"Really? Well that's mighty nice of you young man." He waved the gun, indicating that Danny should move from behind the counter. He glanced back towards the arranging area. "Looks like you're not alone." He raised his voice. "Pardon me, miss. Can you join us out here please."
Marla looked up from her work. She'd been listening to her iPod at a volume that still made it possible to here the man's voice, but she'd been clueless as to what was going on. "Just a minute." All she could see was Danny's back. He was standing with his arms up. Almost without thinking about it, she slipped a pair of shears into her apron and walked up front, hands jammed in its pockets. Once up front she could see the man and something in his face seemed familiar. She couldn't place it, but if she let it stew in her mind she'd get it. If she had that much time left.
"Now that we're all together we can take care of business. If you young folks would be so kind as to get on your knees, that would be of great assistance to me."
The fear that had a hold on Danny clawed its way up his throat. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. "Please don't kill us sir. I don't want to…"
"Of course you don't and if you play your cards right you won't. Now do as I said." Mr. Sweatsuit, known in most circles as Jacobi, would have been disgusted once upon a time by what he saw on Danny's eyes. The young men these days were so much weaker than in any other time he'd lived through. Jaded by more than one of just these sorts of encounters though, he got over it.
Danny had no reason to trust the stranger, but doing so made him feel better, anything to stave off the sense of impending mortality. He did as he was told. He felt like he was going to throw up, but didn't want to lose what little cool he had left.
"There not much in the drawer and my dad doesn't keep a safe here," Marla said from her kneeling position. She'd maintained her grip on the shears even as she hit her knees. Her mind raced around trying to think of what she could do. Her dad always said that if she ever got held up that she should just cooperate. This wasn't a robbery though, no matter what the man said, them getting out of this alive wasn't looking good.
Jacobi went around behind them, noting as he did the fierce grip that the attractive young lady kept on some object in her apron. Based on the intel he'd gotten before coming here, she warranted keeping a solid eye on. He pressed the barrel of his gun against the back of Marla's skull. "Bring your hands out very slowly, Missy."
In a flash of wishful thinking Marla envisioned taking the sharp point of the gardening scissors and burying them in his chest. She knew that she'd be capable of it too, but she had no doubt that her brains would be all over the floor if she tried it. Her grip relaxed and she did as she was told.
