Robbers

Norah shot a glance at the clock on the microwave while scratching her right brow and yawning. It was almost midnight, meaning the boss would be leaving soon. She’d been working in this shitty pub for the past two years, serving beer and brushing off catcalls. She took the night shifts and went touni during the day. She hated it, but that's how it was. The boss and the customers were rude, the place smelled like death and she was severely underpaid. She spent her nights daydreaming that a handsome hero would one day come and set her free from this hell of a job. Sometimes her dreams were so real that she barely heard the requests of the sweaty truckers that always stared at her boobs. Two of them were sat at the bar, and one at a stained table in the corner. The boss was lazily wiping the bar by the two men, and she knew she’d have to clean it properly once he’d left. All four of them were watching a game of Australian football on a TV hung just above the bar, so she silently rehearsed her part for tomorrow's drama class. Someday, she’d be the one on TV, she knew it. She just needed that degree to get a real job and save enough money to just leave. Leave for good and go to Los Angeles, or go anywhere really, and work her ass off to get noticed. That’s what kept her going. Hope. But tonight, hope was really hard to find, and she found herself staring at the opened gin bottle in her hand, thinking that if she was really quiet no one would notice her drinking.
Then a loud noise coming from the door made her jump. There was a boy standing there, breathing heavily. He looked at her with a half smirk and turned to the 4 older men on the other side of the room before pulling out a gun.

“Nobody move!” he yelled “Give me the money, all of it, and no one gets hurt!”

For a second no one actually reacted. They just all stared at him in surprise. Who the fuck attacks an old dirty pub in the middle of the night?! This kid didn’t even look scary! He wasn’t very tall and he was really skinny. He mustn’t have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old. Barely older than Norah.

“Alright, kiddo. You’re not gonna hurt anybody with that. What would your mommy think if she saw you right now, huh?”

The boy frowned and his smirk completely disappeared as his jaw clenched. She had to admit, he was really hot. Norah stealthily thought that her boss was a fool for not taking him seriously, and an asshole for belittling him like that. Who did he think he was? He’d always treated her like shit, showing no respect for people younger than him. He was the reason why she was stuck in this unfulfilling life! Had he been honest, paid her a decent amount, and treated her correctly, she would’ve been far away by now. It didn’t take her more than four or five seconds to grab the old man’s rifle that hung on the wall. She knew it worked and it was loaded, she’d seen him use it once or twice.

“You heard what he said,” she uttered calmly, pointing the firearm at the man.
“What the fuck are you doing, you little bitch?!”
“I’m taking what I deserve.” With a quick glance at the boy, she opened the cash register. He threw her a bag and she filled it with bills, taking every last penny. When she was done, she nodded towards the boy and walked over to him, still holding the rifle towards the men. She kept the bag, if he wanted the money, he’d have to take her with him. She was certainly not risking staying in this shithole after what she’d just done. He didn’t seem too happy, but he had no other choice than to go along with it. She walked out and he backed away slowly, covering her. With one hand still pointing the gun, the other reached into his pocket and grabbed the keys to his car. He threw them to Norah without even looking. Luckily, she caught them in mid air, unlocked the vehicle, sat behind the wheel and started the engine.

“If one of you walks out before we’re gone, I’ll shoot him like a pig,” were his last words, before leaving the pub, running through the car park and hopping in the car. Norah pulled away and pretty soon they were on the road.

"What d'you think you're doing?!" he muttered, shifting a little to sit more comfortably while still being able to keep an eye on her.
"Driving out of town," she answered, never taking her eyes off the road. She knew what he meant, but she wanted to at least try to fit in with him, make it seem normal that she would help him. She could have begged for him to keep her, to help her get out of this life at last, but she didn't want to have to do it. She wished it would just... happen. With no explanation, no proof to give that she was worthy.
"I'm no babysitter," he said, "I'm not taking care of you."
"You don't have to. I can take care of myself, thank you very much. And right now, I'm the one driving your car, so you better not piss me off."

Her grip tightened on the wheel. Her whole life she had battled for people to respect her. She had grown up with four brothers and all her life she had been treated like the fragile little girl everyone thought she was. Norah was the tiny princess who shouldn’t get her pretty dresses dirty and her hair in a mess. Norah was to be taken care of in the middle of all these violent, strong, scary men. She had never felt comfortable with the idea that she needed people to protect her, or that she was somehow weaker just because she was a girl. She felt just as strong, as fast, as able, as dangerous and as violent as any guy, particularly her brothers. Maybe this feeling of discomfort within her parents’ ideals had always fueled her desire to escape, to become something else. Maybe it was just in her, but she ended up taking the first job she found halfway across the world, applying for the nearest university and leaving her family at the age of eighteen. She quickly realized that her boss at the roadhouse was certainly not going to treat her with the respect she wanted, but she figured it was a means to an end. This boy kind of was as well, but now she was stuck with him as much as he was stuck with her, and she wanted to set things straight right away, before he could even begin to get the wrong idea.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I didn’t plan that far ahead! I didn’t actually think I’d get this far!” he blurted out, almost yelling. “But then you grabbed that fucking riffle and took the money and now I don’t fucking know, alright?!”
“Oh so now it’s my fault your hold up was successful?!”
“Well, it kind of is!”
“You have got some nerve, don’t you?! I’m not the one who stepped into a secluded pub at one in the morning with a firearm!”
“Shut up! I’m trying to think.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. She’d let him come up with the next stupid idea and work from that. Clearly she was going to have to handle his shit. Suddenly he didn’t seem so hot. Well, she wasn’t looking at him anymore, so that helped. He had obviously fucked up and now he was blaming her and she hated that. She certainly wasn't going to just take it. He was just as responsible for all of this as she was.

“Are you tired?” he asked suddenly.
“Kind of.”

Of course she was tired, it was the middle of the night. She'd spent the day in class and the night at work, then she had stolen money from her, now previous, job and was now driving aimlessly! Actually, she’d spent the past six months between uni and work, which meant she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. Even when she finally had some time for herself there were mountains of dishes to do, cleaning up this, cleaning up that, bills to pay, paperwork to get done, and of course there was the upstairs neighbour moving furniture around at ungodly hours… Exhausted wasn’t even a strong enough word to describe the state in which she was!

“Me too. We need to find a place to sleep.”
“We could go to mine.”
“Are you mad?! You worked there! They know you!”
“They don’t know where I live! I had no contract. I’m not even sure he knows my last name…”
“You sure?”
“Yeah..!”
“Okay then, if you think we’re fine.”

She laughed. No, she did not think they were fine. Actually, she didn’t think they ever would be again, but that was fine by her. At last, she was going on an adventure! This was going to be so much fun!

Notes