The tension was visible on his back. His muscles bunched beneath his clothing.
One of the girls let out a yelp.
Mia's attention was diverted. Her gaze swung towards the disturbance, her smile disappearing as she took in the situation.
"What's going on?"
"Robber." I replied curtly.
The guy was hopped up on drugs, judging by the jittery way he moved.
The girl behind the counter tried to move slowly, not to startle him. "Sir, please." She said. Her voice was trembling, and it looked like she hadn't ever seen this kind of situation before. "If you could calm down—"
"Fuck you!" The man snarled, and his hand shot out to grip her collar, lifting her up.
Her legs were dangling, and the edge of the glass counter pressed painfully against her thigh. Her hands grasped uselessly, and her face turned an alarming shade of pink.
"Sir—!" The other girl, the one in charge of us, spoke out, trying to move to intervene. "Wait, wait, this is a bad idea."
"Don't fucking tell me what to do!"
He wasn't here for the money, or not entirely. At the entrance, the security guard's hands immediately went to his hip holster, where a gun should've been holstered and instead his fingers closed around a walkie-talkie.
An untrained, idiotic security guard with no common sense or situational awareness.
And an increasingly unstable perp, waving a knife.
This wasn't going to end well.
I reached across to grab hold of Mia, and pushed her to the ground behind a jewelry counter just as she opened her mouth to argue.
"Hey, what are you-?!"
She didn't finish. Her words died in her throat as I covered her mouth with the palm of my hand. Her wide eyes looked at me, and her expression changed from confused and slightly panicked into a trusting frown. "Noona, don't make yourself a target, idiot."
"......" She rolled her eyes at me. But, I could feel a faint, shaky smile forming against my hand.
I wasn't smiling.
She tapped her finger on the back of my hand.
"Shush, let me focus."
Her lips formed a word. 'What's the plan?'
We kept silent and watched as the situation unfolded.
"Sir, if you put the knife down—"
"Fuck that."
This wasn't exactly a hostage situation. And it was beginning to look like a bad heist movie gone even worse.
"Hey, calm down! Put that thing down, now." The security guard pointed his finger in an almost cartoonish way, his other hand still on the walkie talkie.
"Stay right there, or—or—or you're going to regret it!"
The robber's face was scrunched up, his eyebrows nearly disappearing under his hood. Even from my position, I could see him trembling.
"I said, calm the fuck down!" The security guard was sweating. I wondered if he had even gone through the proper training to handle this situation.
"Shut up!" The masked man snarled. "Just... shut the hell up!" His eyes darted back to the female clerk in his grasp, and I could hear his breathing quicken, heavy, rasping breaths.
His pupils were wide, dilated, like ink blots. He wasn't thinking rationally anymore.
"You... you don't even remember me, do you?" The knife in his hand trembled. The tip nicking her skin as if it was threatening her to think, and answer properly. She winced, flinching. "Well? Well?! Answer me!"
"I— I—" She stumbled, tears dripping down her cheeks.
The guy grabbed her tighter, and pushed her away.
"Of course not! Why should you, huh?"
"I don't know what you mean." The clerk was trying not to provoke him any further, her hands shaking. She glanced down, at the small drop of blood that had welled up on her throat.
"Why are you playing with me?!" He demanded. His grip shifted, tightened on the knife's hilt.
Things were rapidly spiraling out of control, and the guard wasn't equipped to deal with a guy like him. Not even a single, damn security protocol was being executed, as he stood there, frozen on the spot, his finger pointed in accusation instead of calling back up.
"I—I don't understand! I'm not—!"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up, you bitch!" His face twisted in rage. "I've dedicated my life to you. I've loved you for years. And you—you don't even remember?! Fucking whore, fucking liar. You led me on, made me believe, made me hope, made me wait."
His words were a stream of profanity, his tone getting more manic with every passing second.
"No! It's a misunderstanding—I've never even seen you before—"
"Don't lie! You fucking liar." And then he ripped his mask off, revealing an acne covered and greasy face.
It seemed that a semblance of familiarity shone in the young woman's eyes.
"You...?"
"You finally remember?!" He roared. "It's not that easy. It can't be. Not anymore." He spat. His hands tightened around the knife's handle.
"Stop, stop it! Someone help me—"
"I'm not that guy. And I refuse to remain a coward and live without you." The man yelled. "So... if I can't have you, no one will."
Seriously? All this fuss for this kind of garbage? I wanted to roll my eyes at how cliche, how absolutely mundane this situation was. How utterly uninspired and typical and outright pathetic. Did people really kill each other over love? Or, at least, this twisted version of it. All I had to do was take a look around; no one was doing anything.
It was ridiculous.
All heads bowed.
Someone even had his phone out, seemingly filming. Gathering evidence was important, yes, but the perp was about to stab the woman he supposedly 'loved', and here we had a bystander, and a rather young one, with his phone out, instead of making himself scarce.
Disgusting.
The security guard finally made his decision, and moved forward. "Stop right there!" The man cried, reaching for him with trembling fingers.
It only fueled the robber's fury, and I saw him lunge at the guard, the glinting edge of the blade sinking into the guard's chest with a horrible, wet noise.
The situation had devolved so fast that it almost felt like nothing happened, until, a couple of seconds into the security guard staggering back, blood began to pour, staining his uniform red.
He collapsed to his knees with a strangled cry, clutching at the gaping wound.
A dark puddle began to form beneath him on the polished, marble floor.
Mia gasped, hands over her mouth. Seeing someone getting stabbed for the first time was brutal. Adrenaline pumped. Your brain was in fight or flight mode.
"No!!" Someone screamed. I'm pretty sure it was one of the clerks. And that someone wasn't the only one. The customers, previously standing there like bowling pins, began to scatter away and out of the store.
The perpetrator turned his attention to the clerk, who had somehow managed to slip free. He seemed to hesitate for just a moment, then his face twisted in anger.
With a guttural roar, he took a stumbling step after her.
Problem was, the young woman was running towards us.
I couldn't risk getting my sister into harm's way.
The bastard now had his eyes on us.
And by association, Mia too. The thought that that knife could come so close to her made me faintly remember my life in the favelas. How a simple mistake, the wrong fucking timing, had my mom, my innocent, kind mother die like a pig in some dirty backalley.
The current situation was far from that, definitely more manageable. But I've seen people kill and die just like that. The blood didn't faze me as much as it made me paranoic that it could be from someone I love.
This guy's biggest mistake wasn't making such a scene. It was doing it in my presence.
"Sis." I began, already standing up. "Stay here."
"Oi." Mia whispered, hotly. "What do you think you're going to do?!"
Her hand firmly wrapped around mine, tugging me down. She wasn't met with much success.
I gently wrenched her fingers off of my wrist.
"Listen. I'll fix this, but not in a way that will make you comfortable."
Mia's eyes widened. I wondered if looking and sounding so serious was unbefitting of a fifteen year old's face.
But if I was to get my plan through without risk to her safety, I had to show a bit of the real me.
It's been a while, honestly. I didn't even know if I still had it in me, but this guy wasn't a cartel lord, or some Yakuza hitman. Just a delirious kid on a rampage, a loser that thought his knife was a solution to whatever 'romantic problem' he had.
I hated those the most. He wasn't a poor kid shuttling drugs to feed his family, or picking up a gun to defend them.
Well, it didn't matter what kind, since it was all the same thing with these kinds of delusional bastards anyway.
"Jae—"
I gave Mia one last look and made to intercept him before anything could escalate beyond this point.
The store clerk saw me standing and her eyes lit up. She immediately threw herself behind the counter, where Mia was.
I moved fast. Not running, not panicking, just moving. The kind of movement that comes when your brain screams, Do or die, and your body remembers how to obey.
The guy's eyes widened when he saw me, confusion flickering beneath the mania. "Who the—"
I didn't answer. I just closed the distance between us in three long, silent steps.
His grip on the knife wavered. That's all it took. A flicker of doubt. He wasn't as brave as he thought he was. Maybe the adrenaline from his act was already wearing down. He probably never even imagined having to deal with two confrontations back to back.
That hesitation was all I needed.
His knife slashed toward me, the blade reflecting in the dim, fluorescent lights. He lunged. But he was slow, way too slow. My hand moved to his forearm. He stiffened in surprise.
His wrist twisted. Bones creaked.
Something inside me snapped.
Then I slammed my knee into his gut, driving all the air out of him. His knife was about to clatter on the floor, but I snatched it before it could fall.
He staggered forward, about to double down and dry heave, but I grabbed him by the scalp, the fingers digging into his skull. "Hey there, tough guy." He was breathing loudly now, wheezing with a pathetic whimper that made him sound more like a dog that just had his paw stepped on. "You know you just stabbed someone, right? Can you even wrap your head around that?" I tightened my grip on his hair, jerking his head back just slightly. His eyes were wide, darting like a cornered animal. "Look at me."