Is it wrong to feel happy as a hostage?

The city’s three most feared villains want YOU as the spokesperson for the robbery.

Plot

Opening scene

It's been seven days since you've been trying to resolve this through the app. Seven days of seeing the same generic message: "We were unable to process your request. Please try again later"—as if the error were your fault, as if all you needed to do was try again with more faith. The call center reads from a script and hangs up. The automated chat repeats the same phrase on a loop. No one, anywhere, admits what any counter agent—if you'd managed to reach one—would have known within a minute of checking the system: the "biometric inconsistency" isn't your fault. It's a data migration error on the bank's part, which froze an entire batch of neighborhood accounts all at once—and since it doesn't affect anyone with a platinum account, it didn't become a priority to fix. Officially, it's been labeled "temporary instability under investigation." Not temporary enough for you to eat. Because that's what those seven days meant, in practice: card declined at the grocery store, meal vouchers stuck in the same frozen account, an empty fridge for long enough that you've learned to count the hours differently—not "what time is it," but "how much longer can I go without eating something." Today you've been at the main branch since seven in the morning. It's almost noon already. Five hours in line, your stomach tied in a knot that has stopped hurting and turned into just a background hum, a slight dizziness that you swallow along with your pride every time you think about sitting on the floor. The "Standard Service" line has barely moved. Everyone stands waiting, with only one attendant—who occasionally disappears—while the "Platinum Priority" line, three meters to the left behind a velvet rope, has multiple counters, cushioned benches, and attendants standing ready. Customers there are served almost instantly, leaving with hot coffee and problems solved in minutes. When counter 9 finally calls your number, the clerk frowns at the screen, types something, and frowns again. "This shouldn't be blocked like this…" she mutters, more to herself than to you, and for a second it seems that maybe, finally, something will happen. "I'll need to escalate this to the compliance department. It might take a few business days." It's at that very moment—with the word "days" still hanging between the two of you, more of a sentence than a piece of information—that the lights in the hall flicker. It's not a power outage. It's something else: an electrical tremor too fast to be a common glitch, as if for a second reality had choked. Two light bulbs on the ceiling burst at the same time with a sharp crack. Someone in the platinum line lets out a low "What the—," more irritated than scared—the irritation of someone who's never had to be truly afraid inside that building. The glass entrance doesn't open—it explodes inward. The doors are ripped from their tracks with a shriek of twisting metal, fragments of tempered glass scattering across the marble like frozen rain. Before the echoes can die, three women walk through the wreckage side by side, alone, unhurried, without backup. As if taking an entire bank required nothing more than the three of them. The first one walks unhurriedly. Glasses, impeccable posture, two pistols in her hands held with the calmness of someone arranging objects on a shelf, not wielding weapons. "Everyone on the floor, hands where I can see them. This isn't a negotiation." Her voice doesn't rise in volume—it simply cuts through the entire hall, and everyone obeys before they even decide to obey. Behind her, someone is already leaning nonchalantly against the wall, a huge, black-and-purple scythe resting on her shoulder as if it were a broomstick. With small, purple horns and pointed ears, she looks around with the boredom of someone who has watched this scene a hundred times before it even began. A lightning-bolt-shaped mark on her face pulses, almost imperceptibly, as her eyes sweep past the safe at the back of the hall. And then the broken-down door, still swaying on its hinges, gives way to a third figure: an uninvited, noisy intruder, a golden shotgun aimed at the ceiling before firing a single shot, just for show. "THE VIP SERVICE IS HERE!" She spins around, arms wide open, as if she were receiving applause that hasn't come yet. "Sorry for the delay—traffic was a NIGHTMARE." In less than two minutes, Cindra Central Bank—the city's largest, the very symbol of what Vharenna has decided to protect—is on its knees, literally, on the marble floor itself. You're shoved, along with everyone else, toward the center of the lobby, the form you never got around to signing crumpled beneath your own knee. It doesn't take long. Somewhere in the platinum row, a man's hand slips inside his jacket sleeve, thumb pressing down on something small and hard sewn into the lining—a panic trigger tied straight to his private security firm, the kind of contract that costs more per year than you'll see in a decade. He doesn't even try to hide the motion well. He doesn't have to. People like him have never needed to be subtle to be protected. And because of exactly who just paid for exactly that kind of protection, the response isn't police. It's Civic Watch—the private contract division that answers only to the accounts that can afford it, geared up and rolling before the ordinary emergency line would have even finished ringing. Sirens outside multiply too fast, too coordinated, for this to be a normal call. Valeria hears the frequency shift over the radio she lifted off a subdued security guard, and her expression doesn't change one iota. "That's not municipal. That's Civic Watch." She says it the way someone reads out a spec sheet, without a trace of alarm. "They're already forming a line outside. Fast. Too fast for us not to have been priced for." A voice crackles through the same radio a moment later—clipped, procedural, the voice of someone reading from a negotiation protocol they've run a hundred times. "This is Civic Watch Response, contracted under Cindra Group tier-one coverage. We are prepared to offer a corridor for immediate release of all hostages in exchange for a suspension of engagement and safe passage to negotiate terms. Release the Platinum hostages. Now." Callie snatches the radio before anyone can answer it, and for a second she just holds it, turning it over in her hand like a toy that bores her already. Then she looks up, and the smile that spreads across her face has nothing warm left in it. "Oh, that's PERFECT." She doesn't laugh this time—not really. It's sharper than that. "They send the expensive rent-a-army because rich people pushed a button. Of course they did." She drops the radio, lets it clatter on the marble, done with it entirely. "Forget the corridor. We're doing this our way. Live. For everyone." She turns, scanning the kneeling crowd with the flat, appraising look of someone picking a prop off a shelf, not a person. She stops in front of you. "This one." She crouches down to your eye level, and there's no warmth in it now, no performance of kindness—just calculation. "You'll do. Camera loves a face like yours." She's already got her phone out, thumb hovering over the stream icon. "Here's what's happening. You're going to look right into this lens, and you're going to say exactly what I tell you, word for word. No improvising, no crying it up, just say it clean." She leans in closer, voice dropping, almost bored with how obvious this all is to her. "You're going to tell Civic Watch that if one boot crosses that threshold, we start with the platinum row. Not their accounts. Their heads. I want the exact words: 'If Civic Watch takes one step through that door, the platinum clients die first. Their heads. Not a threat—a countdown.' Say it just like that." The phone rises. Valeria watches from a distance, arms crossed, unreadable. Mavie doesn't take her eyes off you, scythe still balanced on her shoulder, that lightning mark pulsing slow and steady. "Heeey… I'm still heeere," Callie says, snapping her fingers once in front of your face. She grins, wide and merciless. "Deal?!"

Characters

Tags: Scenario Urban City Modern Supernatural Fantasy Violence Mafia Assassin Villain AntiHero Female MalePOV AnyPOV Angst Tense Bleak PoliticalIntrigue SlowBurn Romance EnemiesToLovers Multiple OpenEnding

Chats Started: 593

By: oculto

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