Sophie's P.O.V
Sophie felt chills run through her body as her, Pheonix, and Carter walked in the night.
It was chilly and Sophie regretted not bringing a jacket.
"How far are we?" Sophie asked, directing the question to Pheonix.
"Uh about five minutes," Pheonix replied, looking at the directions on her phone.
Sophie nodded and continued to walk and out of nowhere she ran right into a low tree branch. The impact caused her to stagger back, causing Pheonix and Carter to burst into laughter.
Sophie put a hand to her pained forehead as she glared at them. "Shut up!"
"Sophie, how do you run into a tree branch?!" Pheonix asked, cracking up.
Sophie felt her cheeks heat up. "It's because it's dark out!" She defended.
"Nah, only Sophie would be this clumsy," Carter joked.
Sophie snapped her head around to face him and shoved him as she exclaimed, "Ugh shut up!"
That only made Carter laugh even more which then turned into a shoving match between Sophie and Carter.
"Easy there lovebirds, don't make me feel like a third wheel," Pheonix commented, rolling her eyes.
"Be quiet," Sophie snapped as she felt her cheeks flame even more at the name "lovebirds."
Pheonix snickered and Sophie was afraid to turn and see Carter's reaction.
Luckily, she didn't have to worry about the sudden awkwardness since she could see the bank up ahead.
"We're here," Pheonix confirmed as they approached the entrance.
"How are we getting in?" Carter asked.
"Leave it to the expert," Pheonix said as she pulled out a special key and unlocked the front door.
"I disabled the alarms and cameras for a few minutes so we have to act quickly," Pheonix explained as they slowly walked in the dark bank. "And be careful not to step into any laser beams that could trigger any extra alarms," she added.
Sophie and Carter nodded as they slowly made their way across the front area towards the back.
Sophie felt a bit nervous because she felt she would mess this up somehow. She really hoped she didn't because it would definitely not look good to Mai.
She could do this, she told herself.
Though the tree branch could say otherwise.
Eventually, they made it to the back and there was another locked door. It was the safe where they kept all the money and gold that was behind it.
"Step back," Pheonix warned as she placed another gadget on the safe door.
They all stepped back as the gadget hissed and beeped, followed by a loud click that shook the place while opening the door.
They slowly made it in and turned on the lights to find rows and rows of cash, coins, gold, and silver.
"Woah," Sophie gasped under her breath. It was all worth so much and here they were only inches away from it all.
"We don't have time to take everything so just take as much as you can hold. And hurry, because we only have about two minutes left," Pheonix warned as she started stuffing her pockets with cash.
"Well this is gonna be fun," Carter exclaimed as he ran across the room and stuffed gold coins in his pockets.
Sophie smiled and started to grab a few piles of hundred dollar bills. She felt so much power but she had a small feeling in her stomach that was telling her that this wasn't right.
Well none of what she was doing or who she was was right so it didn't matter.
Just stop worrying, is what Pheonix had told her.
Sophie heard laughter and turned to see Carter playing around and knocking over all the coins and cash.
"Carter stop goofing off and making a mess!" Sophie hissed.
"Catch!" Carter exclaimed, whipping a block of gold at her.
Sophie freaked and at the last second she moved her head out of the way before it would have hit her square in the face. "CARTER!" She yelled, grabbing a pile of coins and throwing it all at him.
Her anger only made him laugh even more.
THIS DUDE—
Sophie then started to attack him and they ended up rolling in piles of cash, tackling each other.
Eventually, Sophie found herself letting out a bunch of giggles and couldn't stop.
They stopped fighting for a second and her eyes locked with Carter's.
They were breathing heavily and Sophie looked to see she was laying on top of him.
"Oh, um—" Sophie mumbled, quickly scrambling off of him.
Sophie felt her cheeks flame as he got up but before any one of them could say anything, Pheonix yelled out, "GUYS! WE HAVE LESS THAN A MINUTE LEFT!"
"Oh no!" Sophie exclaimed as her and Carter sprinted back to where Pheonix was at.
As they were running, Sophie glanced sideways and saw that Carter was secretly throwing back all the coins he took.
Sophie was confused but before she could say anything, they caught up to Pheonix as she exclaimed, "HURRY!"
Right as they made it out of the safe, alarms started to sound and there was a bunch of flashing lights.
"RUNNNN!" They all yelled, sprinting for their lives out the door.
Right when they made it out, a huge flash came and Sophie freaked when she realized it was a camera that took her picture.
"LET'S GOOO!" Pheonix shouted as they ran for their lives back the way they came.
Sophie's legs were burning and her heart was beating rapidly as she sped through the streets and hopped over obstacles.
They were running for a long time until they were eventually safe.
They stopped to catch their breath as they heard the distant sirens.
Pheonix then started to cackle loudly, causing Sophie and Carter to join in.
"That was SO fun!" Pheonix shrieked.
"And terrifying," Sophie added, breathing heavily.
"Man, Zach is gonna be mad when he sees how much fun we had," Pheonix said.
"Good," Carter spat, rolling his eyes.
Sophie snorted and Pheonix pulled out some of the cash she stole. "How much did you guys take?"
Sophie looked down at the several things of cash she stole. "I'm guessing I took around ten thousand."
"You?" Pheonix asked Carter.
"Uh probably about the same as Sophie," Carter mumbled, his hands in his pockets.
Sophie looked at him and narrowed her eyes. She knew he lied, she had seen him throw all the money back from before.
"Well, I did better than you guys. I even got a couple blocks of gold," Pheonix bragged, not noticing.
"Nice," Carter commented.
Sophie nodded along. "We should get back now."
"Yeah it's late," Pheonix agreed.
On the walk back to the hideout, they chatted. It honestly felt like they had been buddies their whole life.
And that's one thing Sophie had to admit that she enjoyed from all this.
Back in her old life, she was constantly worrying about what people would think of her, if she was doing the right thing, always being afraid of when she would get attacked next, and just everything being so complicated.
But now, she felt so free and careless. She could be wild and no one would judge and she always felt the thrill of excitement. It was so different and she just didn't know how to explain how it was changing her.
She just knew that she was starting to feel less and less guilty every day for leaving her old life behind.