Page 4 of Milo

He killed them. They're—they're dead.

Mr. Smith points the gun at the security camera in the corner of the room and fires another shot. He grabs a USB stick out of the deposit box before he coils his murderous fingers around my forearm and tugs me toward the door.

"Exit. Now.” He pushes me out of the vault, stepping over the lifeless bodies. He leads me down the hallway toward the emergency exits, the barrel of his pistol pointed against my back.

Oh, I fucked up. I fucked up bad.

Chapter 2

Flashes of Color

I like to think that I've lived a hundred lives.

I've been a young waitress in France with the goal of bringing joy to people's lives. I've been an heiress chased by a reporter through the vibrant streets of Rome. I've been a cancer-stricken father struggling to raise his children while dealing with an alcoholic spouse.

But now I don't think watching foreign films, for days on end, counts as living.

The reality of my life can be summed up in one word: mundane.

I've done nothing. I've seen nothing. Not in real life. Not in the flesh.

Not really.

They say your life is supposed to flash before your eyes when you die. I see nothing.

A blank canvas that has yet to be painted. A starless night. A black vortex.

A void.

"Are you going to kill me?" I whisper as Mr. Smith guides me down the scarcely lit sidewalk.

The sharp November air prickles at my skin and sends a shiver down my spine. A couple passes us on the street, neither of them paying attention to me, neither of them noticing the terror on my face. So oblivious. So fucking useless.

Do I scream? Do I yell for help?

The bank had cameras. He didn't care. He'll shoot me. On the spot. And then he'd shoot whoever would try to help me. I know he would. I don't know how I know that. But I do.

"Keep walking.” He presses the pistol harder into my back as he pulls out his cellphone and types a message; the brief clicking of the keyboard indicates that it's a short text. I would think you would need more than three words to explain this situation to someone.

"Who are you?" I ask with a shaky breath, my eyes dry, surprisingly tearless. Mr. Smith ignores me. "Just let me go. I won't say anything, I promise."

"You are walking too fast. You need to relax and slow down. We don't need to draw unwanted attention."

Is he being serious right now? We? That's exactly what I want to do. Bring on the attention. All the attention. If I had a horn, I'd blow it.

Or...

Or maybe I wouldn't.

Everyone knows about fight or flight, a person's instinctive response to stress or trauma. But there's also freeze. And fawn.

I think I'm freezing.

But I refuse to fawn.

"It's kind of hard to relax when you have a gun pointed at your L2 vertebrae," I murmur as we turn into a dark alley.

I've seen enough movies to know that an alley means death.

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