Chapter 4: Good, I've got her attention.
"I'm so sorry, I just happened to forget my reading glasses at home today. Hope you don't mind?"
"Wh-what?" Marian stared at me in pure, uncomprehending daze. This wasn't in the script she'd rehearsed.
Confusion warred with her nervousness. But after a second of paralyzed silence, the instinct to agree with the adult in charge kicked in. She nodded her head jerkily. "Sure…" she mumbled, the word barely audible.
I merely gave her a reassuring nod, or what I hoped was reassuring, and did something completely against store protocol. I stepped out from behind the counter.
My movements made her flinch slightly. She watched my every move, her wide eyes tracking me like a rabbit watching a coyote. The nervousness was now tinged with fresh alarm even though she'd been the one to give me the ok sign.
'Hopefully she's not a biter,' a dark, humorless thought flickered through my mind. The absurdity of the situation, me, a college kid, worried about being bitten by a scared teenager in a convenience store, almost made me laugh.
I took a quick, sweeping glance around the store. The aisles were empty. The only sound was the low sound of the coolers and the song of a popular k-pop band, oozing from the ceiling speakers.
'Well, no one's here besides the two of us, so this should work.'
My heart was hammering against my ribs now, like a beating drum emanating adrenaline and uncertainty.
This was it. My first mission. I walked past Marian, giving her a wide berth so as not to spook her further, and made my way to the store's glass front door.
"Sir? What are you doing?" Her voice shot up an octave, laced with pure, unvarnished panic, when my hand closed around the double-sided laminated sign hanging on the door by a piece of string. The sign read 'OPEN' on the side facing the parking lot.
I didn't answer. I simply flipped it over.
The side now facing the empty, orange-lit world outside, and clearly visible to Marian inside, read in big, bold, black letters.
'CLOSED.'
I hooked it securely on the door handle. The metallic click of the latch engaging as I gave the door a firm pull to ensure it was locked, the k-pop song overshadowed the locking sound but I was sure she definitely didn't feel comfortable hearing it since in a way, the song acted as isolation.
After flipping the sign and hearing the definitive thud of the door locking, I turned slowly on my heel to face her. The moment my eyes met hers, Marian unconsciously took another stumbling step back, her shoulder bumping against a rack of cheap sunglasses. The look on her face was pure, undiluted anxiousness, like a rabbit caught in a sudden, unexpected cage.
'Good. She's more scared than she is skeptical. This just might work.'
I allowed myself a brief, silent chuckle of relief, Yet, on the outside, my expression underwent a sharp, dramatic shift.
The mild-mannered, slightly spaced-out clerk vanished. In his place, my features hardened into cold look, and though I wasn't sure, I felt as if it was kinda intimidating.
My eyes narrowed, the corners of my mouth turning down into a severe, unforgiving line. I held up the fake ID card between my thumb and forefinger, turning it slightly so the fluorescent light caught the reflective laminate.
"To think we'd finally found you..." I said, my voice sounding low and flat, dripping with a grim, weary satisfaction I definitely didn't feel.
"Sir, what are you talking about?" she squeaked, her voice thin and reedy, cracking under the strain. "And why did you close the store?" Her eyes darted past me to the stark 'CLOSED' sign, then to the empty, orange-lit parking lot beyond the glass, as if hoping that this was some kind of prank and that her "friends" would emerge any moment.
"Don't play coy with me!" I barked, my voice suddenly sharp and loud, shattering the quiet. The volume made her physically flinch, her whole body trembling as if struck. I took a slow, deliberate step toward her, then another, my boots making soft, ominous sounds on the tiled floor.
My gaze similar to a cold, heavy weight, pressing down on her, making her seem to shrink inside her oversized grey hoodie.
"You think I wouldn't recognize you just because of some cheap, back-alley plastic surgery?!" I sneered, injecting a note of contemptuous disbelief into my voice.
"Stop playing games Kim! The disguise is pathetic." I took the final step and, before she could think to bolt, my hands shot out and clamped down firmly on her shoulders. Not enough to hurt, but with a firm, inescapable grip meant to convey total control and immediate threat. She gasped, a tiny, hiccuping sound of pure terror.
"Tell me where you hid the money," I demanded, my face now inches from hers. I could see the fine, almost invisible cracks in the plastic arms of her glasses, as well as the way her lower lip quivered.
"The boss has been looking for you for weeks." I let a low, ominous chuckle rumble in my chest, the sound entirely foreign to me
"Did you really think you could run away after making a fool of him? You're god-damned lucky I found you first. If it had been the other guys…" I paused for effect, letting my eyes travel over her face with a cruel, glint in my eyes, as if assessing a piece of soon to be damaged goods.
"They'd probably have to fleece that pretty face right off your skull to find the one we're looking for underneath."
"F-Fleece my… face?" Her voice didn't just turn hoarse but cracked, like an airless whisper, the words barely making it past the lump of absolute terror in her throat.
The color had completely drained from her cheeks, leaving her as pale as the receipt paper in the register. Her eyes were huge behind her magnifying lenses, pools of pure, uncomprehending fear.
'Good. She's totally buying it.' A massive wave of relief, tinged with a sharp pang of guilt, washed over me.