Straying out of Sanity

I traced my eyeliner along my bottom lash lines one more time to make the outline around my eyes a little darker before standing straight and flattening my black tank top over my stomach.

"Come on Emma! Let's go!" Mitch shouted at me from halfway across the parking lot.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I said at his impatience and walked away from the car's side mirror that I was using to put my makeup on. "Where are we working today?" I asked them as I got near enough.

"You call this work?" Jay asked, shining his pocket knife on his shirt, "'S more like stealing."

"It is stealing," Laurel said from my side and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

"You don't complain when we're feeding you," I told my little sister with a smile.

"You could find other ways to take care of me instead of mugging people," she said and looked down at her shoes.

"Its not mugging, its forcefully taking cash from unsuspecting people that just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We don't hurt them," Jay told her, stuffing his knife into his back pocket.

"Much," Mitch added in and the guys laughed.

I rolled my eyes with my baby sister as we walked down a busy sidewalk in Gotham's sunny mid afternoon day. My sister remained quiet with me as we followed the guys through the crowd. They led us to one of our usual spots, a considerably less populated street connecting with an alley way in a sort of "T".

It was the part of town where the "less wealthy" were with their jobs and apartments and the sun never shown as brightly here, especially in our alley. We four slipped into the alley way virtually unnoticed and I led Laurel to her usual spot, hidden from everyone's view in an abandoned basement to one of the buildings making up the dirty little alley. Jay disappeared into the shadows next to where Laurel was hidden and Mitch left to the other side of the alley to wait for me to pull someone off the street.

I patted my outer right thigh, over my black plaid skirt, to make sure my switchblade was held in its place by my garter belt. I went and leaned up against one of the walls not too far from the opening of the alley across from Jay and folded my arms across my chest, waiting.

Finally, almost half an hour later the street was empty enough to make a move. It was only another minute at most before I spotted our victim. He was possibly in his early thirties, wearing a cheap tweed sports jacket and a nice pair of khakis, which matched his button up shirt he was wearing under the jacket. He had a watch chain hanging out of one of the jacket pockets and I realized this would be too easy. This guy looked like my nine year old sister could beat him to a pulp with him fighting back.

"Excuse me sir," I said to catch his attention. He turned to look at me and stopped walking. "Could you please tell me what time it is? My friends are late, we should've met up a while ago and there's no sign of them."

The man, obviously way to trusting, walked over while pulling out his pocket watch. He stood in front of me and flipped it open. "Twelve past three," he smiled looking back up at me from his watch and I discreetly unhooked my switchblade from my garter belt.

"Thanks," I said and looked over his shoulder to Jay, who was now behind the man with his knife out. The man turned to look behind him too and his face fell drastically into something terrified. I joined Jay, in front of the man, blocking the way out of the alley and as soon as he saw my switchblade glistening in my hand he turned and ran. Straight towards Mitch. As soon as he was halfway through the alley Mitch stepped in the man's path with both oh his pocket knives in each hand.

The man stopped and turned back to us. Jay and I, both slim and tall, would be just as bad to take on as Mitch alone because he was quite bigger, and frankly more scary, then us two. "Please, don't hurt me," he whimpered as the three of us advanced on him.

"Oh we're not going to hurt you... if you cooperate with us," I smiled sweetly.

"Take anything you want! Here!" he said frantically and threw his watch at my feet. I stopped advancing towards him and picked up the watch, dusting it off with my tank top.

"We don't want your watch," Mitch growled from behind him.

"No please!" the man screamed as Jay swiftly held the knife up to the man's neck from behind.

I put the watch back in his pocket and searched for his wallet. It was in his back left pocket and I pulled it out and took the bills that were in there and then returned his now empty wallet back to his pocket.

The man looked quite confused but his frightened look spread across his face again as Mitch stepped in front of him, holding one of his knifes up to the mans right eye. "Tell anyone what just happened and I swear I'll hunt you down myself and cut both your eyes out," he threatened in a deadly voice.

"A-agreed," the man stuttered as I quickly counted his money. It was about forty dollars, give or take a few, and shoved it into one of my knee high boots.

"Thank you!" I said with the same sweet smile as Jay let the man go. Laurel came out just then and ran, past the frightened man, to join us.

"That was a little harsh, don't'cha think?" she asked Mitch and he laughed as we turned to exit the alley opposite where we entered it.

"That was nothing compared to what I've done before, you know that-" he started to answer but there was a gunshot from behind us and we all quickly turned to see three men, dressed in rather nice suits, all holding guns. At their feet was the man we had just robbed.

"Shit, get behind me," I whispered to my sister.

"That's not gonna help," she said and clung to my side. I looked at the other end of the alley where four more guys in nice suits were with their guns.

"No..." I was at a loss for words and the only thing on my mind was to protect Laurel.

"What do you want?" Mitch called to them, sounding a lot less tough than when we mugging the now dead man.

"Do you have any idea what you kids've just done?" the middle of the three men in front of us asked.

"What does it matter? You just fucking shot him!" I yelled, sounding desperate and horrified.

"Do you know whose turf you're in?!" the man shouted back at me, I cringed from his yelling. I had already figured out we just fucked with the mafia somehow.

"So what are you goanna do? Kill us? We have a fucking kid!" Jay yelled back at the man.
"Quite possibly," he said quietly and suddenly Laurel was pulled from my side and she started screaming bloody murder.

"NO!" I shouted and turned quickly to stab the man where his neck and shoulder blade connected. He cursed loudly and dropped my sister. She quickly got out of the way as I tried to stab him again in his upper stomach but he caught my hand and I ended up just scraping his side and dropping my knife.

He spun me around in his grip and I felt his gun to my head. I quickly, and stupidly, brought my leg up between his legs and he surprisingly missed my head when his gun went off. I elbowed him in his side where I had cut him and he let me go with a pained grunt. He fired his gun at me again but missed by barely an inch because I was running to Laurel.

Then another man tripped me and I fell flat on my face. I tried to get up but my long black hair was suddenly being pulled back, forcing me up. I screamed as I felt him pull some of my hair loose before I was turned around and face to face with a gun.

Before they could shoot I grabbed the gun and moved it away from my face and tried to kick him in the same spot as the other dude but he caught my leg and spun me around with it, causing me to loose my grip on his gun and it fell to the ground a few feet away.

I deliberately fell so I could pull my leg free and try and get the gun back. Once I was I caught him behind the knee, bringing him down as well. I sat up and tried to break his fat nose with the heel of my boot but he caught my foot, like he did my leg. He then pulled me towards him roughly as he retrieved the gun I dropped and pistol whipped me on the right side of my head.

I was out cold almost as soon as his gun hit my head.