Page 30 of Professor Obsessed

I stuck my card in the machine and waited patiently entering the information. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the ATM screen spun in a circle, thinking about the information I just plugged in.

Declined.

Fabulous.

I sighed starting over entering less this time. Being broke sucked.

Gooseflesh rippled up my arm, I glanced around taking in the rest of the room over my shoulder. A few more customers piled in, and in a last minute haste, two people stood behind me waiting to use the ATM.

Shit. The transaction declined notification appeared again on the screen.

“You can go ahead,” I motioned to the person behind me as I pulled up my bank app, “I’m sorry.” I said, moving out of the way as they took my place.

Scrolling through my transactions to see what the hell was going on, I sensed it before I saw it. The niggling feeling that something bad was about to go down.

“Everyone get on the fucking ground,” a gruff voice shouted. My eyes snapped to the cause of the scene to see three men in typical ski masks, black sweaters, and pants. Every part of their skin covered save for the patch of their eyes visible. My phone fell to the floor as tremors took over my body.

This was really fucking happening.

Everyone hit the floor, but I couldn’t make my body move. My eyes zeroed in on the shiny black barrel that held me in place as it was pointed at me, “I said get on the ground bitch, are you deaf or have a death wish?” The dark eyes pierced into mine as my knees hit the concrete floor with a crack.

Panic erupted in the room as everyone ducked for cover. Bullets started flying. The scream of the bullets whizzing through the air, the undertone of the boom of the gun thundered in the room deafening me. The warm splashes of blood splattered across my face as the person who had taken my place at the ATM fell to the ground in a heap of blood. I flicked my eyes towards the flesh, no longer able to recognize the facial features. Bile rose in my throat as my sight darted back to the shooter in front of me.

“Fucking idiot,” it was all I could do to read his lips. The sound of the gunshots still exploded in my eardrums, while he turned towards the tellers behind the desk. One of the men in black guarded the door, holding his gun out towards the lobby, his body tense as his gaze seared into the room, his arm rigid as he held the weapon out. The other held the other half of the room at gunpoint making good on his threats as he obliterated a woman in front of her partner. The blood and flesh smacked the wall behind them. Inaudible cries invaded my vision.

My ears couldn’t catch up to the sound. The bang of the gunshots flooded my senses, the smell of urine assaulted my nostrils. I dared a glance to the man next to me who had soaked through his jeans. The weight of the situation was settling in. My phone was too far away, I couldn’t move my body even if I wanted to. As I watched the dead stare of another body shot dead across from me, the gaze looked through my soul, no longer seeing.

The sickening sound of another body falling, the heavy weight of it ramming into me snapped my neck in the direction it came from. The man next to me, covered in urine and blood, laid lifeless. No face looked back at me, just brain matter and spurting blood making a god awful gushing sound.

I fell from my position on my knees and onto my side at the force of the dead weight, choking on my vomit, my stomach heaved lodging itself in my esophagus. This was it. This was where I was going to die.

Sound slammed back into me, my ears still rang with the buzzing sound as bullets passed my ears narrowly missing my head as one by one the people behind the counter were picked off. Money was being shoved in bags by the one who had shot the men next to me, he shouted orders at his cohorts.

Life was playing out before my eyes in flooding images and flashes, unable to process what was happening in front of me. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re on your deathbed. But for me, that didn’t happen. I only saw the moments that made me feel most alive. The ones that sent a rush of emotion flooding through my body like a tidal wave. The moments in time where life felt too real, too amazing. The times that my body tingled with electricity, sparking with passion as I looked at the person I loved.

The last image I had was of Chase, him touching me, his voice as he called me the nickname I'd come to love. I no longer saw him as an embodiment of all the wrongs he committed, but the rights.

The right way he touched me, the way that in his own mind, he was keeping me safe from anything that threatened harm to me. I spent so much time being afraid and upset, but in that moment, I would’ve given anything for him to come to my rescue. To take down the man who was standing in front of me shouting orders wordlessly that I couldn't understand.

A reverie of memories roared through my head louder than his voice could reach.

Chase.

27

EMMA

Cool metal whipped my face. I heard the whipping of the gun before I felt it connect.

“I said get the fuck up and move to the other side of the room.” Hands ripped at my dress as my body flailed, being dragged across the floor. “We got a stupid one here.” The disembodied voice called out to the group as I was thrown on a warm heap of trembling bodies.

The cries and sobs slapped me back into reality. I felt a hand touch my face, my hand. I pulled it back in my line of sight, the tunnel vision closing in only allowing me to see in snippets. The blood on my hand was my own, it trickled warm and wet down my face.

He hit me with the gun, it was coming back to me. What was happening to my brain?

“She’s in shock,” a voice wavered, sounding like it was under water.

“We all are,” angrily another voice came, “I’m not coddling a stranger, I want to get out of this alive.”

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