“Do you want them to catch us? RUN!”

Nathan’s ‘RUN’ shook Damian out of his thoughts, and the next thing he knew, he was speeding alongside Rachel, Nathan and the twins.

It was a gloomy, lifeless night, Damian observed as they dashed through the dark alley. A heavy stench of garbage hung in the air, lights were shut down, and no sight of any stars or the moon. One flickering streetlight was all that was needed for them to run to safety. Dogs barked in the distance, but that was immediately drowned by the wail of sirens as the police cars stopped in front of the entrance of an alley.

He figured they had two advantages: firstly, cars couldn’t fit through this narrow alley, and secondly most of the policemen in this area couldn’t run fast and didn’t take their jobs seriously. He should know. He had been chased by many of them.

The alley was extremely long, and there were no more streetlights. Yet, they could hear the policemen shouting at them. They were far enough from the police to make their escape. All they needed was to separate ways after this alley.

“I can’t run,” James, one of the twins, huffed as he stumbled forward. He and his sister, Jane, were eight and the youngest among them. They were both abandoned by their parents after their divorce. They became thieves to survive until Rachel found them and made them join their group.

“Ugh,” Rachel grumbled before picking him up in her arms. She was the second oldest, after Nathan. At the age of fifteen, her family was kidnapped by a man who murdered them in front of her. The only way she escaped was because she knew how to untie the rope knotted around her wrists, and she was a fast runner.  Damian had been the one who found her, making her the third person to join the group.

Damian’s story was not much. He just joined Nathan into committing minor crimes to pay off his father’s debt. As for Nathan… nobody really knew what his surname was, much less his story. Nobody knew the reason why he had started doing these minor crimes in the first place.

They had been running from the police for being caught stealing several people’s purses from a casino.  Right now, they were running with bags of purses filled with money.

Damian caught up with him as they almost reached the end of the alley. “The usual place?” Their place was always the abandoned playground under the main bridge.

Nathan nodded. “Rachel, give James to me. We’ll hide the stuff. Do not do any sort of stupidity while I’m gone.”

With that, they split. Nathan and James to the right to their unknown hiding spot, while the others continued their journey to the main bridge.

Jane, being familiar with the area, knew a shortcut: a small street through the bars. Damian was skeptical, but Rachel said that most of the bars would be closing by now and that there aren’t that many people going to bars today anyway. Might as well make a run for it, he thought as he put Jane down.

As she had predicted, most of the bars were beginning to close. There were one or two open but none of them paid any attention to the trio as they ran past. Damian figured they’d reach the bridge in no time, until Rachel halted.

Jane almost stumbled into her as she tried to stop. “What happened?”

Damian shook Rachel’s shoulder; she was frozen. “What’s wrong with you? MOVE!”

“It’s him…”

“Rachel, we do not have time-”

“It’s him,” she whispered, more fiercely this time.

Damian looked at where she was staring. It was a man in his fifties, drinking shot after shot and chattering loudly with his friends. They all wore black, tattered vests with a black tattoo on their arms- except this guy had a hat on his head. Why was he wearing a hat in the night and inside a bar? Damian was trying to get a better view when Rachel said, “Gun. Now.”

Now it was his turn to stare. Was she nuts? They only used the gun- which belonged to Nathan- when it was an emergency or when there was no one looking. This situation was the complete opposite! “What? Absolutely not! Th-”

“Right, it isn’t with you. Jane, gimme the gun.”

Before Damian could say anything, Rachel had the gun in her hands, pointed towards the man. Expecting Damian to lunge towards her, she stepped aside, making him stumble over, and pressed the trigger.

BANG! Her aim was clean. The bullet struck through the man’s glass and pierced through his heart, and he fell off his chair. It did not take two seconds for the surrounding men to start screaming and pointing to them. The lonely night was now filled with horrifying shrieks.

Jane and Damian didn’t have time to talk. The trio just took off running for the second time this day.

***

Damian could barely get a word out before Nathan punched him.

Nathan was the strongest among all of them, a rugged street fighter. So, Damian wasn’t surprised when he felt his jawline crack, blood trickling down his lips as he landed on the grass.

They were now under the main bridge, away from the men and police officers. The only thing Damian couldn’t escape from was Nathan’s wrath.

The night seemed lonely again. No vehicles went over the bridge, no wind howled in the playground, no crickets sang in the distance. Yet, the atmosphere felt tense: Damian was on the ground, Nathan was towering over him with a darkened gaze, Rachel was motionless, James was confused and Jane was beginning to tear up.

“Please!” she wailed out. “It was my fault! I gave Rachel the gun- Damian didn’t do anything! Please don’t hurt him-”

Nathan caught Damian’s collar and made him stand up. His cold stare on him didn’t falter and he did not apologize either.  

For a while, no one spoke. James and Jane looked at Rachel with concerning eyes. This, Damian thought helplessly, is not going to end well.

“Nathan, it was me,” Damian sighed. “Just-”

“Why?”

Damian looked up. Nathan was now staring at Rachel.

She clenched her fists. “I had found my family’s murderer.”

“Wow,” Nathan said dryly. It felt so ominous. “How emotional.”

She kept quiet.

“Do you realize,” he hissed, “how much danger you put all of us in? Maybe if it were Damian or me, we can make something up and survive- but the children? There were loads of witnesses on the spot! I’m sure they even saw the gun in your hand!”

Silence.

“Always,” he continued, “I always made sure that after everything we did, small or big, no evidence should be left.” He now stood in front of Rachel, eye to eye. “What did I tell you right before we separated, Rachel? Tell me.”

She broke eye contact. “To not…do any foolishness.”

“The children understood that!” he burst out. “Even Damian here, and he doesn’t even like following my orders. You were the most sensible one among us. How could you be so emotionally unstable to the point you’re unaware of your surroundings?”

Damian didn’t see the knives flashing between them and, before he knew, Rachel was on the ground. Her own knife was pierced through her stomach, the blood stain on her shirt slowly increasing. He didn’t know what happened, but he knew this: Rachel was the one to strike first. Her attack backfired.

Jane’s waterworks began to start again and James shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearing uncomfortable.

Nathan shook his head, his eyes filled with disappointment. “Can’t say I didn’t expect you to pull your knife on me.” He looked at Damian. “Carry James and I’ll carry Jane. We need to get out of here.”

Damian was in disbelief. “Rachel-”

“It’s a matter of time before those rascals get here. She’ll deal with them. We need to leave now.”

“But-”

“NOW!”

In the end, they were forced to leave Rachel in the playground, a bait for the men and the police to get to. It was not right, but as Nathan had said, none of whatever they did was ever right anyway.