(4322 words)
"White lines, pretty baby, tattoos
Don't know what they mean, they're special, just for you."
Double Update: Part Two
Buckle up..
Ivy Brooks
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jack mumbles, staring at the large building as I flick off the ash tip from the joint. My mind is a little hazy from the weed which is making this ten times better.
"Yeah V, dunno if this is a good idea." Sophie leans forward from the back seat, her mask circling her plumped lips coated with such a sparkling gloss.
"Soph's right," Alex chimes in, all of us looking towards the building just filled with possibilities and fun games. "You can't take the heat right now, not with Z still looking for you and the cops still sniffling around from the last one."
I suck in a large cloud, the heavy smoke swimming down my throat and the warmth began spreading across my chest, traveling through my arms and out my fingertips.
"Pussies," I smile, handing Sophie the joint and grabbing my pistol, opening the door and I see the cloud of smoke lingering at the roof of the car get sucked out.
I hop out then shut the door with an excited smile on my face. I glance behind me and see everyone begin to step out of the car.
Oh, this is going to be very fun.
Jackson visibly gulps while holding the duffel bag that had his own weapon and an extra shotgun. He has his usual black clothes on, nothing special besides the thick gold necklace he always wore to these just to show everyone that no, he did not need the money. Just the excitement.
I adjust my mask, keeping my lips out from the hole. Alex walks up to my side, all of us just taking a moment to admire the bricks stacking up to create such a large building.
It is the calm before the storm.
"We're gonna fucking die," Sophie shakes her head with a sigh, sounding like she believed every word. She stands in her pink attire, of course she had to match with me but she had on a skirt and tank top instead with fishnets.
"God, I hope so." I smile widely, keeping my pistol hidden in the large pocket of my coat as Sophie chucks the joint away, stepping around the car next to her brother and she gives him a nervous look.
I start walking in, everyone following with heavy exhales and sweaty palms. People began giving us shocked and confused looks as we just prance pass them. My head held high with my eyes taking in everyone's reactions to us walking into their everyday life.
I push open the large wooden doors, seeing people waiting in five different lines. All were dressed up, looking like the cliché people you see in a movie involving a bank.
There were two security guards who were already looking at us. I raise my arm, squeezing my hand and sending a bullet towards the guard to the left. Alex immediately drops the bag and lifts his own gun, going for the second one.
And just in like, this entire place was defenseless.
"Listen up little lambs!" I shout over the screams and cries, smiling at everyone crouched down with their hands above their heads in fear.
Jackson lifts his gun towards the people behind the counters, switching his focus between all ten of them as Sophie and I begin to saunter through the large area. Alex joining Jackson in defense but he brings himself closer to the door to make sure no one slips out.
"We aren't here for you, rather something much more valuable." I explain, letting the palm of my hand graze over the tops of people's heads. "But if you try to make a move, we won't think twice."
I reach the desks while Sophie grabs the bag Alex had dropped then splits and begins demanding for people's phones and wallets, using the duffel bag for storage.
"If you listen to us, you'll be fine." Everyone else's eyes were on the floor when I hear a small rustle right behind me to my right. I turn around, seeing a woman carefully trying to reach under her desk where I knew a panic button was located.
Holy fuck, people just can't listen huh? Even if it costs them their pathetic lives.
I aim the gun towards the frantic woman trying to be sneaky in her state of panic, pointing it right between her eyes as she was too distracted by her risky choice to notice. She had a tight ponytail and very light makeup, her hair was such a bright blonde color and judging by the perfect manicure and diamond necklace on her neck, she was loaded.
I pull back the top of the gun and it makes a loud click, getting her attention. She freezes, her eyes slowly lifting up to meet mine but I didn't give her the chance to beg for her life, I just pulled the trigger.
The sound of sobs and screams fill the large area, her body slumps and tumbles to the hard floor. The loud slam makes the man sitting besides her choke back a sob, some of her blood splattered on the side of his face.
"And that is what happens if you don't," I turn back to crowd, Sophie had finished getting everyone's wallets and phones. She grabs one of the small square-shaped plastic bag before zipping up the duffel bag.
She then rips open the first plastic bag, pulling out the tightly folded black bag inside and she began pulling it apart until it was at its full length. "You, take this." She grabs a random man's arm and yanks him up, giving him the bag and pushing him towards one of the desks.
I walk forward and catch the man wobbling, he looked very old and delicate so I tried my best not to break him like a toothpick. "Hello handsome, would you be so kind to fill up this bag for us?"
"W-With what?" The man asks in a shivering voice, his eyes shut and his fingers tightly clamped around the bag Sophie had given him.
"Well, money. What else does a bank have?" I chuckle, moving him towards the first person behind the glass and smiling widely. "Give him everything you've got, okay?"
The woman nods rapidly, taking the bag from the man and I turn to see Sophie and Jackson already heading to the back with Jackson's backpack.
I smile, crossing my arms over my chest and happily walking through the crowd of terrified people. I spot a teenage boy wearing a very nice black hoodie, it was black and had a crazy design on the back. It looked nice so I bent down and lightly tapped his shoulder, whimpers and sobs softly came out of him.
"Hello, how are you doing today?" I smile, his short hair barely covering up his watery eyes as his trembling hands slowly rise up and try to show me that he meant no harm.
He reminds me of someone, don't know who though."F-Fine," The boy spits out.
"Good, good." I nod, grabbing his shoulder and slowly lifting him up, watching his body extended out until he was standing up completely. "Wanna do something for me?"
The boy doesn't respond, I'm guessing it's from the feeling of death wrapping so tightly around his neck that he couldn't speak, but it was still rude.
"It's rude to ignore someone," I say, putting the tip of my gun to his head. "Are you a rude person?"
"N-No, please.." He shakes his head, choking out a sob as his hand rests on my wrist. He wasn't trying to yank down my hand or grab it, he was just laying his hand on my wrist as a way of begging for mercy.
"Okay good because that would've made me not like you very much," I chuckle, bringing my fingertip under his chin and lightly lifting it up.
His head rises and I turn it so he is facing me, seeing his porcelain skin and pretty brown eyes made me smile. "Let's try this again, yeah?"
His bottom lip quivered and was a bitten pink, meaning he must've been biting down on it this entire time. I get it, I do some weird shit when I'm scared.
"Wanna do something for me?" I repeat.
"Y-Yes,"
"Okay," I lower my gun, his eyes shutting for a second while letting out a deep sigh. It must be such a relief to feel like you have escaped death by simply saying the right thing.
"Take off your hoodie," I take a step back, giving him room to do this and he looks at me for a second, obviously confused.
I tilt my head to the side, waiting for him to obey. He looks down, his fingers gently grabbing the hem of his hoodie and slowly lifting it up. He was shaking like a leaf and from the angle I was looking at him, I realized who he reminded me of. Chris.
He pulls it off of him and holds it in his hand, his hair now wild and filled with static. I almost spit at him for making me think of Chris in this moment. I don't like that he reminds me of Chris.
"Hey!" Jackson calls out, I peer over my shoulder and see him with three bags in each hand with Sophie aiming her gun towards everyone else.
Sophie had a bag in one hand and Jackson had one too, both staring down at the people shaking on the floor. As soon as I locked eyes with Jackson, a blaring alarm erupted through the air.
I hiss from the sudden pain in my ears, my head snapping towards the row of people next to the panic button. I see the guy who was next to that girl I shot, his hand placed underneath the desk and I growl deep in my throat. Fucking idiot.
"Take care of him," I spit through gritted teeth, before turning back to this boy. A gunshot snaps through the bank and he flinches, covering his face with his hands and his hair falls over his fingertips.
I sigh, biting the inside of my cheek while Jackson, Sophie, and Alex all run to the door but stop. "We have to go!" Sophie urges, making me inhale deeply and I made a decision.
"Look at me," I grab the guy's arms with my free hand, gently pulling them down and reveal his red face. His cheeks were wet with fear and his bottom lip quivered. A spitting image of Chris.
Lifting my gun up and allowing it to press against his forehead slowly as the guy sucks in a wavering inhale. "Yo!" Alex shouts, all of them shaking as they stand still, begging for me to move.
"P-Please.. don't," The boy begs, his eyebrows wired together as he wraps his arms around himself, in need for the feeling of safety and security. I furrow my brows, my chest becoming heavy as I slip my finger onto the delicate trigger.
Then, I pull the trigger.
Chris Sturniolo
"Did she say where she was going?"
"No," I shake my head, my fingers folding up the worn out piece of paper I had scratched off of my bottle of sprite. My eyes focused on the creases I was creating, trying to push away my thoughts.
"Calm the hell down," Nick sighs, he slams himself down on the couch as Matt bites his fingernails out of habit. "Isn't this a good thing? She was in some deep shit, at least now it can't hurt us."
"Maybe she just didn't like us," I mumble, leaning myself back on the couch since being hunched over was making it difficult for me to breathe.
It was her decision to leave, so why do I feel this way?
"Did we do anything wrong?" Matt looks at the both of us.
"No, we gave her a warm bed and food, we didn't nothing wrong Matt." Nick instantly shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. "And after all that, she still decided to leave."
I sigh out, "Fuck.."
"Do we text that Jackson guy?" Matt asks, looking between Nick and I again for an answer. I certainly don't have one, my mind is filling up with thoughts and my stomach feels heavy.
"Yeah," Nick nods, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Tell him we don't know where she is,"
Matt is just worried about that guy and what he could do to us. At least with Ivy here, she could protect us if he ever found us. He's scared.
Nick is angry at Ivy for just leaving after we did everything we could to make sure she was okay and comfortable. We all knew the risk but we agreed anyways because she was a human being in need of help, so we gave it to her. And Nick is just irritated that she didn't have the decency to thank us and give us an explanation as to why she would just leave. He's pissed.
I seem to be the only one on the verge of falling a apart and it shows. I just can't shake this feeling of not doing this correctly and it's making my chest become tighter and tighter.
We could've helped her.
"Alright," Matt grabs his phone that was sitting on the small table, typing away quickly.
"Dammit," I whisper, putting my head in my hands. My fingers raking through my hair like I was trying to push out all of these thoughts from my head.
I could've shown her so many things, healed so many things. She needed my help..
I could've sat with her and talked to her, gotten her to open up and help her deal with her problems. But instead I sat in my room, curled into a ball while crying hysterically.
The sound of the front door opening and closing made me us all jump. Our eyes connecting with each other's and Matt is the first to snap up and head towards the front door, Nick and I following quickly in case it wasn't who we thought it was.
In the doorway was Ivy, she was holding a black duffel bag and was wearing pink. A lot of pink, but it suit her well. Her hair was wild and loosely tied into a low ponytail with some strands dangling in front. She had a pair of black leather boots in her right hand, her feet bare and I could see something red on both of her hands.
It wasn't just Ivy though. Right besides her was Jackson, Sophie, and someone I remembered from the night of the fair. Alex, I think it was.
All of them looked like hell, their hair was wild and their eyes were sunken. The hell were they doing for six hours?
Ivy sighs out, looking at us. "Hey,"
We all just look at them, stunned that Ivy had actually come back and that she brought back her three friends. For a moment, it went silent with them breathing heavily and my mind stuck in a state of shock.
Sophie's eyebrows wire together from the silence, flicking her eyes between all three of us in confusion. "O-kay, this is fucking weird." She comments.
Ivy must've realized that we weren't going to say anything anytime soon, so she drops the boots next to the front door then slips pass Nick and Matt to the living room. Her friends following behind, Jackson shaking his head with a heavy sigh. What's his deal?
"C'mon," Ivy waves us over, my brothers and I listening and walking up to them. She sets down the bag, tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ears before turning around to face us. "Sit,"
We listen, sitting down on the couch and she watches us with the bag sitting in between all of us on the coffee table. Jackson and Alex stand next to her as Sophie sits on the armrest next to me, her eyes on all of us.
"Alright," Ivy begins."I haven't been completely honest with you guys, about why I'm here and why we've chosen you."
Chosen us? What is going on? Why are they here? The hell is in the bag?
"The hell are you talking about?" Nick furrows his brows, looking at Ivy with anger slowly beginning to burn in his eyes.
"Ivy maybe we shouldn't do this," Jackson looks at Ivy, his worried eyes bouncing around her face as Alex rubs his eyes. What the fuck is going on?
Ivy ignores him. "We work for a large group of people trying to take down a worldwide known gang," She bends down, her eyes still darting between us all like she was expecting us to begin shouting at her and throw her out without a second thought, but we don't.
"You guys might've heard of them," She sits down on the one person couch, crossing her legs over themselves and she lets out a wavering breath.
She's nervous. Why?
"Gang?" Matt's picking at his fingernails again, he's nervous too but he managed to ask them about it. "What gang?"
"I'm telling you Ivy, we shouldn't be fucking telling them. It's way too fucking early-" Jackson tries to talk her out of explaining but Sophie cuts him off in an annoyed tone of voice, almost snapping at him.
"Would you shut the hell up already Jack? We've already fucking agreed,"
"Sophie, look at them!" He snaps his hand towards his, almost shouting as he tries to prove his point and my eyebrows furrow. What does he mean look at us? The fuck did we do?
"You're the fucknut who chose them in the first place!" Sophie spits back, both of them beginning to get angry and I know Nick is close to kicking them out.
"I chose Chris, not the rest of the fucking circus!"
Wha- me?
"Can you both shut your fucking mouths and let Ivy finish?" Alex whips his head between the two, waiting to see if they'll listen to him. Sophie scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest in defeat as Jackson shakes his head again but they both become quiet.
"Thank you Alex," Ivy clears her throat, "Yes Matt, a gang. They're called Duplicity,"
Duplicity?
"They're known for the large amount of drugs and weapons they bring in but they're also responsible for many bank robberies, murders, kidnappings and a lot more but we don't need to get into that right now,"
I think I've heard about them a couple of times on the news, but they said that they haven't been caught because of how organized the crimes were.
"The Salvation has been tracking them down and we've been close to catching them but with the amount of rats they have under their belt, it's been difficult."
"The fuck are you talking about? Duplicity? The Salvation?" Nick speaks up, crossing his arms over his chest with an unreadable look on his face as he stares with his eyes burning holes in her. "Murders and drugs?"
Ivy sighs, looking down at the bag then back at Nick. He takes the hint, leaning forward and unzipping the bag to reveal stacks of money neatly tucked into the large duffel bag. Green coats the inside, our eyes widening at the sight of so much money.
"The Salvation sent out groups of people all over the world, group 12 has Jackson and Sophie Johnson,"
I look at the two siblings, not knowing if I should believe those two were in The Salvation. From what I know, The Salvation is a large organization that is responsible for murders, kidnappings, robberies, and a whole bunch of shit. Just not drugs.
If I'm being honest, Sophie and Jackson do look like they would be part of that kind of thing.
"Sam Forbes and Ivy Brooks."
I snap my head to Ivy, my eyebrows tightened together. Did she just say she's in The Salvation?
"Sometimes Alex but that's only when we don't have Sam," Sophie mumbles from her seat, her fingers digging into the pocket of her jacket and she pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
"Hey fuck you, I'm a valuable member of this team." Alex defends himself as Ivy keeps her eyes on me like I'm about to crumble any second now and holy fuck, I am.
I know they're lying, they have to be. The police haven't been able to find The Salvation in twenty years and we just happened to bump into them?
It's the stress that is getting to me. The unknown of whatever the hell is going on, where she got this money from, how she got it, why they're saying all of this.
"Since when?" Jackson scoffs, a ghost of a smile forming on his lips like a lazy smirk as Sophie sticks a cigarette between her teeth.
"That money is only a small percentage of what we get for being in this group." Ivy continues despite her friends cutting her off again, her voice wobbling as her eyes seem to be cemented onto me.
"And.." She cracks a knuckle, then a second one, stopping when she had done all of them and she grips her kneecaps harshly. "We want you guys to become a part of it,"
I look down at the money, not buying this for one second. "Why did you leave Ivy?" I ask instead of responding, watching her eyes deflate.
"I-I didn't, know that I couldn't leave." She furrows her brows at us as Jackson and Alex both look at me confused. Sophie was focused on digging in her jacket some more.
"So this?" I point to the bag full of money. "Is this an apology?"
"I guess," She nods, readjusting herself on the seat as her nerves must've been going wild in her chest. "But Chris, I'm trying to-"
I cut her off. "An apology, for what exactly?"
I need her to say it.
She pauses, her eyes going wide for just a second before they fall back and her eyebrows become tighter. "You know what," I see her mask slip back on, the one she always wears to pretend like she is this strong person that isn't effected by anything.
She thinks it's enough but it's not. She needs to fucking say it. "I don't," I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. "So tell me."
She rolls her eyes with a scoff like me almost getting killed because of her wasn't such a big deal. I can deal with whatever the fuck she wants to say after this but right now, I'm getting pissed off.
In this moment, I'm not scared of her.
She has treated my fear like it was such an annoying thing to deal with. I don't care if she's perfectly fine with almost getting killed herself, but she has no fucking right to shrug off my own feelings about it. I'm not going to continue sitting in silence as she looks at me like I'm the weakest person she has ever seen. I'm done being a pathetic person in her eyes.
She bites her bottom lip, breaking eye contact as her fingernails dig into the skin of her knees to the point where I could see a thin line of red beginning to form.
"Christopher, I am sorry for almost getting you killed." She whispers, her voice tight and my lungs fill with air from the sudden drop in her tone. There's that emotion I was waiting to see.
"We good?" I could see her eyes were glossed over and her neck was tensed as she visibly gulps, I guess she's not used to apologizing.
"Thank you," I nod, leaning back in my seat and waiting for her to continue with her and her friend's bullshit story about being in The Salvation and chasing after Duplicity.
"You're welcome," She releases her grip on herself, leaving about four or six red marks on her knee that stick out like a sore thumb on her porcelain skin.
She looks around, "So, what do you guys say?"
"About what?" Matt asks, his eyes flicking occasionally towards Sophie who had pulled out a white lighter and was now lighting her cigarette like we had given her permission to smoke in our house.
"Joining," Jackson answers for Ivy, sticking his hand out towards Sophie who rolls her eyes and hands him her cigarette. The stinging smell enters my nostrils slowly and I resist the urge to sneeze or cough from the disgusting scent.
"I honestly don't believe a word you guys fucking said," Nick admits honestly, leaning his elbows on the top of his thighs as he scans around the room. Locking eyes with each of them as he shrugs.
"Yeah, me too." I agree, nodding as I watch Ivy close her eyes and let out a tired sigh, rubbing her temples while Jackson chuckles as he hands the cigarette back to Sophie.
Sophie sucks in a deep inhale from the cigarette, making the tip of the stick glow a bright orange. She pulls it away, leaving a thin line of smoke between her lips and the filter, her eyes on her fingers as they lower the cigarette to the top of her thigh.
She looks at Ivy, then at Alex and Jackson. They all nod and it makes her release a smile, blowing out the thick smoke from her red lips, she flicks the end of the cigarette which causes some ash to float down to the floor.
"Guess we'll just have to prove it to you then, won't we?"
//
I dunno if I should call this progress-