Hawk Heart

1. Shadow's Descent

The parking lot seemed to get impossibly darker as the night grew. Shadows descending with menacing claws to overwhelm everything around. The single street light around a hundred meters away from where I was, didn't do much to illuminate the space around me. I glanced at the supermarket, a good kilometer away from where I had parked the car. The lights inside almost like little pinpricks. I glanced at my phone. It was half past midnight.

Where the fuck were they? It had almost half an hour.

I leaned against the car seat and took deep breaths. Counting slowly as I waited for them to arrive. It had been a dangerous idea from the get go. But when had that ever stopped Zeph?

One. Two. Three.

What if they had got caught? Surely, I would hear some commotion? And then what?

Four. Five.

Unless they had been overwhelmed by force. In which case I wouldn't hear anything. Should I go and check? Was it too late?

Six. Seven.

Zeph, where the fuck are you?

Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I saw three familiar figures making their way towards the car. They walked briskly, their arms filled with bulging bag packs. I heaved a sigh of relief and quickly opened the door as Zeph slipped into the passenger seat, placing the bag on his feet on the car floor. He was panting heavily, perhaps from carrying the bags. Apart from that, he looked unhurt. The uneasy knot in my stomach came undone.

I waited till the rest of them had settled in and then turned the ignition on as we were off into the night.

"What the fuck took you so long?" I asked.

"Shut up, mom," Zeph responded as Zia let out a tiny giggle. "The guy wouldn't let up easy. So we had to...rough him up a bit."

I didn't dare ask him what he meant by that. The only time I had ever witnessed him 'rough-up' anyone had been five years ago. The day I had met him. The day I had become one of the Hawks.

"Zeph..isn't that dangerous?" I asked tentatively. "If you keep causing so much chaos...they're...they're gonna come after you. They have your posters all over the Capital."

Zeph scoffed. "Yep, seen those. I think they kinda got my hair wrong though. Isn't it darker than it looks on the poster?"

I grit my teeth, not reacting to his mockery. Of course he would never take these warnings seriously.

"Besides," he spoke, "what fucking choice do I have? I don't have a fucking millionaire dad to leech off of, Goldie."

I flinched at his words. Zeph had always been extremely rough with his words, severed around the edges. Even so, I couldn't help but think his patience with me was falling more and more each day. Maybe on some level, he was worried about the posters, only he wouldn't admit it.

"Zeph," Zia spoke softly. "He was just worried."

Zeph didn't respond, leaning against the car as he gazed outside silently. An awkward silence hung in the air.

"Is he...okay?" I asked after a while, "The store manager. Is he okay?"

"Er...he should be, yes," Zia said. "Maybe...a bit traumatised."

She was sugarcoating whatever it is that they had done to get the supplies. They were no strangers to robbing stores, only now with the peacekeepers having their identity, I couldn't help but be terrified that their ruse would soon be up. I gazed at Zeph from the corner of my eye. He was quiet, his slate grey eyes fixed straight ahead as he leaned against the window.