24

24:00:00

23:59:59

23:59:58

23:59:57

23:59:56

23:59:55

Five seconds.

Five seconds, wasted in disbelief.

From the moment the steel door shut, we stared at that clock for five seconds.

Then he dropped down on his knees, feebly running his hands over the cylinder, his fingers shaking as he searched for anything.

I stood there, in shock, too weak at the knees to even think about moving.

I watched his lips begin trembling, his hands shaking more and more as he finally sighed, his eyes closed as he moved his hands to his head, twining into his curly brown hair, sitting back on his calves.

"We're...we're the best goddamn people at what we do, how...how does this happen? How?!" He looked up at me, no longer saddened, but enraged now.

I was still paralyzed. I didn't know how this happened.

"We put them through hell." I whispered, feeling like every second was a second wasted. "He made it personal."

"What do we do? I mean, I may have some experience in tech, but this-" He cut himself short, shrugging. "What the hell do we do about this?"

I finally got the feeling back in my legs as I took a step back and slid down the wall, shaking my head with a slight frown. I hated not knowing what to do, but I hadn't a clue.

"No idea."

23:00:00

22:59:59

"How long can your battery last?" He asked, his eyes darting to my phone quickly, before the went back to scouring the cylinder for some give. His shirt was untucked, his tie loosened and tossed over his shoulder.

I shrugged, "I haven't used it hardly at all, maybe another eight, nine hours." It was the only decent light to see by, even though the lights in the ceiling were bright, with us hovering over the matal cased catastrophe waiting to happen, we were blocking it out.

"How long do you think it'll take me to get this thing disarmed?" There was a joking tone to his voice, a sliver of a crooked smile coming across his face.

"If, we-" The smile faded quickly as he stopped and looked at me seriously.

The word hung in the air as he spoke. "Don't." A stern finger was pointed at me, the word repeated. "Don't."

"Sorry." He took a deep breath, I took a shallow one, and he went back to scanning the steel casing.

22:29:00

22:28:59

"Okay, okay, I can get the casing off," His breathing was heavy as he looked up at me, his lockpicking set jammed into a tiny sliver of a part at the side of the cylinder. He looked up at me. "Should I?"

I licked over my dry lips quickly, knowing the consequences. "If you do, we might die, but if you don't-"

He cut me off, "We will die."

A beat.

I nodded.

He inhaled deeply.

He worked the hook pick around to where it was vertical, and then slid the torsion wrench in, and his breathing seemed to escalate as he slowly put pressure on the tools, and I tensed up, squeezing my eys half-closed. He kept putting more and more weight on them, and then there was a pop, and we both jumped slightly.

It was off, and god...god I would've felt better not knowing what was on the inside.

Six or seven cylinders of a light blue liquid were inside, all wired together, a timer sitting between two of them on top. Two circular pieces of metal, with ridges cut in them to hold the large...vials, in place. They gave off a slight blue glow.

"God..." My voice cracked, and the lockpicking tools hit the ground with two distinct tinks. He fell back once more onto his calves, his eyes closing. Mine stayed fixed on the blue glowing liquid, almostcalming, it was. It rocked back and forth in the capsules, despite them not moving at all.

21:20:37

21:20:36

"So what do we do now? I mean, we can't just disarm this...this...thing-"

"Bomb." I whispered. "Just say it, it's a bomb. It's an explosive, set to go off at a certain time, meant to kill us." I felt my fingers tightening around the phone, I could feel the plastic case creaking with the pressure.

"I can't say it that way." He growled quietly.

I could feel my heart beating faster and faster. "Why, because you're failing yourself again?" I tested, nerves shot. "Because we don't have an exact notion as to why we're going to be in the middle of it? Because of the collateral-"

"Because I don't want to die!" The scream sliced through the air as his head snapped to me, his eyes watery and my lips twitched, my heart now beating too fast to keep up with. "B-because I don't want to die." His sobs broke me. "I don't want to. I don't-" He buried his head in his hands, then quickly removed them from his face and stood up, stalking over to the wall and standing there, facing it for a second before he screamed, drawing his fist back and throwing it into the steel, hitting a lock with his knuckle.

Obscenities flew from his mouth, drowning in pain as he cradled his fist, still sobbing, still crying.

I knew this side too well.

I stood up, quietly. "We can't disarm this, okay? We can't do anything." My bottom lip threatened to tremble. "We have to accept this."

"No we don't!" He stood up, turning to face me, eyes red. "We don't-we don't have to accept anything, not yet."

I sighed, "Then when?"

He pointed to the bomb with a shaky finger, his knuckles swelling.

"When that timer hits zero."

20:13:47

20:13:46

It was nine fourty-seven. We should've been out of here hours ago, but then the doors locked, and here we found ourselfs.

I was picking, opening box after box, the lines of them on the wall seeming to go on forever and ever. There were one hundred and twenty five in the room. They weren't taking long.

He was sitting in front of our little problem still, scouring it. He was obsessed now. It'd been four hours, and he was obsessed.

Typical.

I just kept busy, thinking. It was more like a fuction, now, just something I did. Go through a lock, turn the hook, move the torsion wrench, feel the tumblers, push them back into their locking positions, one at a time until all are set and the lock turns perfectly, and the little steel door opens. Usually to jewelry, or a smaller safe with a digital combination, the keypad not much of a defense, the combination worn down on the keys, leaving the safe and its contents vulnerable.

"I wish we could call someone." A whisper brought me from my daze, my fingers freezing around my tools.

I turned around towards him, "You know that's not an option." I whispered, and he nodded slowly. "What would we say if we had anyone, and, well, you know where the police are."

He laughed slightly. "How did we get so fucked up?" He looked up at me, his eyes sad still. "How, did we ever get where we are?"

"I wish I could tell you, but you know about as much as I do."

"We're just addicts, aren't we?"

"Something like that."

19:00:00

18:59:59

We hadn't slept all night. Been up planning. Now it was nearing eleven in the morning. We were sitting side by side against one wall of boxes, half of them picked.

"I'm sorry I yelled." His voice sounded through the room.

I opened my eyes, "I'm sorry I'm losing hope." It wasn't much of an apology.

"I know, but we can't do that now. Not now, everything's just started, we have to at least hold on until the end."

"Well, it's not like we'll be missed, I mean, really, what do we have to live for?" I turned my head to look at him. "We don't have anything, I mean, our pasts are long dead, and-"

"Don't-just...stop talking, please. Stop talking."

"What I'm saying is, neither of us are going to get out of here, or both of us are going to get out of here. Either we're both going to die, or neither of us will."

He sighed heavily and leaned forward, his arms limp on his knees as he shook his head, "You know, from the moment we first met I never thought we'd end up this way."

"End up how? The two of us spending our last hours together, or the two of us...in general?" I leaned my head back against the steel and he shurgged, making a slight face.

"Both."

17:46:00

17:45:59

"Things always go as planned, why couldn't they have gone as planned this time?"

I rolled over onto my back, shaking my head, "Because we got cocky." I was sure, with last weeks spectacle in the papers. "We should've known they were going to do something."

"Yes, but not something this drastic. Police don't blow people up, they lock them away and make them suffer." He was back standing over the bomb, looming over it, his hands on his hips. I started sitting up, moving my back against the wall. Things were quiet for a moment.

"Is this not suffering?" I stared at the white ceiling. "Knowing you're going to die, and knowing you can't do anything to stop it?"

"No, it's not suffering." He spoke softly, crouching down, eyes narrowing, his face bathed in the light blue glow of the unknown blue liquid. "It's much worse than that." His eyes seemed to glaze over, staring into the blue glow. "It's like...like holding on to the person you hold dearest as they bleed out in your arms, and knowing no matter how much pressure you hold to the wound, they are going to die, and it's going to be your fault."

"Hey, we've talked about this." I whispered, and he looked over at me, seemingly still spaced as he nodded.

He moved back and sat against the wall. "Right, right, I'm sorry."

"I should have never tried to-"

He cut me off, a slight smile on his face. "But you got me through it, didn't you?"

"Only because we met up again and I'd heard about her. But if we hadn't of gotten in the same predicament again, we wouldn't be sitting here right now, we wouldn't be sitting here with less than a day to live." I leaned my head back against the wall. "Maybe we'd still be hitting houses in the rich part of town, not here."

I heard a chuckle from him. "You still remember that far back...what's it been? Ten years now?"

I lolled my head over to look at him. I pointed at the ring on his finger. "You're one to talk, I know you think about it every day."

He looked down at where I was pointing, taking the ring and twisting it around his middle finger.

"I still think you should have this." He looked up at me and I shook my head, sitting forward.

"I still think you should see it as a token of my appreciation for you pulling me from that hell I was in."

He sighed heavily, "Pull you out of that so...what? We could, go independant, make a living off other people's wealth, and then end up locked in a room with a bomb in ten years time?"

"No, so I wouldn't get beat, so you could be safe, and so we could have an amzing ten years with one another, and then go out with a bang." He cracked a bigger smile and more of a laugh.

"We'll go out with a bang, that's for sure."

14:12:35

14:12:34

The metal saftey deposit boxes were cold, even through my shirt. We sat back against them anyways though. They were a good kind of cold.

"Do you ever wonder how lucky we had to be, to not only run into one another once, but twice, in two diferent places?" He asked, his voice quiet.

I shrugged. "I figure it was something like fate." I earned a smile with my words, and he nodded.

"What a rollercoaster our days used to be..." He sighed heavily, a fond look on his face.

"Back when things were simple." I whispered, my mind going back. "Back when things weren't complicated." Before any of this came into play. "Back when we were just thieves."

"Back before...before I had worry about something going wrong and one of us getting killed." He took my hand, twining our fingers together.

"We should go back to hitting houses." I muttered, and smiled slightly as he let out a breath.

"We should. Wouldn't be as dangerous."

"But instead, we're here." The smile faded from my face as I spoke, a sigh slipping past my lips.

"We should've known this was coming, really." He rested our hands on hs thigh with a deep breath. "We've laughed in the face of the police force in this town for years now...every time they nearly get us, we slip away. We should've known they'd get this desperate."

"I guess. We've done more bad things than good." I agreed, letting my eyes rest on the cylinder in the middle of the room.

10:00:00

9:59:59

We sat and talked, reminisced, wondered... The conversations went on and on, back and forth over the explosive between us.

"Ten years from now, I think we'd be settling down, maybe somewhere up north, somewhere snowy, cold." I pondered, staring into the cracks between the vials of blue glowing liquid.

"Yeah, I'd like that. Somewhere secluded, too." He added.

I nodded, "We would have a wonderful life."

"We would have an amazing life." He restated, and I looked at him, peering into the insides of what would be the end of our lives.

We would never get to move up into the north, into a cold and secluded little cabin or whatnot. We wouldn't die because of old age.

We'll never make it out of this room.

The only upside, is that we'll die together.

8:00:00

7:59:59

"What about that one?" He pointed his hook pick at one of the three wires that were actually showing.

I sighed, "It doesn't matter which one, with our luck, they're all rigged to set it off." He sniffed, sitting back on his calves, shaking his head. Neither of us said anything for a moment.

"I'm sorry about earlier, about...that." He whispered suddenly, guesturing over his shoulder with the pick at the saftey deposit box with a dent.

"It's alright, I know you're still messed up from everything that happened with...her." I told him, understanding the anger.

"It happens sometimes, I'm sorry."

"Hey, I understand. I have my past, and you have yours." I told him, and he let his eyes drift to the floor.

"I was gonna marry her, you know." His voice was near silent as I took a deep breath. "I was gonna marry her, and drop out of this life, and then I..." His nose scrunched up as he looked at me, like he was trying to fight his emotions. "What makes it worse is that I thought it was you at first, and I was so pissed off, I just..." His lips pursed, and I got up, going around to him, taking his face in my hands.

"Hey, hey, look at me, look at me." I tried, and he closed his eyes, trying to pull my hands away, but I wouldn't let him. "Look at me." I ordered, and finally he did. "We both did some things we regret, but that was not your fault." I said sternly, his eyes watery, mine mirroring them now.

"I tried to kill you." He whispered, and he wrapped his arms around me, taking a deep breath.

"Well, we're about even on that front, besides, we're past that, remember?" I reminded him, knwoing how hard that first year was for the two of us. "Fromt he first time we met we tried to kill each other, throwing back and forth names."

"Then we ran into each other a second time and it was worse." He whispered, having calmed down it seemed, and he pulled away, taking a deep breath.

"When you hunted down my boss, you were gonna storm the castle and take me out, right then. But-"

"But then I walked in and found him strangling you, and...I don't know what came over me."

"You saved me though, remember?" I smiled slightly as he nodded. "You killed the right person that night, and you freed me from a Hell I'd suffered in for far too long."

"And now look at us..." He smiled, resting a hand on the side of my face. "In love."

"We've come so far, and we've moved through so much, don't look back now."

"Never."

3:45:00

3:44:59

We'd looked over the whole thing, one more time. Spent a good couple hours searching it over, looking at every little thing, every little detail, but there was nothing we could do that would end this nightmare.

The clock was never on our side, it just seemed to get faster and faster. My phone had died so I could no longer tell if it was right or not. Time just kept dwindling.

"What exactly did you mean, a while ago? 'We're just addicts'?" I asked quietly, sighing heavily, my arm touching his, the two of us sitting back where we were, against the saftey deposit boxes once again.

"I couldn't stop doing what I did because I was addicted to it. Klepto." He looked over at me, his brown eyes tired. "What about you?"

I shrugged, "I don't know, maybe the...danger." It was a half-assed answer. "Maybe the feeling of not knowing how a job could go." I couldn't help but think back to how all those jobs felt. Just the feeling of not knowing what could happen... "Maybe it'll go smooth and I'll get my cut and be home free, or...maybe I'll get caught and thrown in prison away from that lunatic of a boss I had..." My heart wrenched, and I squeezed my eyes closed at the thought. "I still have the scars..." All the beatings, and the stab wounds, the cigar burns...not to even go near the mental scarring alone...

A hand was placed on my shoulder and I flinched, opening my eyes before realizing it was him and settling back into my normal state of fear and paranoia.

"It's alright, it's alright." He calmed quickly, and I shook my head.

"I don't think I can ever thank you enough for getting me out of there." I whispered, turning towards him, hands shaking.

"You've already thanked me just by being with me." His voice was soft as the corner of his mouth turned up into a smile, and he put one hand on mine.

00:30:00

00:29:59

Silence became more and more common between us as the time kept slipping away.

00:15:00

00:14:59

What do you say to the person you're going to die with? No matter the feelings in between.

00:5:00

00:4:59

"You think it's gonna hurt?" We hadn't moved an inch in the past few hours, we just sat, and stared, and waited.

"No, no, it's gonna be over," He snapped his fingers. "Just like that. Won't feel a thing." He leaned over, his breath hot on my neck. I turned towards him and he rested his forehead against mine.

"Thank you, for everything." I whispered, my eyes watering. "For saving me, for loving me..."

"You don't have to thank me, it was you who saved me." He brought a hand up and rested it on my face. He leaned in twoards my lips, and I met him halfway, savoring the moment between us, knowing it was our last.

He pulled away, and we stayed still for a moment.

My eyes remained closed as his voice met my ears, "I love you."

"I love you too." I opened my eyes, our foreheads still touching, his teary eyes staring into mine.

We both pulled away and looked to the timer.

00:00:10

00:00:09

"I'm afraid." I whispered to him, my heart speeding up with each passing second.

"Don't be." His voice was soft, and a hand was placed on the back of my neck, and I turned to face him. "Just close your eyes, we're gonna be alright."

I closed my eyes.

00:00:05

00:00:04

00:00:03

00:00:02

00:00:01