AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Kat
Working nights at a convenience store means that I see all sorts of people. Even if the shifts tend to be quiet because of the late hour, there’s always someone who needs to refuel either the car or themselves. While the people who come in are usually cranky, I’ve never had one pull a gun on me.
There’s a first time for everything, I guess.
Having a man pull a gun on me was just something I hoped to never have a first time for.
The night hadn’t started out feeling like this would happen, but I’m sure that’s how most people feel about days that go wrong like this. I came in to work my shift after a long day of classes for the business degree my parents are making me get. I clocked in and started on my usual routine. As soon as we hit our usual lull, sometime around eight in the evening, my coworker Jim told me he was going to take his meal. I settled in at the register, knowing that he’d take way longer than the thirty minutes allotted to him, and pulled up my latest project on my phone to skim through for edits.
That was over an hour ago. Now I have a man with a gun standing across the counter from me, and I have no idea what’s about to happen. I don’t want to know what’s about to happen.
Thoughts run through my mind. I’m not even supposed to be here working. My parents explicitly forbade it. I’m supposed to be focusing on getting my degree at a fancy college so that I can start working at the business my father is CEO of. Ironically, the convenience store I’m working at is part of the chain he runs. I’m supposed to inherit it some day and take over running it. Working here was something I did under the table for spare cash, something to support myself with so that I could write in what little spare time I have left. It’s only because I’m here that I’m now looking down the barrel of a gun.
If this man shoots me, I’ll never finish my novel. All I’ve ever wanted is to become a romance novelist. I’ve spent my nights here working on it on my phone in between restocking shelves and helping customers. If I die, I’ll never finish it. I’ll never find out if I’ve got what it takes to reach my dreams.
The man glares down at me. “Hands where I can see them!”
If I do die, I guess that means my younger twin sister will get the chance to run the company, like she’s wanted to do for as long as either of us can remember. That’s the only good thing that would happen. She’ll have a chance to follow her dreams.
My heart starts to race and adrenaline surges through my body. I put my hands up, my phone still in one of them as I start to shake with fear. I can’t make myself meet eyes with this stranger, can’t make myself make a single noise.
“Drop the phone,” he orders me. I open my hand and my phone clatters to the floor. Some small part of me hopes it didn’t break on impact, but the screaming of my fight or flight instinct drowns it out. I don’t know if I’ll make it out of this in one piece—who gives a shit about my phone?
I know night shifts can be dangerous, but that’s why we always have at least two people working. Of course this would happen while Jim’s out doing god knows what. Just my luck.
“W-what do you want? Money in the r-register?” I stammer, my heart fluttering in my chest like a bird in a cage.
The man’s face twists into an ugly smirk. “Oh, I want money alright.” His eyes trace up and down my body, which makes my stomach instantly queasy. “You’ll fetch me a pretty penny.”
Oh god. He wants me? What on earth does he want me for? The theft training we have to take after getting hired never told us what to do if the robber wants us and not the money in the register. Possibilities crowd my head. Does he want to traffic me? Hold me for a ransom? If I cooperate, I may never see anyone I love ever again. But if I don’t, I’m dead. Or worse.
“Start moving,” he says, gesturing to the entry we use to get behind the counter. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
My whole body starts to shake. I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I can think of that doesn’t end with me shot or shoved in the trunk of a car.
“P-please,” I whimper. “We have money in the register. I can unlock it for you—”
“Shut up!” my kidnapper barks. “Move it, bitch!”
I flinch and start to inch over to the entrance at the other side of the counter.
No one knows where I am. I live alone in an apartment my parents pay for, so it’s not like a roommate is expecting to see me tomorrow. My first class isn’t until the afternoon tomorrow, so it’ll be hours before I show up as absent. All the money my family has can’t buy back that time for me if I’m dead before they can throw it at investigators to find me.
I should never have started working here. Past me never should have felt rebellious. I could be at home, writing. I could be hanging out with friends, or studying in the campus library. Instead, I’m here at a job I got just to prove to myself that I could do something without my parents’ permission. My stupid stubborn streak always gets me in trouble and here I am, in the deepest trouble I’ve ever been because of it.
My brain starts to search desperately for options. The man with the gun is way bigger than me. I don’t know anything about guns or how to disarm someone. This was never something that seemed like it would be a problem for someone like me … But then again, heiresses don’t typically work at gas station convenience stores.
“I have money!” I tell him urgently as I inch forward as slowly as I can. “My family has money, way more than whatever you’d sell me for!”
“Sure they do,” he scoffs. “Wouldn’t be working here if they did.”
My face burns with embarrassment. I’m not like my parents. I’m not like my sister. I don’t want money or prestige or power, or whatever it is that keeps them in their tower running the company. I just want to live a normal life, writing novels and staying the hell out of the boardroom.
Just as I get to the entrance out onto the main floor of the store, I try one last time.
“Please,” I plead with the man, my hands still up as I look at him with tears in my eyes. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
