chapter 5.

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walgreens — seattle, washington
new year's night.

"fucking hide," he whisper-shouts,  his voice gravelly, before starting towards the back of the walgreens. when he glances behind him, he notices nick still fiddling with the key to lock the door. "forget the door and run," he urges but doesn't stop himself from running to hide.

It wouldn't actually matter anymore, he realizes. those men probably already saw nick through the glass; they know someone's in here. but that's his problem. corpse could only hope they hadn't seen him.

he's set himself up sitting behind the end of an aisle, out of vision from anyone that walks in, and holds his breath as he's peering out of one eye to check the front again. the hefty leader-looking guy of the group bursts through the door with ease despite nick trying to use his arm and shoe to resist, though there apparently still wasn't enough time for nick to lock it or place the deadbolt or do something good for himself.

all four men burst in, unsurprisingly, surrounding nick. "you work here?" a gruff voice booms in the air.

"yes." no point in hiding it, he is wearing a uniform.

"anyone else with you?"

corpse hangs on his response with bated breath. finally, nick says, "n-no, it's just me." good. he isn't completely unintelligent. "I was about to lock up for the night."

there's a brief pause before the gruff man orders, without any preamble, "shoot him."

"no!" nick shouts, and corpse flinches when he hears his voice quiver. "please, please don't shoot, I can be useful to you. I'll give you whatever you need, I swear. I... I have the key to everything, s-see. and the codes."

the silence tells him they're hesitating, so nick adds on, "you want the money, right?"

that sells them, obviously. "open the cash registers, all of them. you try anything, we're sticking a bullet in your brain, we clear?"

they're no longer in his vision. he hears shuffling and footsteps, then the sound of a gun cocking. a loud fucking gun, at that. the keys make a jangling sound as nick's unlocking the cash registers, one at a time. there are muffled voices of the intruders speaking to each other, which he can't really make out.

they're robbing the place, and this is clearly not their first stop.

should he be calling the police? he wonders for a second if he should be at least doing that to help. It isn't as though he particularly owes nick, but nick had tried to help him. his, albeit stupid, risk had been to aid them both. still, It wasn't like he could march out there and be the hero, unarmed, against four guys with guns. they could easily shoot them both. they would do just that.

corpse shifts his focus to how he's going to get out of this alive. as long as nick keeps following their orders, and doesn't out him, he should have no problem slipping out of this unseen. nick is probably a lost cause, that much is inevitable. they aren't going to spare him whether he helped them or not; he's seen too much. that would be his own burden to shoulder.

out of curiosity, he dials the police. If they could get here in time, everything could be handled for him and maybe even nick could be spared, though he unfortunately couldn't care less what happens to that poor soul. nick had gotten them into this situation in the first place. corpse should have left a while ago when he had the chance; that is his only regret.

the line rings for seemingly minutes, more than a usual call. eventually, and as expected, he hears an automated voice, "the lines are currently busy. we have put you on hold, don't hang up the phone the next available call taker will be with you soon."

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