Page 29 of Heartless

“Come on,” he says, jerking me by the shoulder out of the chair I’ve been sitting in.

A pain shoots through my shoulder again, and I wonder how much damage he’s done. I’ll have to get it checked out as soon as I make it through this.

“Be careful about what you do. If it’s not my friend, I suggest that you send them away,” he growls, pressing the gun deeply into the middle of my back causing me to stumble a bit.

“Whomever it is will see you when we stand in front of that glass door.”

“I’ll stay back out of sight, but the minute you let someone else in, I’m killing them, and their blood will be on your hands.”

We stop at the end of the hallway where he grips the back of my neck. Tears prick my eyes, and I ball my fists at my side.

“We’re going to move forward carefully. Don’t do shit you might regret,” he says.

Slowly, we move forward toward the door and he moves to the side just before we reach the door. His gun is aimed at me.

“Her name’s Amy. If it’s her, let her in.”

I unlock the three locks on the door and stare at a tall, lean woman with dishwater blonde hair, dull brown eyes, and bad acne. She’s sniffling and looking around in paranoia.

“Amy?” I ask hesitantly.

She nods. “Yeah.”

The man jerks my arm and shoves me sideways. “Get in here,” he tells Amy, pulling her inside and throwing me behind him before he tells her to lock the door again.

She scratches her arms and looks at me. “Nothing like I thought she’d look,” she says.

I want to ask, “Bitch, I know you’re not judging me” but I’m not in a position to get sarcastic or make demands.

“Here, tell her your PIN!” the man orders, handing the woman my debit card.

I contemplate giving her the security pin that would trigger an alarm to the police, but that won’t help me. The minute that she doesn’t come back, or if she sends a text to his phone that she didn’t get the money and things didn’t go well, that could be the end for me.

I’d rather let them take me for every dime and save my life than try to hold onto something meaningless if I’m not here to spend it.

“The code! And don’t try any funny business!” he barks, shoving the gun under my chin.

“Zero. Five. Two. Six.”

“Good. What’s your balance?”

“I...I don’t know,” I lie.

“How the fuck you don’t know your balance?”

The force of the gun jutting into my chin causes my teeth to clash together violently.

“A little over ten grand.”

“Whooohooohoo! Sweet baby Jesus! We’ve come into the money!” he says, dancing.

“They ain’t gonna let me take that kinda cash out at once, Jesse,” Amy says.

That’s his name. I tuck it away for later.

“Nah, they won’t, but we can hold her until we get every penny out of there. However long that might take,” he says, sniffling with a renewed spark of interest in his eyes.

“Somebody might come for her,” Amy says.