As soon as he exited the vault, the silence broke throughout the building.  A loud bang echoed through , as I saw a puff of blood come out of Ross’s head.  He dropped down to the ground, with his head staring back at us.  More gunfire ensued, forcing us to run back inside the vault.
“God damnit, I knew that was a bad idea!”  Charles managed to yell out over the gunfire.
“Well then why didn’t you say anything Charles?  If you thought it was a bad idea, why didn’t you speak up?!”  Ryan angrily replied, but to no answer from Charles.  Ryan decided to egg him on,
“Why did you let him go out there?!  Don’t you think that if you thought this was a bad idea-
“Stop it, Ryan.  Now is not the god damn time for this!”  I blurted out, silencing Ryan before he could escalate the already rising situation.
“He’s dead, there’s nothing we can do about that.  Now let's get back on track, and find another way out.”
“Now if you three are done yelling at each other, I’d like to make a statement about how screwed you all are right now!”  A foreign voice broke up our argument.  While none of us wanted to admit it, that rude voice had a point.  We are screwed, if we can’t think of something.
“Because of this, I’ve decided to give you all a slight, small glimmer of a chance to prevent any more bloodshed.  Come outside, and lay down all of your weapons.  Turn yourselves into us, and we’ll let you live.”
The offer seemed too good to be true, at least to me.  But looking around, everyones morale seems to have completely dried up.  Even Ryan seemed to have no way out of this predicament.  They have us cornered.  There’s nothing we can do about this.  We have to turn ourselves in.  We all could hear their footsteps draw closer, our time shortening the longer we wait.
“I’m going to give you to the count of five,” the voice rang out again.  We were running out of time, and someone had to make a decision soon.
“Five…”
“Four…
“Three..
“Two…”
“One…”
“Wait!”  I blurted out at the last second.  There was no choice here, I had to do something!
“We’re coming out!  Don’t shoot, okay?”  I dropped my weapon, and signaled the rest to do the same.  There was nothing we could do.
“Are you mad!?  Why are we doing this?”  Ryan whispered out to me, making sure his voice couldn’t be heard by the outsiders.
“You got a better idea that doesn’t involve running into a death trap?”  I aggressively asked him.  I didn’t expect an answer from him, so I signaled everyone to come forward.
We began walking outside the vault.  Our hands above our heads, carefully maneuvering past the dead corpse of Ross.  Only now did we get a clear view of what happened.  On the floor above us, the railing was lined with snipers, each one of them trained on our heads.  There was no way we could turn back now, that was for sure.  We kept walking until one of the men upstairs signaled us to stop.  He pulled out a megaphone and began to speak to us.
“Thank you.  I’m glad there was no need for more bloodshed.  Now don’t move.”
“Look at this mess!” The voice with the megaphone rang out again.  “This’ll cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover up.  Sheesh.”  He talked so casually, yet seemed to be agitated about this whole situation.
“I’ll be the first to admit that while I am thoroughly pissed off, I’m also kind of impressed at how far you all made it!”  At this point, he had to be mocking us.  But it’s not like we could plan for this to happen.  This all seemed ridiculous to me.
“Not only do we need to hire a few dozen more guards next time, but now we have to replace the vault door altogether!  Hot damn, now that’s just annoying.”  Forget mocking, now he’s just rambling.  Who does this guy think he is?

A phone rang out on the second floor, and the man went to answer it.  He faced away from us, and talked in a hushed tone.  It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to alert us to who he’s talking to.  Must be someone important.  The call went on for at least a minute, until he finally hung up.
“Alright, well I hate to break it to you all, but we’re late.  Let’s wrap this up here.”
He commanded the snipers, and they all took aim at us.
“Wait, this isn’t how this works!” Charles screamed at the top of his lungs.  “You said we’d live!”
“Yeah, this is illegal!”  Ryan chimed in.  Are they seriously just going to kill us?
“Well, sorry to confuse you all.”  The man replied.  “We all know this here is illegal, but who said we were the law?”  His last sentence sent shivers up my spine.  We were fooled, and now we were going to pay the price.
“Let’s get this over with now!  We don’t have all day!”  Our fate was sealed.  We are gonna die here.  All of us began to slightly cower, and even Ryan looked like he’d seen a ghost.  There was no hope for us.  Nothing of this world could save us now.

With Brad and the others about to be gunned down, I figure now we be a good time of any to act.  It seems thematically appropriate.  I pull myself up, while picking up my rifle.  This got the peanut galleries attention, at the very least.
“I thought you killed him!”  He began reprimanding one of the sniper who took the initial shot, which gave us enough time to act.  I opened fire at the second floor balcony, causing the snipers to take cover.
“Get moving,  I got this!”  I yelled out at the others.  All of them grabbed the money, and ran for the elevators.

We ran as fast as we could, since we suspected there would be more guards closing in on us.  I’m still trying to process everything that just happened.  It all seemed so fast, the way everything changed.  How was he still alive?  Better yet, why did he run out first just to “die,” then come back later?  I don’t understand any of this.
We finally reached the elevator with no resistance, thankfully.  We all huddled inside, and waited for Ross.  All we could hear around us was just gunshots and yelling.  Lots and lots of yelling.  Eventually it all quieted down, and we could see him walking towards us.
I finally found the right elevator.  And good timing as well, seeing as how this bag was getting heavy.
“Alright, let’s get out of here.”  I tell Brad, who gets the elevator moving back to the ground floor.
“Hey, can one of you help me carry my bag?  It’s a little on the heavy side.”  I cackle a little bit, but then notice that everyone in the elevator was staring at me.
“Are any of you gonna help me, or not?”  I ask again, but they just keep staring; bewildered at the fact that I’m still here, I guess.
We finally reached the parking lot. Everyone seems to have fled the premises, probably due to the massive amounts of gunfire higher up.  All of us had looked like we walked out of a small warzone with our guns in tow.  We ran as fast as possible down the main lot until we got back to our van.
The van was grey, and seemed inconspicuous enough for us to get away.  We loaded all of our equipment under a trapdoor in the van, to make sure that no one would find it.  We exited the building though the parking exit, and sped away as fast as possible, and no one was the wiser.  We all unmasked as soon as we exited the building.  But no one said anything to each other.  We all just sat around, looking off into the distance.  I think they all were a bit shaken up about whatever happened there, and I don’t blame them.  Facing death like that has to be scary for them, and it’s not like I’m helping.

We we are shook.  I don’t believe any of us could’ve believed whatever happened.  Not even me.  All I knew now was the plan we had for afterwards;  we lay low for a while, and let the heat die down.  That was the plan.  But I don’t think we’re gonna have to worry about pressure from the police or even that mob we ran into.  I worry that the pressure is gonna come from ourselves.
Hours passed.  None of us spoke a word.  Charles was messing with the radio, jumping from station to station, while Brad drove.  Ryan however, was just staring out the window, doing absolutely nothing.  I must’ve really shook these guys.  But the open road ahead is a desolate wasteland, for the most part. It shouldn’t be too long until someone cracks under its pressure.
The unspoken agreement to silence had finally been broken by none other than Charles.
“It may seem dumb to ask now, but is everyone ok?  That job was a total mess.”  Ryan’s head perked up to look Charles in the eyes.
“Us?  Ok?  I guess we’re all intact, but may I be one to as what just happened to all of us?”  His sentence echoed throughout the van, but to no answer.  I decided to look out the window, and hopefully get an idea as to where we are.  Maybe that would get my mind of the inevitable argument that would follow.  Of course, I got pulled in anyways (although, I expected it to happen).
“No, you don’t get to look away on this Ross!  What happened back when you got shot?  How are you still here?!”  Ryan persisted specifically towards me.  He wanted an answer, and I guess I “have” to give it to him.  Well, if I’m going to give him my answer, I might as well make it interesting.
I didn’t reply, and just continued to stare out the window.  Knowing Ryan’s temper, I wouldn’t be surprised if this annoyed him.
“Come on, tell us!  What are you hiding, asshole?”  I could tell I was already getting to Ryan, and I hadn’t uttered a single word.  The aggression in his voice is definitely something to be valued in this line of work, but he really needs to work on his patience.
I saw Ryan reach to his side, and come back around holding a glock.  Out of all of my days with him, he’s never resorted to threatening over a verbal argument before.
“Tell me right now or I find out for myself!”  Ryan yelled out.
“That’s enough Ryan!  We are in public!  We can’t just fire randomly out here!”  I tried to break up the event.  As much as I don’t like how Ross is antagonizing Ryan right now, I can’t let Ryan do something like this right now.  We’re supposed to lay low, not increase the pressure on ourselves.
“Stop me in 3 seconds, or else!”  Oh no.  Not a countdown.  Not again.
“3!”
“2!”
“1!”

I could see the oncoming semi-truck, barreling down the opposite side of the road, as Ryan counted down.  If I timed this just right, there’d be one helluva show for everyone else.  As he was getting ready to count down, I pulled the lock on my door out, so that the door would unlock for me.
The moment Ryan counted to one, I heard the side door of the van slide open at a blisteringly fast pace.  I then hear a loud thud, which seemingly came from the outside the van.  Looking behind me, I saw that Ross was no longer in the van, and that the side door was still open.  Did he jump?  Why would he do that?  I check the rear-view mirror, just to be sure.  Sure enough, there was a commotion going on behind us, on the other side of this small road.  It looks as if an opposing semi-truck had crashed into something, and had pulled over on the side of the road.
“S***.”  Ryan exclaimed, summing up my feelings of the past 24 hours with just one word.
We made a u-turn as soon as possible, and rushed over the the stopped semi-truck.  Once we got close, we pulled up alongside it, and all got out to see what had happened.  Sure enough, the front grille of the semi-truck was completely screwed.  Blood had splattered all over it, and it seems as if pieces of skin were attached to it as well.
Ross’s body was lying some odd couple of feet away from the truck.  He laid there almost motionless, with only a slight twitch resonating from his body.  We ran over to him, to see what the damage was.  His face was torn up from the impact, and he had broken bones all over his body.  I wouldn’t know how anyone could survive an impact like that.
I sprang back up, right in front of Brad.  Blood was rushing through my body, and visibly out of my wounds.  My body should’ve been broken, yet I could walk and talk and breathe the same as any others.  They couldn’t believe it.  I could see it in their eyes, their total disbelief of what was in front of them.  I loved this feeling.  It fueled me, and made me whole.  I knew nothing could replace this feeling.  The cherry on top of all of this is the total confusion that would ensue.  ‘Oh my god, he’s alive!’ and ‘How are you not dead?’ Were probably my favorite responses, so let’s see what these folks come up with.
My eyes had to be deceiving me.  This can’t be real.  I can’t be in a reality where someone gets shot and slammed by a speeding truck and manages to bring himself back up, with almost all of his body broken and torn apart.  Looking over to my peers, they were in just as much disbelief as I was.  This couldn’t be our reality.
I saw Ryan reach for his glock, only to find that he didn’t have it with him.  He must’ve left it back at the van.
“Scared, Ryan?”  Ross asked him.  He must’ve also seen him reach for his weapon.  But he doesn’t seem intimidated.  He’s almost enjoying himself at this point.
“You should be.”  He remarked to all of us.  “You goddamn should be.”
Both Ryan and I saw Ross reach behind his back, and I knew exactly what was coming next.  I grabbed Charles, and we ran for safety.  All three of us ran for the van, knowing that was our only escape from this abomination.  Ryan went for the driver's seat, while Charles and I headed for the back.  As I was opening the back doors, I heard Charles yell out.  He was on the ground, seemingly shot in the leg.
I had to lift him up, and put him in the back myself.
“There’s a medkit in the trapdoor, get that leg patched up!”  I told Charles.  He nodded in agreement, but I could see the pain on his face.
“Just hold on, we’ll get you help.”  I reassured him, as I climbed into the back.  As soon as I shut the doors, I yelled for Ryan to start the van.
“Get us out of here now!”  I yelled over to Ryan.  He started the van, and immediately began driving back down the right side of the road.  In the distance, I could see Ross standing on the side of the road.  He didn’t seem to be chasing us, but at this point I could believe that he was just giving us a head start.

Ryan was gunning the van down the road as fast as possible.  We needed to get to the nearest hospital to properly treat Charlie’s wounds.  None of the other cars in the lane had heard the gunshot, so we keep having to weave around everyone in the lane.
“I knew something was wrong with that guy!”  Ryan yelled.  His driving was getting a bit unstable, but it’s not like speeding by hundreds of other cars is a task on an everyday drivers test.
“Yeah, because he hid that so well, didn’t he?  He wanted us to know!”  Charlie responded.  While it seemed ridiculous, I kindo of believe him.  He obviously wasn’t hiding much.  I guess that’s how he gets his kicks.
“But what kind of masochist would do this?  He was attacked too, just like the rest of us!”  Charles asked us, but we were just about as clueless as him.
“Maybe we’re easier prey to him.  Honestly, who would he rather terrorize:  3 incompetent assholes, or an entire friggin’ militia?”  I hadn’t really thought about that rogue militia we ran into until now.  I didn’t really want to think about it, but it’s entirely possible that they could be chasing us as well.  Just another thing to add to our worries, as if we weren’t worried enough.
The drive felt like hours, but we finally reached a hospital.  Ryan and I both got out of the car, and helped Charles to his feet.  We carried him inside, asking for help from the front desk.  Luckily it seemed to be a slow day at the hospital, so we didn’t have to wait long to be attended to.  They took Charles away, and left us to wait.
The T.V. was put on the local news, and they seem to be talking about the robbery that occurred.  From what we could tell, the police eventually reached the scene, but couldn’t find anyone on the premises other than dead guards.  It was estimated that the assailants stole around $2 million dollars in cash, while also causing near $5 million dollars in damage to the building.  Damn straight.  Hopefully we did enough to keep whoever runs that place occupied.  We don’t want him to focus his attention to us.  Not while we had other problems.
Charles was lucky that he could walk.  Or at least that’s what the doctor told me.  The bullet just barely missed any important tissue and/or bone.  If the bone had been damaged, he would be in a much worse shape than he is now.  They wanted to know how he was shot, which was a bit tricky to explain.  I told her that someone tried to mug him in a local alleyway, and that he got shot before I could intervene.  The doctor seemed a little suspicious, but went ahead with it anyways.  Hopefully that lie convinced her.  We don’t need the police on us, along with that gang-type militia and Ross.
Seeing as how no-one seemed suspicious of us, we decided to stay the night in the hospital, while Charles recovered.  We would’ve stayed in a local hotel seeing as how it would give Charles some space, but with our given circumstances I decided it would be best if we stayed together.  As long as we kept a low profile, the police and militia shouldn’t catch onto us.  But Ross, I can’t predict at this point.  We’ll just have to hope for the best.

I walked out, and held a thumbs-up by the road.  Someone’ll eventually cave in, and help me out.  A blue sedan pulled over to the side of the road, and honked his horn.  I walked over to the car to get inside.  The driver was a caucasian with brown hair, who also could probably lay off the McDonalds every now and then.  He looked out at the crash that I was standing by, and turned to face me.
“So, what happened?”  He asked me.  I kept my face to the window, seeing as how I didn’t want to scare him off or anything with my broken face.
“I was on a bike.  The guy rammed me all of the sudden, and he crashed.  I think he was drunk.”  I spoke softly, hoping he would fall for it.
“Ouch.  You need to go to the hospital or something?  That sounds pretty rough.”  The stranger was a nice man.  He seemed considerate of me, even though he barely knew me.
“I guess there’s no harm in doing that.  No rush though, it looks like traffic’s a bit heavy.”  I responded
“Alright, sounds good to me.  You know where the closest one is?  I’m new to this town.”  I figured the rest of them were headed for the safe haven.  Even if they deviate from it, they probably won’t stray too far.
“Take a U-turn when possible, the closest one should be somewhere behind us.”  I told the driver.  Hopefully this is correct, but my gut feelings normally aren’t wrong.
The night dragged on for us at the hospital.  We decided to have one guy on guard, just in case someone came for us, and of course I was elected to do so.  Knowing this, I went and bought some coffee from a local coffee shop across the road.  Hopefully, that will get me through the night.  This town that we’re staying is was relatively small, so we shouldn’t be attracting too much attention to ourselves.  But it never hurts to be careful.  Especially if were dealing with something beyond our comprehension.
While I was heading back to Charles’s room, I overheard the local news on the T.V. again.  They were still talking about the robbery, but they seemed to have made an important discovery.  According to the news, the perpetrators were killed during the conflict.  The showed images of those who were believed to rob the bank.  None of them were us, in fact most of these people looked like military personnel.  Were these were the people that we’d confronted during the robbery?  If that’s the case, then maybe we won’t have to worry about the police nearly as much as I’d thought.
I hurried over to Ryan and Charles, and told them the good news.
“It looks like the police won’t be too much of a problem.  They think we’re dead, when they actually just found those militia folk.”  Both Ryan and Charles seemed to lighten up at the sound of this.
“Great.  But what about Ross?  What the hell are we gonna do about him?”  Ryan asked me.  I didn’t really have a good answer at the time, but I knew we could eventually come up with something.
“At this point, we need to keep low and keep moving.  He won’t be able to catch us if we can outrun him.”  It wasn’t the best plan, but it was all I could offer right now.
“Maybe we could put this money to good use.”  Charles chimed in.  “Get out of the country, fly somewhere far away, settle down for a while until this whole thing blows over.”  Ryan and I both looked at each other, and exchanged glances.  It was a simple plan that would probably need some form of elaboration.  But, it was the best idea we had so far.
“I’m down.”  Ryan agreed.  “Anything to get us away from whatever happened here.”
“Ok.  Once tomorrow comes, we load up and haul ass out of here.  We can decide where we want to go while we’re moving.”  I decided.  “In the meantime, you two get some sleep.  I’ll hold up my end and keep guard.”  Ryan and Charles nodded of soon after, leaving just me, my coffee, and a quiet T.V.  Hopefully, this would be enough action for today.

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The stranger pulled into a local town.  It was a quiet place, and looked as if nothing could disturb it.  We eventually pulled into a motel parking lot.  This is where my free ride ended.
“All right pal, this is as far back as I can go for now.  There’s an Emergency Care Center a couple blocks away if you need it.”  He handed me some cash for the motel stay, which was unnecessary, but I appreciated the gesture.
“Stay safe, pal.”  He said as his goodbye to me.  The whole car ride, I had faced away from him out of security.  Only now did I turn around, and let him see me.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”  I said to him.  I opened the door to the car, and walked towards the motel.  I was too tired to really do anything else tonight.  I’d get some rest,  and then get back on track tomorrow.
I managed to hold out until dawn.  I felt itchy and uncomfortable from sitting for so long, but I was willing to endure it to keep the others safe.  Charles woke at the crack of dawn as well, and Ryan followed suit around an hour later.
“We might as well get moving.  Get an early start on the day ahead of us.”  Ryan suggested.  I lazily nodded my head in agreement, even though I really wanted to take a bit longer to sleep.
“Don’t worry, I’ll drive.  You get some rest in the back, alright?”  Ryan offered.  At least we’ll all get back into comisson then.  Ryan and I both help Charles up, and gave him some crutches that were lying on the wall.
As a sign of gratitude, we left a small stack of cash on the bed of the hospital.  Hopefully it gets to the doctors as our actual payment.  We lost the cops once, just to luck.  We don’t need them back on us again.  Ryan got in the driver's seat, while I helped Charles into the back.  While he was strapping himself in, I went around and got in the passenger seat of the van.  Ryan turned the ignition, and the van spurred back to life.
While we were pulling out of the parking lot of the hospital, I decided to look through the radio for some music.  I eventually landed on Wanted Dead or Alive, by Bon Jovi.  Ironic, how if were not careful, that’s exactly what we’ll end up like.  As the music filled the van, I finally dozed off and got to sleep.  It was going to be a long trip, so I might as well cut it short for myself.