8 nights in hell [Billie Eilish]

NIGHT V.2: gimme your fucking money

• pov: Mara •

I felt sweat running down my temple when I made eye contact with the tied up bank employee. He sat on the floor, hands and feet bound together with zip ties and duct tape over his mouth. His eyes were wide with terror. A thin trickle of blood ran down his temple, an intense contrast to his sickly pale skin. The rest of his blood was at the end of the torch I was holding.

My eyes darted around the room after I could not bear to look at him any longer. I counted the doors, only two of them exits and the surveillance cameras, four of them here in the foyer alone. Lastly I focused on the screen in front of me. In one of the little black and white rectangles I could see a pixilated version of myself sitting behind the counter, nervously bouncing my leg. I resisted the urge to look up at one of the cameras and instinctively adjusted the mask over my face.

The bank employee moved a little and I shot him a warning glare. We both listened as two pairs of footsteps got quieter and disappeared down the hallway. Ricky was taking the second employee with him to the vault at gun point. Whatever safe deposit box number forty-nine contained was not worth these poor men's fear and trauma.

I watched Ricky in the surveillance cameras as he pressed the gun under the man's jaw. He shrunk back as Ricky yelled in his face and pulled out the key to the deposit box. Ricky had showed me how to delete the footage and then disable it. We would be out of here in a few minutes.

Suddenly the main entrance door burst open. I spun around as DankPunk69 was running towards me. "I tried to stop her but-"

"What are you doing?" I interrupted. "You're the lookout."

"She-" He turned around to where somebody was following him through the door. "I couldn't stop her."

A certain someone with the EREBOS name bernA.rd walked in.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered confused.

"Making sure you don't do something stupid." Billie pulled at my arm to take me away from the door to talk.

"Go back outside, I got this." I told DankPunk69 before turning back around. "Billie, what are you doing here?"

She glanced over her shoulder, adjusting the bandana over her face, as the lookout left the foyer. She lowered her voice even more. "You were gone the whole day, you didn't come to the show and you weren't even at the hotel. What was I supposed to do? This is the only way you will talk to me."

She looked around the foyer and at the tied up and gagged man in the corner. "Where's Ricky?"

I pointed behind me into the hallway. "You need to get out of here before he gets back."

I tried pushing Billie towards the exit. Ricky was in a bad mood and I wanted her far away from him. Admittedly I had done a terrible job at dealing with him on my own but she should not be here. Neither did I want her to be here with how conflicted my feelings where at the moment.

"No," Billie objected, "I'm not letting you do this again. About yesterday: I- I don't think we have time to talk right now. We need to do something about Ricky. Right now."

"Trust me, I tried." This was not the time for me to get caught up on Billie saying 'we' again. "I'll be ok but you need to leave. We can figure out a plan later."

Her eyes landed on the screen in front of me. "I think I already have one."

She explained her idea and after going back and forth we agreed on a plan. It started with the part I strongly disliked: we had to separate.
I looked after Billie as she walked down the hallway that Ricky had taken the banker. It felt wrong to be left behind in the foyer. I'm not alone, I reminded myself. She had my back. We got this.

I directed all my concentration towards my part of the plan.

~

• pov: Billie •

I stepped through the high security door into the room with the safe deposit boxes. It looked exactly as I had expected. The walls where lined with numbered metal hatches, stretching from the floor to the celling. The shiny metal all around made me feel like I was inside a steel tank.
One box lay open on a table top in the middle of the room. It was empty.

"Hey," I greeted the two men casually.

Ricky pulled his hand out of his jacked as if he had just put something away in his pocket. "Hu?"

He did a double take and shoved the banker into the corner, never lowering his gun. "What the..."

Mara had warned me that he knew who I was. We were too pressed for time for her to explain how. I had walked right into the lion's den but I would have still come here if I had known that I was getting myself in danger.

He still stared at me like he could not believe his eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Nothing." I leaned my hip against the door frame, looking at my nails as if I could see them through the gloves. "Just making sure my team doesn't get into trouble."

His eyes darted back and forth between me and the man whose head he was still aiming at. In the end he decided to tuck his gun away into the back of his pants.
Stupid, I judged internally. The banker was tied up and I was not.

Ricky came closer and seemed to grow with every step. I had always thought he looked intimidating and that had been without a balaclava and a gun on him. I reminded myself of the plan. We can do this, I told myself. I'm not alone, Mara's got my back.

"So," I spoke into the silence, keeping the tremble out of my voice. "Is this like a side job of yours or just something you like to do in your down time?"

"You came for her, didn't you?" Ricky interrupted. His stance was threatening, like he was getting ready to jump.

I took an instinctive step back without replying anything.

"Isn't this just perfect?" he continued with a mocking tone in his voice. "Aww, you two are too cute. Like Bonnie and Clyde. Or should I say Bonnie and Bonnie?"

There really was nothing but bullshit coming out of his mouth. I was tired of it already. I tried to estimate if he was close enough for me to dare and move on to the risky part of the plan.

I sucked in a breath as if shocked and pointed behind him. "Oh shit, he's escaping."

Ricky spun around to the banker who was not at all escaping but sitting in the corner, fearing for his dear life. As soon as he had his back to me I reached for his balaclava and ripped it from his head.

"Hey," he yelled. "Give it back!"

I hid it behind my back but he reached around me, trying to get it out of my hands. He had a strong smell to him, like a thirteen year old pubescent boy hiding from his mom that he had sneaked out to smoke. I did not flinch back, the maneuver was not yet fully completed.

"Did you say cheese?" I asked and nodded to the upper back corner of the room.

Ricky fell for it yet again and looked over his shoulder and directly into the lens of the security camera.

"Nice shot." I commented. "Let's hope the police thinks you're cute."

When he looked back at me there was pure rage on his face. He gave some sort of animalistic growl before grabbing my arm and reaching for the gun. Anytime now, I thought and closed my eyes.

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The Plan - Travis Scott

Sorry I know cliffhangers are my worst trademark but I won't stop