A Hail of Bullets

My name is Vriska Serket, and I want it all.

I have all the luck, which is why I’ve eluded law enforcement this long, and I will have all the fortune I want as long as I keep all this luck.

I had been through at least three jewelry stores and a high-end pawn shop just because I can tonight already, and the jewels and money were all safely tucked away in the trunk of my car. I worked alone, so I had to worry about making sure that my car was safely huddled away where no one would find it also. That was okay, I had many irons in the fire to juggle to make sure everything went smoothly, and I had all the luck on my side.

I had already hit three other banks in the last few months, and this would be my fourth. Good, I was halfway to eight, the best number.

There were countless banks in Chicago, and I had no particular pattern as to which banks to hit so it was difficult for the police to track me. I was smart and made sure I didn’t start a pattern of any sorts with the places I hit, especially banks.

I parked my car a good four blocks away in an alleyway that looked like it only had been used for trash and probably drugs in the last several days, if not weeks at most. Who knows, maybe there was a body in the dumpster.

I kicked the driver’s side door shut, yawning. I was bored by the small places I had gotten my fortunes from, but it also was a good three in the morning so I was sort of tired too. I shook my head to wake myself up a bit, hopefully the chilled wind on the walk over would help wake me too. The last thing I needed was to be nodding off while taking the money that was soon to be mine.

I tied my hair up into a bun while walking, glad that it was a dark brown and blended in with the dark. I left the bangs draping over my blind left eye, helping covering my face. During the day they’re brushed back behind my glasses, but at night I wore a contact lense in my right eye, the one that I could actually see out of. I lost the site of my left eye, along with my left arm, in a car wreck when I was 14. My stupid sister was speeding and was running a stoplight when we got T-boned by a truck. I was in the backseat on the driver’s side and the glass got in my eye along with enough shrapnel from the door to carve my arm to shreds. My sister died, plain and simple. Aranea was a bigger bitch than I was, so I almost don’t care that she did kick the bucket.

I wore gloves over my hands, so it doesn’t show that I have a robotic one.

I reached the back and hung a left into the alley a few buildings down and took the back way over to the bank, ducking around dumpsters and an old, abandoned car to get to the back door. I had already done my reconnaissance around the bank a week ago, I knew where all the cameras were and the entry code to the back door. I was damn good at what I did.

I confidently walked up to the door after straightening the black cargo pants and long sleeved, dark grey overshirt that I wore. They looked nice enough to pass as work clothes in a dark camera and were just baggy enough to allow pretty decent freedom of movement without being that obnoxiously baggy that could possibly set off alarms with the wrong move or flutter of a draft.

I punched in the numbers to the back door and walked in like any employee would, but had my penlight out and ready to detect any sort of laser trap that may have been set right there.
Luckily, there weren’t. Like I said, I have all the luck. All of it.

Smirking, I made my way down the hallways toward the vault, which was toward the center of the building, but far enough back that I only had to pick three locks before getting the the door. There was nothing fancy about it, just a heavily guarded door. I picked all the locks without tripping any wires, and was about to make my way through the touch screen defenses when I heard a yell several yards behind me, “Freeze!”

I exhaled through my teeth. Looks like this bank had a security guard that didn’t sleep on the job.
I straightened up, put my hands on my hips, pulled my gun from where it had been resting between my hip and my waistband, and spun and held the gun level with the guard’s, “I hiiiiiiiighly don’t recommend firing, I’m sure I’m a much better shot.”

“Drop your weapon!” he yelled, his arm swinging down to hit his belt and then to come back up to stabilize his firing arm. He probably just hit an emergency button for the cops, fantastic.

“Don’t make me shoot you, just can it and drop your gun,” I growled. “I’m not afraid to hurt you.”

“I said drop it! Law enforcement officers are on their way, don’t make me shoot before they get here,” he stated clearly, his voice not shaking in the slightest. This probably was not his first rodeo.

I rolled my eyes and fired, grazing his hand and lodging itself into his firing arm. He screamed from the pain and dropped his gun, giving me an opening to rush forward and pistol whip him across the temple, knocking him out.

Now that he was taken care of, I needed to get out. Immediately.

I rushed my way through the bank, heading back toward the back door. I knew there were going to be cops at every entrance when they arrived, but if my luck held strong I’d get out before they arrived.

I shoved the back door open, not even bothering to put the code in to disable the alarm, and immediately backpedaled and shut the door in front of me again. The police were behind the building, guns raised and ready to gun me down from behind squad cars.

It looks like my luck ran out.

“Fuuuuuuuuck!!!!!!!!” I hissed, turning and running toward the front where there were more windows. Maybe I could break one and get the hell out of Dodge.

I ducked behind the tellers’ counters and ran toward a window at the end of the row. Unfortunately, the window was on the other side of the counter. I needed to get over the counter, break the window, and jump through it before the police got to it.

I gave myself to the count of eight to catch my breath before hurdling over the counter and kicking the window in. Glass rained down, and I jumped through, ducking behind a bush that provided very little cover, and looking toward the back of the building and then toward the the front. There were plenty of cops behind and in front of the building, but the side I was on was clear for the time being. There also was a wooden fence right across the stretch of pavement along the side of the building, maybe my luck wasn’t completely out!

As quietly as I could, I ran across the twenty or so feet of asphalt to the fence and scaled it, feet expertly catching the small footholds between the planks. I hopped over the fence and landed just as I heard the police yell, “She just went over the fence on the west side! She’s armed and dangerous, use any force necessary!”

I swore a few more times and immediately hung a right into the backyard of the poor family’s house that was next to the bank and ran left to get behind it. I had to get back to my car.

I hopped another fence and ran across another person’s yard, and another, and another before throwing myself to the left and crossing the street into a more commercial district. There weren’t many cars of course, with it being so late after all, but I ducked behind whatever I could find to match for cover when I could. The police weren’t far behind me.

I was almost to my car, I was almost there.

Exhaustion was starting to drain at my limbs, however, so I was slowing down. That was really pissing me off because I needed to move faster not slower.

I panted from between the two cars I was hunched between, my lungs heaving from the strain of running for at least a mile’s worth of distance, if not more from all the random turns and such to try and lose the men and women and whatever other gendered people who had guns pointed at me.
I had my gun also, but I wasn’t a very good shot when firing behind me while running.

“Come out with your hands up!” a female officer yelled.

Fuck, I had stayed in this spot too long.

“Kiss my ass!” I yelled back inching my way down to the front of the car so I could pop up and shoot her. I didn’t intend to kill her of course, the last thing I needed was a warrant for murder on my head on top of theft, but I definitely wanted to make sure she wouldn’t get back up from the fall for awhile.
I popped my head up and fired, hitting her in the right shoulder, but three other officers had their guns raised also and I managed to duck just in time to avoid my blood splattering the pavement.

“Surrender your weapon and you will not be harmed!” the woman yelled again, her voice strained. She wouldn’t give up would she?

I chanced a look over my shoulder and saw more officers coming up toward where I was crouched.

I was surrounded.

I hissed a string of words that someone’s mom would probably smack me for, and came to the conclusion that I would either go into police custody, or I would die.

I would either go to jail with everything taken from me, or I would die with my possessions still mine.
I gritted my teeth, I had a choice to make. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to lose everything I had worked hard to claim.

“Oh fuck it,” I muttered. I would go down in a hail of bullets, and I would take down as many as I could on my way out.

I threw my head up to start firing at the officers in front of me before ducking again, turning, and rising up enough to shoot at the ones behind me. I heard the female officer yell, “FIRE!”

Bullets pelted the cars and I felt one go through the car and graze my right arm, my firing arm. I hissed before jumping up to fire again, taking down two officers in the front, and then alternating to take one down in the back.

All in all, I took down all but the female in the span of minutes.

I jumped up enough to grin at the officer, who was holding her opposite hand over the wound in her shoulder, scowling, “You can’t catch me bitch. I could kill you, or you could let me go.”

She shook her head as I stood, my gun aimed at her head, when out of nowhere she flips a bloody coin she had had in her hand. Out of my exhaustion, I was so distracted by the flipped coin that I didn’t notice her raise her injured arm and fire three shots into my torso, pain radiating out in spiderwebs of agony.

I stared at her as a grin spread upon her face, “What was that about me not being able to catch you?”

I flipped her off once my gun dropped. The edges of my vision were darkening, and I crumpled toward the ground, the woman’s laughed statement, “Justice prevails every time, even if the guilty party is dead,” the last thing I heard before everything disappeared into oblivion.

My name is Vriska Serket, and I lost it all.