A Wish From The Devil

CHAPTER 8: Following The Path OF Survival (2)

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"Yeah, I don't think I've seen him before," reiterated someone else and at this point, I knew they were most definitely setting me off for the slaughter without them even knowing about it,

Then I watch the policeman suddenly gets on his feet, making sure to tap the gun strapped at his waist, mostly to scare me and sadly it works since fear was all I'd known since my last near-death experience,

"Well..who are you? If the employees don't know you then I'm going to need you to explain your purpose here," the policeman said with an almost imperceptible smile on his face and if I didn't think he knew better, I would have thought that he was glad to see chaos emerge from my mere presence,

"erm…," I say as I begin rubbing both of my hands together,

"I'm actually…," I continue, even when at that moment I absolutely had no idea who I was in the bank and what I was going to say,

"He's actually a customer, I saw him come in this morning,"

I barely hear these words pop out of the mouth of the female employee, I recognized to be the one that had been interested in Tom when I suddenly have the urge to run over to her and carry her in my arms while twirling her around,

I look over at her noticing her red-rimmed eyes, half-filled with tears as she nods at me while making eye contact, before looking away as soon as the other people around her begin asking questions and looking towards her while also talking amongst themselves,

" Really?"

" Are you sure?"

"With such colourful clothes, I'm sure I would have noticed him if he got tied up along with us,"

"I agree with you," I don't remember ever seeing someone with that kind of clothes on,"

"Maybe he's the person who entered through the exit whom the robbers were talking to,"

" Nah...it was definitely the driver and he must have left since we never heard his voice and we were the closest one to the corner where they were,"

" Are we even sure there was another person?"

"Enough!!!" Yelled the officer the moment he noticed that his side was getting too noisy and he seemed to be losing control of the crowd,

"Is everything okay there, Officer Payton?" His fellow officer suddenly yelled as I stood praying, knowing fully well that one officer was already bad enough, if the second one joined then it would be like having to wade through two mighty egos at the same time,

" Yes, officer Jerry. Everything is being handled," Yelled officer Payton back as quickly as he could as he seemed completely against the idea of his partner joining him,

"So why exactly is it that just one woman in an entire whole crowd of employees can identify you?" he then went ahead to ask, looking at him with as fierce a gaze as he could give,

"Where were you throughout the duration of the robbery?" Asked the officer again, with a serious,(I'm carting you off to jail) expression on his face without even giving me a chance to answer the first question he asked,

Drawing out all the latent acting powers from deep within my soul, I bent my head till I saw nothing but the white lobby tiles making sure to visibly shake a little before answering the officer who seemed like he would like to do nothing but make an example of me,

" Hi...Hiding. I hid the moment they appeared because I was scared. I...I'm sorry," I said doing my best to stutter as hard as I could, retaining the sad and pitiful position I decided to take while patiently waiting for what was going to happen next,

Surprisingly, it seemed to work because barely seconds had gone by when I felt a huge hand land of my back jumping back in fright which made my fake acting all the more believable,

"Relax. I understand and not everyone is as brave as they pretend to be. Even us men, get scared sometimes," said a big man who seemed to be part of the employees as he spoke without taking his hands away from my shoulders,

" So all of you should give the man a break, Okay?" I hear as I make sure to keep my head bent while listening to him speak in my defence as everyone else agreed, nodding in understanding since most of them seemed to be able to relate since they just got through a robbery,

"Okay! Okay!," the officer in front of me yelled drawing everyone's attention back to him,

"I have the gist of everything that mostly happened and the robbers were caught along with the money they stole so everyone is free to go home. Hopefully, you'll all be able to have a drink and forget that today ever happened," he said slamming his Potter shut and storing away the pen he was holding in his shirt pocket on his left breast,

"If you have any questions or anything else you wish to report you can come over to the police station," he said taking one long gaze at the entire crowd before matching out as fast as he could almost as if he was late for a minute.

He had barely walked out of the lobby, slamming the doors behind him when his fellow officer who had been handling the other half of the employees with him also walked out of the lobby, in the same hurried manner,

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The moment the police officers walked out of the lobby, Ray barely stayed long enough to count to ten before he began walking in the direction of the door before anyone decided to strike a conversation with him,

Out of the bank, he ran down the stairs, walking as fast as he could, wanting nothing more than to leave the bank's area completely,

With both hands in his pocket and just enough change for him to take a bus home, Ray was passing through the main car park where most of the police cars were parked, mostly ignored by the few policemen still standing by their cars when just as he was walking by a car, he heard two angry people yelling at each other with their windows rolled down,

"Shut up, Henry, the Police were supposed to come earlier, and you couldn't even handle that,"

"The robbers paid us well enough, I didn't see why we had to double-cross them,"

"You don't see things. That's why I'm the one who does the thinking right?"

"So because you're the manager of the bank, I'm supposed to listen to you?"

"No you're supposed to listen to me because I'm your mother and we need the money to pay your f*****g gambling debts," yelled the female voice whose voice projected higher and louder than that of the other person in the car,

Hearing their conversation as he slowly walked past, shocked to even think of the implication of what he had just heard and at the same time, tempted to go back and find out more,

Yet, instead of following the angry feelings, he felt, as always he decided to play it safe, and Ray kept on going, walking away as fast as he could, without once, looking back,