to get away before the police arrived. Are you trying to jump over to the other building?”

“We are.” Chris says looking over at the others. “We don’t have much of a choice anymore.”

“Do it! The police already went inside they will notice soon that you must have gotten out somehow. Hurry! I’m in the alley on the other side of the building, there’s a door right next to me. The others already drove to our meeting point. Good luck!”

And without even saying a word, Chris grabs his bag tight, takes a few steps back and sprints towards the edge. The two guys right behind him, jumping as if there weren’t 50 meters of nothing beneath them. Robyn and J just watch them, mouth and eyes wide open as they push themselves away from the building, landing on the other side. That looked easy! So J does the same, and lands just behind the stone wall that separates them from the 19 floors beneath them. Robyn swallows nervously, she’s always kind of been scared of heights. She doesn’t look down, that would terrify her too much. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and starts running. Chris and J are standing right at the edge, ready to catch her. She jumps off the tiny wall and flies over to them, landing on the wall, slowly tilting backwards towards the chasm. Her eyes grow wide and she feels like she’s already falling, but the two men grab each one arm of hers and pull her onto the building.

“Oh my fucking god…” she groans as they get back up again.

“You okay?” Chris shakes her shoulders and looks into her eyes to see if she somehow hurt herself or is in a shock.

“Yeah let’s get going…” she mumbles and they run towards the door that leads to the staircase. Thank god it’s not locked. 19 floors later they reach the ground and spot the door that leads towards the alley where Brandon is waiting. He’s still there.

“Get in!” And just as they jump into the van he accelerates with screeching tires. He backs up, does an action movie like turn and races off to the next street.

“Fuck!” Brandon shouts as they spot the police cars parking at the side of the road as they race past them.

“Fuck they saw us…” and he hits the gas pedal even more. He turns block after block to somehow get rid of them but they always stay close.

“There!” Robyn says as she spots a dark building site. They drive in there, turn off the lights and hide behind the big crane. Blue lights everywhere. They can’t just drive out there again, the police would recognize their van.

“Shit what do we do now?” Chris whispers as if the police could hear him if he talked any louder. They all look at Brandon as he grins.

“I’m prepared for this. You know where I got this van and what I did to it?” They don’t get what he’s trying to say so he gets out.

“B, get back in for fucks sake!” one of the other guys whispers as Brandon starts to do something on the front of the car. They all look at each other and get out too.

“I got this van from an old hippie couple. Cause I couldn’t just go to a car dealer. And I let a friend of mine paint it black. But this is no regular paint. It’s actually a film…”

as he talks he grabs under the car body and pulls of the film. What it exposes is brightly colored flowers and drawings of stickmen. What a genius.

“No fucking way…” Robyn says as she gets to the back of the car and starts pulling from under the body too. Slowly they’re bringing back the van’s old hippie shine as they remove every inch of the black film from it.

“Damn that couple was crazy…” J says as he pulls off the last piece on the hood, exposing the drawing of a couple making love. “… who would drive around in a car with this on its front hood…”

“You can bet no bank robber would ever consider that shit… hold up…” Robyn walks off towards the small square of green behind the crane and picks a few of the daisies that grow there. She opens her hair and looks at Brandon.

“No.” he just says looking at her with a very serious face.

“Yes…” she says as she takes his glasses, pokes the glasses out and gives them back to him. “… I’ll just need the frame.” she says with a wink. Brandon sighs and gets into the back of the car, as well as the others. Robyn and her new hippie look get into the front seat and start off the car again. This has to work.

“Okay let’s do this…”

“Do you know the way?” Chris whispers as Robyn slowly drives onto the street again.

“I do…”

And half an hour, dozens of police cars that didn’t give two fucks about the hippie van and a lot of fear sweat later they reach the meeting point on the highway, an old abandoned fuel station. As they arrive the others are already jumping up and down, they really made it.

„What’s up?“ Robyn throws herself next to J on the couch. He blinks, still half asleep.

“I… not much obviously…”

“This couch is comfortable as fuck to be honest…” she says pushing her hands into the cushion.

“Yeah? Let’s switch. I take the bed, you take the couch.”

“Yeah… no. Not really. Get your ass up now.” She gets up again and grabs his hand to pull him up.

“Would you please stop this? You’re annoying as fuck let me fucking wake up first. No wonder you wouldn’t ever leave your room with your new toyboy. Did y’all have fun the past weeks?” he says pushing her back to the couch, starting to walk away.

“What the… calm your ass down, damn. That’s none of your business, small dicked pussy…” Robyn calls after him, causing several laughters from all over the building. What is his problem? He seems really weird lately, she thinks to herself.

She looks up and sees her toyboy Michael walk out of her room, stretching his arms and lifting his shirt, exposing his perfect stomach.

“Totally worth it…” she mumbles as she watches him walk towards her.

“Yo what’s up, you good?” he asks with a yawn. She nods with a smirk.

“Could you get me something to eat?”

“Yeah sure, be right back.” he gets in his car and drives off. That was too easy. Robyn really got herself a toyboy, a butler with benefits basically. Good day. She gets up to go search for Chris. They would prepare the cars today and drive to Phoenix tomorrow. He’s sitting in his black van, turning the police radio of J around in his hands.

“Fuck… I don’t get this fuckup… how do I even…”

“Give it to me…” Robyn grabs it, pushes one button and gives it back. Walkie-talkie voices start coming out of it and Chris let’s out a sigh.

“Thanks. You ready for tomorrow? I went through everything again and again tonight, this really sounds good.”

“I am. I wanna do this already,  I don’t know how this could go wrong.”

“It won’t. We all have to stay focused. Maybe talk to your friend, he seems weird, and it’s annoying. Usually he would end up at the bottom of some sea for the fuck ups he has done the short time he’s here. He should be glad I’m even allowing him to come to Phoenix with us and drive the car.”

“He’s all good, he’s just not adjusted yet, give him some time.”

“No… time is over already.” He says with a serious face. Robyn remembers, when they first got here and J told Chris about the lost bag, he said after this coup he’ll be a dead man if the money is still lost. J doesn’t even know in what danger he is probably. She should go search for him.

Meanwhile J is sitting on the roof, throwing stones into the bushes in front of the house. He thought he’d be more happy here but he isn’t. He thought he saved Robyn, that she’d be thankful but she isn’t. He wants her. But she’s with that prick. She’s happy and he’s not. If he won’t share happiness with her nobody should. Slowly he starts planning crazy plots in his head, not even noticing where this is going. In this very second, he crosses a line. He makes a decision.

“Hey, what you doing up here.” he hears someone ask from behind. No fucking way, worst timing possible. “Got nothing better to do than throw these poor stones?” Michael asks with a smirk. It’s infuriating J.

“Fuck off. Seriously.” J says as he continues to throw stone after stone.

“I’m just lighting one up, chill. You should take a few hits too with your PMS ass.”

“What?” J gets up, aggressively looking at Michael.

“Take a hit.” he holds the blunt in his hand towards J. But J already sees red. He smashes it our of Michaels hand and pushes him back.

“Get your fucking hand out my face.”

“Yo chill, touch me again I’ll throw you off this roof!”

“Watch your damn mouth, fucking retard.”

That’s it, Michael grabs J by his neck, throwing him to the ground.

“You watch your mouth. I don’t wanna fight, but don’t ever call me retard again.”

J saw Michael wasn’t intending to start something, but now he sees his chance. He gets up, sprints towards Michael, lifting his body in the air. Well, he tried. But it was enough. Michael pushes him back, stumbling a few steps back, before he falls over backwards, down the building. J looks shocked for a moment but then he cleans himself up and walks towards the stairs. He looks back for a second and sees two cups of coffee standing next to a bag from some bakery. As he turns back around he sees Robyn standing right at the top of the stairs. Shit.

“Have you seen Michael?” Somewhere in the back he hears him groan so he reacts.

“Robyn oh my god help me. He was behind me and we started to fight, he pushed me to the ground and then I pushed back and he stumbled, he fell down Robyn.” He says tears rolling down his cheek. She doesn’t know him well enough to see that these are fake tears.

“ Oh my god…” without any more questions asked she rushes down the stairs.

„What have you done?!“ Robyn screams at J with tears in her eyes. She’s standing next to Michael, holding his hand. He’s laying on a table, the guy with the glasses right next to him trying to figure out what injuries he’s got. They can’t just bring him into the hospital, if you’re a criminal and you get injured, you got a big ass problem.

“Calm down, please. Maybe it’s just a few sprains. Calm him down so I can search his body for injuries.” The glasses guy tells Robyn as she starts sobbing again. His name is Brandon by the way. She nods and looks down at Michael, laying her hand on his forehead. It feels like he’s melting on the inside. He let’s out a groan as Brandon feels up his ribs, not a good sign. He looks up at Chris who is standing right next to Robyn with a serious face.

“This is not good. He needs to go to a hospital. Or else he’ll die of inner bleedings.”

“They know him! There’s no fucking hospital we could bring him to without getting arrested. Our only chance would have been Dr. Stevens but he got locked up a few weeks ago, stupid motherfucker.” Chris runs his hands over his face, kneeing down next to the table.

“I don’t care, I’ll bring him. I will go to prison I don’t care we won’t let him die here like this.” Robyn says looking down to Chris.

“Listen. You think we don’t care about him as much as you do?! If it was his dec…” Chris begins to say as Michael interrupts him.

“Hey… come here…” he’s looking at Robyn. She stands next to his head and knees down, running her hand through his hair. “Let this be my decision okay? I live for these people.” He stops, making a painful face. He’s looking to the ceiling as if he’s praying for the pain to stop. “I live for them. This whole thing is my life. They helped me to be happy again and that was all worth it. We’re a family. And you’re family too. But you… you need to understand this. I won’t let you go to prison for this. They will find everyone else too, trust me they will.” He says looking closely at Robyn. She’s shaking her head, trying to hold back the tears.

“Robyn…” J puts his hand on her shoulder trying to calm her down. “… they probably wouldn’t even treat him…”

“You shut your mouth and get out my face…” she says looking at J as if she wanted to choke him to death.

“Hey, no. It wasn’t his fault, it was an accident. Don’t blame…” Michael whispers with pain in his voice. Maybe because he still sees the good in J, or maybe because he’s just a nice person. He could have let them leave J in the desert but instead he defends him. He shouldn’t have done that, as we will find out later. Robyn looks back at Michael and smiles painfully. She doesn’t want to loose him. He’s the closest thing to love she got in a while and he’s too much of a good person to die like this.

“So… what do you want us to do.” Chris says as he gets up, looking at the big blue spot on Michael’s stomach. Inner bleedings. Michael rolls his eyes in pain.

“Fuck… I can’t…” he groans as Robyn puts her hand on his forehead again. “… roll me one. And then pack up your things, bring me down to the coast and give me… give me a gun.”

“No… no Michael no, not like this maybe Brandon can…” she says looking over at him but he’s inspecting Michael’s stomach right now, watching it turn more and more blue and red.

“Ah fuck… hurry…” the others all walk past Michael, give him a pat and start packing things up for Phoenix. Robyn is still shaking her head. “You stay here with me. Don’t leave me.” he says looking at her as if she was an angel. She’s dying on the inside. Chris nods and leaves too, Brendon sits down at another table rolling one for Michael. “We have to do this. Or else everything we’ve done would have been for nothing. You understand that right?” he takes Robyn’s hand.

“I don’t. But I have to.” She gets a chair, sits down next to him and lays her head on his shoulder. She’ll miss this feeling. He let’s out a groan again.

“No! leave your head there please. Please.” he whispers as she lifts her head again.

One hour later she’s still sitting next to him, but by the cliff. The whole crew standing behind them. They all already said goodbye and Robyn gives him a last kiss. He tries to smile but he’s in too much pain.

“Please” he whispers as she hesitates with the gun in her hand. She puts it into his one hand, lights a blunt and puts it into his other. He nods, attempting to say something but it won’t come out.

“Don’t. It’s okay.” Robyn says as she kisses his cheek. He looks at her with this look again as if she was an angel. “I love you.” she says leaning her head against his, before she gets up. It was a lie. Maybe if he had more time it wouldn’t have been, in some weeks, some months. But right now it is. A beautiful lie. Without saying a word they all take a last look back and leave. Back at the stock house nobody dares to speak. They all get their last things and get in the cars.

“Robyn…” J says as she walks past him, but she doesn’t react. As if he was invisible. J still isn’t down from his crazy trip, on the inside he was actually happy that Michael fell down the roof. But she still doesn’t look at him the way she did at Michael. It’s infuriating him even more.

Robyn meanwhile tries to cope with the sadness and anger in her stomach. She couldn’t stand looking at J anymore. Maybe it was an accident but she’ll never forgive him.

Just as they leave the stock house, driving onto the dirt road there’s this sound. A loud, screaming sound of a bullet leaving a gun. They all know what it means, but nobody says anything. Some feel sadness deep inside. Some feel more.

Robyn feels numb. The shot runs through her every vein, into the deepest core of her heart and brain and suddenly she doesn’t feel anymore. She knows feelings make her weak. She knows Michael made her seem weak. She doesn’t want that anymore. He’s gone and she doesn’t have to care anymore. This moment is a turning point for her.

Chris feels angry. He doesn’t let it show but he wants nothing more than to run a bullet through J’s head. He was too nice. He should have been stricter. He should have thrown him out. He should have never brought new people into the group. He won’t be the same anymore, too. They had several people die lately, but Michael was different. He always had a reason to smile. He wasn’t the most intelligent but he knew the right things to say in the right moments. He was too good to be one of them, Chris always knew that. This is also a turning point for him.

J meanwhile enjoys the fresh air breezing though the opened windows of the car. He wishes he could turn on some music but the others are annoyingly quiet and sad so he doesn’t. He’s in a car with Brandon and 2 others. He feels happy and released. He feels like he got a little step closer to his goal. Now Robyn is alone again, she doesn’t feel this much of a boss no more huh? She should have stayed with him. Now he’s on the winning team, she just doesn’t know yet. As soon as he gets rid of her he’ll finally be happy. This is his life, not hers.

The sound of laughter wakes Robyn up again. She opens her eyes, for one moment not realizing where she is. As she looks around it comes back to her mind. This is probably daily routine now, waking up and thinking ‘oh right… I’m a criminal now.’ She gets up and notices she’s been wearing the same shit for the past two days now.

“Damn… I gotta go cop something… clean. And I gotta take a shower…” she says to herself. She walks out of the room. This must’ve been some kind of factory before, where she sleeps now seems to be the office of the boss, from where he had overview over everything going on. Good.

“Hey princess.” She hears someone call her from down the stairs. It’s J.

“Hey what’s up. Had a good night?” She says punching him into the shoulder.

“Yeah no. Think I gotta get used to this life first it’s new to me.”

“You’ll adjust fast. We gotta get some clean clothes tho. At least I, you basically kidnapped me and now I’m wearing this ugly hoodie all day.” she says looking down on herself with a disgusted face.

“Yeah let’s talk to Chris and search for some mall.”

Three hours and a lot of money later they return with new, criminal-life-worthy clothes and Robyn feels like a person again. As they arrive some kind of meeting seems to happen.

“Oh hey, there they are.” Chris is standing in front of the now pushed together couches, everyone sitting on them looking at him. “Sit down. Okay so… fellas, that is our first female sister, Robyn. And this is J. They joined us and they will be respected, unless they act like small dicked pussies.” the sound of an agreeing mumble goes around and Chris goes on with the meeting.

“So. What we’re planning right now is…” he points at the picture of a big building on the board next to him.”… this baby. “

“Phoenix Bank building…” Robyn says as if shot from a gun.

Chris looks at her with a surprised look on his face “Yeah. You’re the first one here to know that damn thing. So anyways, our victim will be the Phoenix Bank building. We already wanted to do this for a while but never could, because the security system is admittingly good. Until this genius here found the one weak spot.” Chris walks over to a thin guy with glasses. “If you dig a hole into the basement where nobody ever spends their time, you reach a big grey thing called backup energy. Or more like you dig into the room where it’s in. You go inside, fuck that thing up, cover the hole and leave. Then you cut off the energy of the bank neighborhood and boom, darkness. That will be our chance.”

The faces of everyone light up, this sounds like a good plan.

“Any more questions or can we move forward to the detailed planning?”

“Uhm…” Suddenly everything is quiet, everybody looks at Robyn. Usually Chris tells them the plan and they do as he says. “… is this the first coup like that that you do? I mean what kind of coups have you done until now?”

“This is the biggest one. We never had enough information to get at them but now we do. Why?” he looks at her not with an insulted or annoyed face, but as if he really respects her opinion. That’s something really rare to happen.

“So nobody had any experience in robbing a bank with that kind of high quality security? Like did you guys get plans or have someone on the inside that has access to working plans? Anything?”

“Actually no. We didn’t get that far. You know we started this whole thing a few months ago, setting us a goal. If we complete this coup and another one in that class, we’re done. We will all have enough to start the life we want to. So this bank is like the test if we’re the real deal…”

Robyn nods.

“So… enlighten us. What’s on the To-Do-List.” Chris says sitting down on his chair next to the board. Robyn gets up and walks to the front, getting a closer look at the plan they came up with so far.

“Where do I start…” She mumbles before turning around, standing in front of everybody like a teacher. 2 hours, a whole lot of changes, a whole lot of new things to do and a whole lot of tired faces later she was done. There it is, a plan that could actually work. Chris is almost jumping around because he’s so thrilled about this. Everybody else looks pretty impressed too. Robyn has always been a smart girl. But she never got recognition for that and when she got it it somehow slipped away, just like Harvard. It feels good to get some of that again.

“Good job. We got a lot to do but this feels better. I’m glad we got you here!” Chris tells her before he grabs his beer and disappears in his room.

“”Hey, good job. I started to feel kinda bad about this but damn you turned it around.”

Robyn looks up and sees this big good looking man in front of her. How did she not notice him yet?

“Are y’all too scared to say something against Chris’ plans?” She answers with a smirk. He could easily be a model, no joke. And also with the first word he said she knew he wasn’t the brightest head.

“Nah I just think if he doesn’t come up with something good, who else will? Know what I mean?” he says looking down on her.

“… yeah I guess.” Meh fuck it, she thinks. Why not.

They talk for a bit more and smoke on the roof for the rest of the day. He has this ‘I look hot as fuck and I get what I want’-attitude and she’s too tired to resist.

“You know… I didn’t meet a woman like you in a long time. You gotta understand why I’m acting a little thirsty right now.” What kind of stupid statement is that?

Robyn is just about to slip off, trying to keep her eyes open. J suddenly stops the car, getting her wide awake again.

“What are you doing?”

“Stay in the car.” He says without looking over before he gets out. She watches him walk and notices where he just parked. Yeah right. He wanted to sell his car. She suddenly feels kind of sad, this car has a place in her heart. She always liked muscle cars, but this one is just the bomb. She sees him coming back, a fat guy by his side. ‘Damn he looks like he got a baby planking in his belly’, she whispers to herself in amusement. J waves at her to get out.

“So this is my wife, Carol. Like I told you, today was supposed to be all special and she just doesn’t like the car.” Robyn kind of felt insulted. But she played along.

“Who took a shit in your head, really. That fuck is ugly as hell.” They both looked at her as if she just insulted their mothers or something. Understandable.

“Well anyways, I can’t give you more than 5k for this without a check through. That’ would take a few days. And I got no cars here either that got the same value so… there’s that.” he says with a fake sorry face. They have enough money with them so that wasn’t the problem.

“How much for that one?” J pointed at a grey Dodge pickup. The basic one you see a hundred times a day in this country.

“Well if I take your Monte, I’d say 5.” He says disgustingly chewing on the stick thing in his mouth. She looks over to J, and just as he’s about to say something that probably wouldn’t have been very nice she clapped her hands.

“Oh my I love that Dodge!!! Babe let’s take it!!” She jumps J and looks at the car as if it was made out of diamonds and gold. J plays along.

"Uhm... I... get the keys, I'll go get the money." He says rolling his eyes walking towards the Monte. If she didn't do something J would've fucked this up. Probably started a fight, getting him and Robyn arrested in the worst case. Robyn follows him as the fat guy gets the keys. She takes all their stuff out of the beauty and carries it over to the Dodge.

10 Minutes later they are back on the road again, hovering over the highway in this big ass pickup.

“Hey uhm… there might be something I should tell you before we get to the coast. I kept it from you cause… you know… one step at a time.” She sits up, looking at him with big eyes.

“Something?”

“Well… I didn’t exactly tell you how I got the idea of taking that money and leave. I had help. A few weeks ago I met this guy at a bar, I was drinking as always. He started talking to me and somehow the conversation lead to him asking if I would be interested in leaving the town to join that group. It’s like a group of…”

“A group? Are you fucking with me right now? What fucking group, a bunch of old horny hookers? That’s where you’re taking me?” She can’t believe what she just heard, this whole thing was a huge mistake.

“No… I don’t, listen. He offered me that. It sounded good so I accepted it. They’re doing robberies once or twice a month, the town where that hut is in has corrupt police that does not give two fucks.” He says that as if the whole thing didn’t sound completely shady and wrong.

“You’re taking me to a gang that robs banks for a living? That’s your idea of ‘You made a good choice’ are you fucking retarded?” She looks out the window trying to keep the tears back. What is she even doing here?

“Listen. As soon as we get there you’ll see what it’s like. While you were asleep before we went to that diner I called that guy and told him you’re with me. You’re good believe me!” He looked over, just to see her looking out the window, earphones plugged in and eyes closed. This will be a long ass ride.

A door slam wakes Robyn up again. It’s broad daylight she must’ve been asleep for very long. She looks to her left, no J in sight. As she sits up, looking out the front window, there’s the sea. Endless horizon, blue sky. Still that door slam in her head she figures he probably just got out a few moments ago and opens the door. That smell of the sea is kind of peaceful, letting her forget everything that’s going on in her head right now for a moment.

“Yo Robyn!! Come over here!” She hears J’s voice from behind. He’s standing in front of a not so small hut, more of an old stockhouse or something. With him is a man looking as if he just time traveled from the wild west into 2016. She looks down, she could just take the car and drive back. She could tell them she got kidnapped. Maybe she’d even get money if she told the police about this group of burglars.

“Yo!!! Robyn!!!” J calls again.

“What’s up with this ‘yo’, you trying to be cool or something?” She calls back. Leaving would be too dangerous, those men don’t look as if they would be nice to somebody who snitched on them. The cowboy man, meanwhile, is cracking up next to J who just stands there with his cheeks all red.

“You look embarrassed what’s up?” Robyn says jokingly as she walks towards them and shakes the hand of the man. If looks could kill…

“Hello there beauty. My name is Chris and this is all mine. We plan coups and we mostly succeed and if you’re doing good you can stay. Got it? Depending on how much work you do you get an certain percentage of the haul. We may be criminals but we fair.” He says with a grin, starting to walk towards the stockhouse.

“You will get to know everybody here fast. We’re 12 men… 13 men and one woman now. We’re onto something new right now maybe y’all have some good ideas. Don’t you dare to leave or snitch, we’ll kill you.” He says suddenly turning around looking at them with the most serious face. Robyn did well not trying to leave and snitch on them. They’re standing in the middle of the hall now. A few cars and a few bikes standing around, a few couches and tables randomly placed here and there, and men sleeping and chilling on them. Nobody bats an eye at them, they all mind their own business. Well… this looks better than Robyn expected.

“Y-yeah no sure. We uhm… we still have that money in the car. From where I met you, remember?” J stutters.

“Ah right. Go get the money kiddo, I’ll show your girlfriend where y’all will sleep.”

“Do I look like he’s my boyfriend?” Robyn says raising an eyebrow. J looks at her even more deadly now, she should probably stop.

“Actually no. Two of our peeps died last month so we got enough space you can have your own bed.” Chris said with a neutral face. Damn he’s really cold Robyn thought to herself. What worries her even more: She kind of likes it here. They’re just about to go up the stairs to the room where Robyn is supposed to sleep, as J comes running back. Two bags in his hand.

“I… uhm… one bag is gone. I don’t know wh…”

“What do you mean? You two fuckers robbed a bank filled with police bribe money are you aware of that? How fucking much was in there?” Chris’ face turns red making him look really scary. J’s face kind of turns green, you can see he’s really close to peeing himself. Robyn, for whatever reason, has to contain herself cause on the inside she’s crying of laughter again.

“About… one…”

“One what? Speak up little boy.” Everyone was looking at them now.

“One Million…” He almost whispers. Robyn looks over at him with big eyes.

“WHAT??” she hears herself say. She didn’t know that was that much money, the bags were not that big. Chris stays weirdly calm.

“Okay let me guess. You put the diamonds in there. And also you forgot to tell your friend here how much you guys were stealing really apparently.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Lemme tell you one thing. I know you hid that shit somewhere. I just know. You look like a small dicked pussy and small dicked pussys do shit like that. But I’m nice. I’m a nice man. So as long as I don’t have prove I won’t kill you. And also we need you for the next two coups. If the money is still gone until then, I’ll kill you. That clear?”

J just nods, looking to the ground. That was a good ass beginning.