Warning: there are a few swear words and drug references and other not so nice stuff in this chapter. It's all really mild, but in case anyone got skittish about that kind of stuff.
He didn't mean to get into all of this. He hadn't woken up this morning with the urge to rob a grocery store just for the hell of it. He'd swear on him mom's grave, this wasn't planned. It had all been Tyler master plan to get the money he needed.
The money wasn't even for him. Even if everything had panned out perfectly as planned, it wasn't like he was gonna get any of it anyway. He was so fucking stupid to even go along with this scheme, but when Tyler, Jon, and Michael showed up at his place with Jon's father's gun collection, there wasn't much time to weigh the pros and the cons. He followed them out and took the mask when they gave it to him.
Jon only had three guns, which was just fine by him. He quickly offered to be just another body, muscle if need be. It just added to the hilarity of it all, that he was the muscle in this job. He was barely120 pounds, and he was the muscle. If he lived to see another day, Garret would look back at his younger self and laugh at what a coward he was.
He'd genuinely liked Tyler when he first met him. It had been right after his mom died- he'd been about fourteen at the time- and Tyler and his friends had offered him the peace and quiet of their hangout over the sound of his dad getting drunk every night, hollering at pictures of his mom. The pot helped sooth his feelings too.
Tyler had always been into that kind of stuff, right from the beginning. Garret liked to smoke occasionally, he'd love to right now in particular. But Tyler was different. He liked to push the boundaries and see what it offered him.
He wasn't sure, but Garret thought that this trait of Tyler's was what caused him to even need the money in the first place. His connections into his other life weren't nearly as friendly as Jon or Michael, if you could even call those guys friendly. He wasn't sure what Tyler had done this time, but he was the kind of guy that trouble liked to follow. Or maybe he simply liked to create it. Only this time, Tyler must have gotten himself into bigger trouble than he could handle. And somehow, Tyler screwing up led to him holding some cop's insides from falling out.
The second he thought about it, Garret had to fight the urge to puke. Nobody knew except his dad, but he had an awful queasiness when it came to blood or dead things. And while the guy was still breathing, he definitely looked dead.
His name was Sam, according to what the other cop had said. Sam hadn't really been alert enough to confirm it, but his wallet did. He didn't look much like his picture anymore though. The hair was the same mostly, but the guy's face had turned a corpse-like grey and his lips were tinged blue. He looked dead, even though Garret could hear his wheezing gasps across the room.
He did not wake up this morning with murder on his mind.
He didn't have a choice anymore, though. He had told Tyler right from the beginning that they should just forget about it and leave, but nobody listened to him. Nobody ever listened to him, and although he should have just marched out right then, he didn't. He wished Tyler had just listened to him. They could have found another way to raise whatever kind of money Tyler needed. Anything was better than killing a guy, surrounded by cops with no way out. There was no pretty ending to this endeavor. Tyler had killed a guy.
Maybe two, by the look of the old croak near the stacked canned vegetables. He looked pretty bad too. He was shock white and listless. That, Garret could at least deal with. Not the blood. The stench of the blood coming from the wound made him wanna pass out.
At least the guy was out cold though. Garret didn't know if he could deal with him being awake anymore. He didn't want to watch someone die again, but particularly not while he was awake. He didn't want to know anything about him. And the way the other cop, Ed, talked to him. It reminded him of the last time he spoke to his mom after the accident. He didn't like hearing the platitudes, the you're okays. Because he wasn't okay. Nothing about this situation was okay, and Garret was pretty sure he was going to witness someone die for the second time. Unless that Sergeant Parker could work miracles, he didn't see Tyler letting anyone go anytime soon.
In fact, things seemed to be getting worse. After they told him about the cops leaving, he felt like he needed to show the negotiator he meant business. He screamed until he was hoarse about how all they needed was a car and then he taped Ed's hands together and threatened to shoot him in the head.
The whole time Garret stayed still, watching in amazement as Ed looked right into Tyler's eyes and explained why he didn't want to do that. It was like having a gun two inches from his forehead was no big deal. He didn't even blink. Hell, Garret wanted to fucking cry and he wasn't even the target of Tyler's anger this time. Tyler had listened to Ed, but it pissed him off even more. He kept pacing back in forth mutter about the fucking car.
He didn't even understand why Tyler wanted the car. He shot a cop. It wasn't like they were going to just let him drive away after that. Tyler was out of his mind, flipping over anything not bolted to the floor and throwing curses at anything that moved. Jon and Michael, who never questioned Tyler, even looked a little unsure. For good reason though, he belonged in a loony bin.
Ed was the only one who seemed calm throughout the whole thing. Well, him and Sam, but Sam had the upper hand by being out for the count. It's not like he could react to much. If Garret had to wager, in this state he doubt the guy even cared that he took a bullet to the chest.
Ed had something planned. Garret could tell. He had spent his life observing people over interacting, and that gave him an insight into behavior, kind of like a scientist of some sort. He could tell by the way Ed stayed so calm. He might be police, but he had to have something up his sleeve.
Garret heard sirens outside, the ones the negotiator warned him about. When Ed moved closer to Sam, and by default Garret too, he wasn't all that surprised when he looked at him real closely. "Stay low," he said under his breath.
It was a warning, and Garret supposed he should feel honored that Ed thought he deserved this sort of knowledge. He had been involved in a plot that was going to kill his friend after all.
Ed straightened himself up and turned to Michael, who was next to the two employees. Garret didn't like looking at them because the cashier looked about their age. She would have been hot, if she didn't have make-up streaks running down her face from all the crying she had done.
"I need some paper towels to staunch the bleeding. The mask is too saturated."
Michael didn't want to kill anybody. Garret knew that. He had a younger sister and a dog. He wasn't like Tyler, even if he was willing to go along with the plans. Garret saw Michael look down to his hands, which Garret was trying really hard to forget about, and he saw Michael decide that Ed was telling the truth. He leaned forward and then trotted down one of the aisles. Tyler didn't even notice. He was too busy doing whatever the hell he was doing.
It made sense that Michael believed Ed. Garret could feel the warm stickiness of the mask under his hands and he knew that actual bandages should have been applied a long time ago. Garret didn't believe Ed though. Not in the slightest.
That still didn't prepare him for what happened after Michael left.
Ed threw a bag of something in the air, which seemingly exploded in a dusting of snow. Except it wasn't cold, and it wasn't much like snow. Before Garret could process Tyler's words or the fact that the mystery powder was simply flour, the whole world exploded.
Garret had lived through some pretty harsh times. Coming from himself, that didn't mean much, but he'd seen a lot that other kids his age hadn't. He knew what the end of a belt felt like against his back. He knew what it was like to see the only person who cared about you bleed out in front of you. He knew what kind of damage alcohol could do to a man.
None of that helped him cope with the lights that burned his eyes, even after he leaned over Sam's almost dead body. It didn't help him avoid the fiery sensation the air filled with. When over the echoing sound of the initial bang he heard gunshots, nothing in his life could stop the tears that ran down his face.
He had never really believed in God, 'cause how could anybody let his life go down the shitter like it had, but he found himself whispering the words of Hail Mary, something his mother had trained him to rehearse when he wasn't old enough to understand what the words meant.
The body underneath him didn't flinch at all. Garret wished he was unconscious too, because he felt like his ears were bleeding and his eyes were bleeding and he could smell the rusty scent of Sam's blood so much he knew he wasn't going to last much longer.
And then Ed was right next to him, pulling him off of Sam's body. Ed grabbed his hands from the blood-soaked mask and pushed him to the floor, guiding his hands to the back of his head. "Stay there," he said.
Ed then moved to replace the pressure on Sam's wound. Garret could hardly see, the light from before messed up his vision. He was pretty sure he saw Ed say something to Sam, who didn't hear him for obvious reasons.
It felt like forever before the gunshots died off, before he felt cuffs being clicked into place on his wrists, which were covered in the guy's blood. Someone was hauling him to his feet, but the craziness of it all left him weak in the knees. Like a girl, he felt himself falling to the ground before the officer holding him put all of his weight onto his wrists. Garret found his feet pretty quick and had to question whether or not both wrists were broken through the sudden onslaught of pain.
His ears were still ringing, but they managed to snatch the end of Ed's words from somewhere nearby. They were more reassurances, and Garret knew they weren't directed at him. He looked up and saw Ed hovering over a stretcher. Somehow, the paramedics had already made it in and had transferred Sam onto the bed.
Ed's hands had been freed too, and he looked like he didn't want to let go of his friend for a minute before he did. Ed then looked at him, looked like he was gonna say something, but the officer with an iron grip on his arm yanked him toward the store entrance before he could say anything.
Garret could still feel the tears on his cheeks as the officer maneuvered him out. The tears didn't obscure his vision enough, though. He saw Tyler sprawled out between the two check out areas, a pool of blood under his head. Garret looked away, but he was pretty sure the image was already scarred into his brain. More medical guys were coming in, tending to the old guy and the other hostages, to Ed and Jon, who had a bullet wound it looked like on his thigh.
There was so much blood.
It coated everything. His hands, the floor, the rest of his life. Garret had always hated blood, and now it was going to stay with him. This time, he did upchuck. The officer holding his arm jerked away, not releasing his arm as Garret tried to purge his body of all the blood.
When he was unsuccessfully finished, Garret was shoved toward a squad car next to a big, black van with the words Strategic Response Unit painted on the side. The man in front of the van, wearing a hat and a stern expression, Garret knew to be Sergeant Greg Parker.
"Wait," he said, turning to the guy holding him. "Please, wait."
Parker had heard him, he wasn't that far away. He took the few steps toward him and nodded to the other guy. "Give us a minute," he said.
The officer stepped away and Garret was left face to face with the man. He didn't know why he had called to stop. He didn't know the guy, not really. But he felt forever indebted to the guy. He would have wiped away the fresh tears on his face in embarrassment if his hands hadn't been handcuffed behind his back. "I'm sorry."
That was all he could mutter out and it felt rashly inadequate, stupid next to the events of the day.
"You did good in there, Garret. You made the best of the situation you were in." The words were not forgiving. Garret had spent enough time studying people to know that. Still, they helped.
"Tyler's dead," he said like he thought Parker would care.
"He made some bad decisions," Parker acknowledged. He didn't say Tyler was a bad guy. He wasn't, not really. Or maybe he was. Garret didn't know much of anything anymore, but he did know that Tyler had helped him through a really hard time in his life. Tyler's house and the drugs he offered him erased the horrible memories in his life. Garret owed a lot to Tyler.
"Is Sam gonna die?"
Parker showed real emotion at his words. Nothing major. Most people would have never noticed it, but Garret knew that this guy really did care for Ed and Sam. "He's being taken care of."
Garret knew why he was a negotiator after only a second's conversation with him. He hadn't lied, nothing yet. He also hadn't said anything hurtful. Didn't sugar coat anything, just said it so that the words didn't burn him like acid.
"I'm sorry," he said again, hardly able to believe a guy he'd just majorly screwed with had the decency to spare him. Parker just nodded, and then looked over his shoulder.
Garret glanced in the same direction. Ed was gingerly moving to the pair. Garret knew Tyler kicks hurt, and he wouldn't be surprised if something was broken. Ed stopped in front of them.
"You need to go get checked out," Parker said before Ed could speak. He nodded, then looked to Garret.
"You were brave in there."
There were a lot of responses to Ed's statement. He could have denied it, because he wasn't really all that brave. In fact, he was downright the opposite. He could have thanked the guy for the nice words. It wouldn't have meant much. He could have started bawling, which is what he wanted to do. Instead, he gave a small nod. Then the officer came back and had a grip on his arm again, leading him away from Parker and Ed to the car.
He was pushed in, the guy put his hand on his head like he was going to struggle. On another day, he might have to prove that he was worth something. Today, he didn't feel like it. He proved he wasn't worth much of anything when he followed Tyler and his friends into the store. He proved he was worthless when he felt a guy's life drip out of him and couldn't do anything about it.
Maybe if he had been given the chance. If he had an older brother like Ed to watch out for him after all the shit went down, he wouldn't have blood on his hands. Instead, he had a guy like Tyler, who shot first and never thought of the consequences. He never had a dad like Parker, who gave him the truth in a gentler form than belts and fists.
But he never did. It was a simple as that. From the back of the squad car, he saw three stretchers coming out with sheets draped in the form of bodies. He saw an ambulance pull away and Parker leading Ed to another.
Garret didn't know who the bodies were, didn't know if it was Sam or Michael or the tearful but beautiful cashier that could have meant more to him in another lifetime. It didn't really matter anyways, because all of the deaths were on him. At this point, the count hardly mattered. The who hardly mattered.
When Garret had woken up to the sound of fists pounding on his front door, he'd expected a day of getting high or trying to swipe trinkets from the grouchy shopkeeper near his house. He'd expected to laugh at Tyler's not-so-funny jokes and spend a few hours doing nothing. That's all he wanted when he got up this morning.
Now he was sitting in the back of a squad car, the image of his mother, limp and lifeless, blended with the officer, Sam, stuck in his mind. He was going to jail, probably charged as an adult. At this point he didn't care. All he wanted was a shower. He wanted something to try and scrub away the blood that stained his hands.
I normally hate reading from the subject's pov, but I couldn't resist. Tell me what you think and thanks for reading! *cough* review *cough*