Well. That is certainly not following the plan.
The alarm bells rang loudly at the convenience store, which, when mixed with the sound of a metal pipe hitting a metal box, made an eerie symphony echo around the people's ears.
Night was soon to come, and the dark was beginning to settle.
The girl firmed her grip on the hostage, making sure that the knife blade was as close as possible to his neck.
“Why are you taking so long, Bob?” She screamed without removing her eyes from the front of the store, staring anxiously at the windows. The 16-year-old teenager, Bob, had skin that looked a little too white to be healthy; his dark brown short hair was oiled and unkempt; and he was thin and skinny. His face was covered by a cheap hockey mask, revealing only his brown eyes. The rest of his attire, though, looked like trash garb. It was rough, and dirty, and sad—clearly owned by a homeless boy.
The girl, who was dressed similarly, had a voice that sounded as young as her appearance, instead of the expected hardened criminal. Perhaps such a young-looking lady doing a thug job was why the hostage felt so scared, so uncanny, and why he feared her hand, which felt like a lion's mouth, more than the knife.
Or, perhaps, he was just a coward.
“Hey, it's not my fault that they have three cash registers.”
“That is why I am the one who should do the breaking, you buffoon.”
“I thought that this was fun. It looks fun.” He cleaned a few drops of sweat from his forehead. “Honest work is so hard.”
“You are absolutely unbelievable; I will fucking kill yo-”
“HEY, no bad word here; we are a family-friendly team of robbers.”
The lady’s grip on her knife became so strong that any glimpse of red left her hand. But before she could contemplate giving up the hostage to throw the knife at her partner, a loud thump came from outside.
They knew what the sound was, and it made the girl force herself to calm down before speaking.
“Why is he here? He should not be in this neighborhood today; we checked.”
“Yeah, but you know how our luck is.”
In the confidence of her head, the girl agreed with him.
“Girl. Boy. Surrender before this goes out of hand.”
A rough, strong male voice spoke from outside. Its speaker appeared in the girl's vision. Unsurprisingly, it was the tall, black, and way too muscular man in a police uniform that everybody was talking about lately.
The Superhero.
Because, of course, in this dumphole of a city, the police force would have an empowered.
“Release the hostages.” He continued. “We can still talk about this; no one has been hurt yet; it does not need to end badly, kids.”
The duo scoffed as his words synchronized like one would expect from twins.
“This is how things will go, Hero.” Replied the girl. “We will release all the hostages, all but one, to you in two minutes. Then, you will let us go, and we will dump the last one in a discrete place.” The man was looking at her, a serious and melancholic expression on his face. “And if you get yourself even 10 meters close to us.” She pressed her knife on the retail cashier's neck until a small, faint line of blood came out. “You can say goodbye to this guy.”
The policeman looked like he wanted to argue, to stop them, but as he stared at the very emaciated, frail-looking girl with slight trembling legs and filthy clothes, he inhaled deeply and walked a few steps back.
“Okay, no one will attack you two. Don't hurt anyone, girl.”
She stared at him without saying anything, noticing how his words implied reinforcements along the way. A few seconds later, she spoke.
“Bob, let's change; you are slower than my grandma.”
“Your grandma is dead.”
“Exactly.”
Rolling his eyes, the boy moved to where the girl was and removed his own knife from his pocket, which looked way sharper. But as the girl changed positions with her partner, the cashier seemingly relaxed a lot.
She grabbed the pipe from the other teen hands and moved to the two cash registers still locked, her eyes never leaving the knelt clients or the policeman.
“This was supposed to be an easy job.” She complained. “Get the keys, grab the money, and run.”
"Try not to knock out the manager next time, then.”
With a grunt, she positioned herself and cast down the pipe. Steel bent and deformed, metal cried and screamed, and the sound that blew was so loud that the closest hostage almost fainted.
The superhero outside now displayed widened eyes, the extraordinary display of strength alerting him to the nature of the teenage girl.
Bob, however, only complained.
“By the Lord, girl, I am not in a hurry to become deaf.”
“If only you became mute.”
She put all the money in a backpack, left there by Bob, and repeated the process on the last register.
“There we go.” She looked at the civilians kneeling on the ground; some were sobbing. “Go. Don’t make me repeat myself. Try to do something funny to him, and I will break you.”
None tried; not a single one of them did more than glance at the cashier.
They all care only about themselves. She perceived.
Almost 260 dollars richer, 3 months of food for them, she counted. The girl then walked to the side of her partner, who proceeded to ask her in a quiet voice.
“How are we going to outrun him? We don’t have a car.”
“We will enter the same alleys that we planned. He will not follow us. If he does, I will-” She stopped, unsure. “I will cut this guy's finger or something.”
The boy's face morphed into a frown, also unsure, but they both refused to look at the cashier.
“That sounds like way too much for small fry like us, partner.”
“Any other idea? If not, we should go.”
The teenagers said nothing more while walking outside.
The bigger-than-average convenience store that they just robbed was on a narrow street in the relatively low-income neighborhood of Northgate. A few dirty and narrow alleys could be seen in their vision, and they walked to the one that was planned last night.
The giant policeman was in front of the freed hostages, who were crying louder now, seemingly protecting them. A few meters from him, there were two shoe marks embedded on the walkway.
It was said that he could not really fly; he just slowed down his momentum. He ignored the consequences of releasing such force by virtue of his strengthened body. Hence his infamous shoe marks and thump sound.
She doubted that he would say everything about his powers, though, so it was likely a bunch of lies. And powers don’t seem to make all that much sense anyway.
Since they left the store, the hero eyes have never stopped following them. But when they were almost in the alley, he spoke.
“Don't do this, kids; don’t follow this path. I know that your life may look dark now, but a life of crime is not the way.”
She said nothing while her partner scoffed, waiting for the hero to break the deal and attack her. Which he never did.
That was good; they did not want to remove someone's fingers.
- | -
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“I can't believe you, Eric.”
“Hey, I am still masked. My code name is Bob.”
“Do you have any idea—.”
The girl stopped talking when the boy put a hand on her mouth.
“Relax; we did it. And damn, you were really nervous; I don’t remember the last time that I saw you scream before.”
The two teenagers were inside an abandoned warehouse, close to the Ballard docks in Ineria City, where they were currently living. It was surprisingly clean on the inside—not so clean that it would make one wonder why other homeless souls didn’t occupy the space—but certainly better than some random alley.
The warehouse had an old-looking couch and two battered mattresses on the ground, which were surrounded by many pieces of fabric and cardboard.
The girl grabbed the boy's hand and removed it. Her hand was a little cold.
“You know what? Whatever. You won't listen to me anyway.”
“Damn right, I won't.”
Bob, or Eric, remove his mask. He was, to put it simply, plain. There was no particular trait on his face that you would call ugly, nor was there one that could be called handsome. Except, perhaps, for the small amount of freckles that he had, but even those couldn’t deviate him from being plain-looking. Dark brown hair and eyes, white skin, medium height, and average face. If you ignore his grimy and gaunt state, he was the kind of teenager that no one would bat an eye for.
It was certainly a contrast with the girl removing her mask.
“If we are going to risk ourselves like this, it should be for more than two hundred and something dollars.”
“…”
“What?”
“Yeah. You are right.”
With the mask, she looked like an equally thin, slightly tall, 14-year-old pale white girl, even if he knew that she was almost 16. She was a little frail and delicate-looking, but nothing more—nothing special, really.
Her face, though... Eric wasn't sure what he should call it. So he chose to blame her eyes.
She was pretty, possessing symmetrical features such as a soft jawline, a delicate nose, high cheekbones, and cherry-colored lips that were more on the side of cute. She was not a supermodel or anything, but she did look, well, adorable. And her loose, shoulder-length black hair, which for the curiosity of both of them was always silky and clean since she got her powers, certainly helped.
Her sharp-looking eyes, though, were of a deep crimson tone, and it was anything but cute. Eric believed that a more appropriate term would be...
Inhuman.
But most people only found them to be a little off-putting, a small defect on her otherwise princess-looking face. Eric never corrected them.
The eye's color also made it pretty obvious that she was an Empowered, unlike her previously black ones. But that was life.
“Yeah, Abby, you are right. Next time, we should hit a jewelry store or something.”
“And sell it to whom?” Replied the girl, Abigail. “We don’t have a way to sell the gold or jewels. Also, that will attract more attention.”
“Well, jewelry is off the table for them. And you don’t want to rob casinos, because it's too cool for you.”
“Because I don’t want a price on our heads, yes.”
“Bleh, Boring.”
Abigail rolled her eyes and laid down on the couch, throwing the backpack at her mattress.
“We need to find someone to sell our stuff. I mean, someone who is not Rolland.”
Eric shuddered at the name. Rolland always treated him well in the few jobs that he did for the guy; he gave safe jobs to a homeless boy and paid a fair price. By all means, he could be called nice for a smuggler.
The problem is that he is a little too nice. And Eric doesn’t like how he looks at him sometimes.
“Not Rolland would be appreciated, yes. Do you think that Uncle Chet knows someone?”
“I already asked him. He was not happy with us deciding to commit crimes, to say the least. He told me to, and I quote, Fuck off.”
“Yikes.”
Uncle Chet, a homeless old man who helped Abby before Eric found her, was not the type of man who cursed, so to call him angry at them would be an understatement.
“Do you have any suggestions, then?” Abigail suddenly spoke, looking at the top of the couch. “Besides your usual rant about how it's unbecoming of me to listen to my lowers?”
Not this again. Complained Eric in his head, while trying very hard not to react.
“Yes, and I would agree, except that for you, almost everyone is an unworthy excuse for being human.” The girl continued after a few seconds.
Abigail always had a few…episodes, as far as Eric remembered. But since the incident that gave her powers, it has become almost daily for her to speak to the air. He wants to say that her powers made her go Coo Coo, but he is not sure if she wasn't before.
“No. I will not kidnap anyone-”
“Hey Abby.” He interrupted. “Let's go to bed, okay?”
- | -
On yet another night, at the darkest hour, she woke up. Another dream, or perhaps a nightmare, that was bound to be forgotten.
With the utmost care and silence, she left her humble husk to the cold of the warehouse—not that cold did much to the girl these days—and walked towards the miraculous working bathroom.
And while working, it may be pretty, it was not. It was filthy and malodorous, and there were no lights to speak of. But like the cold, darkness did not feel as dark as of late.
As if there were light, Abigail used the sink to wash her face, and the flow of water was all that you could hear. When finished, she moved her head to stare at the lightly rusted mirror. What she saw in the mirror, two meters behind herself, was the reflex of the translucent Ghost Girl, who was glowing a faint white.
It's getting worse. She was not visible in mirrors before.
“It is within your capabilities to overcome the local champion.” Spoke Ghost Girl. “May I require why you didn’t?”
Eric tried, but she noticed how the boy reacted when she spoke with Ghost Girl—how he seemed frustrated, angry, and resigned.
But how could she not answer the Girl, when she was always there for her. For as long as Abigail remembered, she was in the corner of her vision, watching and staring. Abigail found herself forever unable to deny a conversation when requested; she just asks the Ghost to not talk to her when focus is of uttermost importance.
“You mean the hero? I have no reason to fight him.”
Abigail couldn’t remember when she first saw her. At the start, the Girl was a blurry image, but time made her stronger, more defined. And on her hard days, the bad days, she could swear that Ghost Girl voice echoed around like if she were trying to talk.
And she was. But she couldn’t listen.
“Incorrect. You are lacking in reputation; thy name does not fly from the mouths of people. And if you so wish to conquest, that is a necessity.”
“I will not beat random good guys to become infamous.” Replied the teenager while rolling her eyes. “And I don’t want to conquer anything. Eric and I just want a little bit of money.”
Her, Ghost Girl, would always appear in her vision. If she moved her head or eyes too fast or too suddenly, the Girl would follow. Like if she were an image sculpted in her eyes and not a spirit bound to the world. Somehow, never, not once, the Ghost blocked something from her vision.
Mirrors were the exception. There were no Ghost Girl in the mirrors.
“You do, even if you have not noticed yet. Nonetheless, notoriety would aid your current endeavors.” The Ghost tone of voice never changes; it is always, forever, and ever, a cold and monotonous speech. If human speech is a colored video, she was black and white; lacking. “Enough myth to thy name, and smugglers, and minions, will request to hide in your shadow. Riches are certain to flow.”
“Perhaps. But then I will need to deal with gangs, police, politics, and more. No, thank you.”
“This one expects more from you. Abigail.” She shook her head. “You defy thyself in the fright of do.”
The Girl appearance was hard to describe; she was all white and pale, as the ghost that she is, her teeth and skin were painted the same. And her mane was the blackest black, so dark in fact that in the night it was not. And she was dressed in weird clothes—it could be a fancy dress or it could be a fearsome armor—who were black and golden and red; the attire was so unfamiliar that no reference could be given.
But it was the eyes—always the eyes—that told more than Abigail could see. They were dead and alive, bright and mute, white and black, and red and blue. Sharp and soft, round and square, and the more it was watched, the less it was seen.
And so far as Abigail could perceive, there was a face, and it was a noble face. But she never saw it.
“You ask for too much from me.”
“I do not impose immoderate hopes upon you, neither too many nor too few. The best of your abilities is all that I claim to desire to see.”
“My best is too much.”
“It is not. Your kind taught you to cling to procrastination and laziness as if time were but an endless currency, living in a sabbatical illusion; they leave to tomorrow until tomorrow is no more. Arrogance. If one lives for so little, how can one dare not to live at their utmost capacity?”
“I think that we are going outside the scope of this talk.”
“…”
Sighing, Abigail knew that the Girl would speak no more. She says what she thinks she needs to hear and goes silent after. But as of late, there has been an insistence on this same topic.
Abigail looked around and found herself staring at the rusty mirror, at the old sink, and at the filthy floor. She left the bathroom and saw the cardboard and the holes in the roof. At last, she was reminded of where her brother, in all but blood, slept.
Her hands clenched in a fist, hard, and her lips morphed in a tight line. The knowledge that later in the day they would get new clothes and food notwithstanding.