❝ the bad brothers ❞

         "You got this." Cataleya breathed, assuring herself in the rearview mirror. The brown eyes staring back at her were apprehensive.

The deep Texas heat weighed down on her as she stepped out of the car, rolling the sleeves of her open flannel up to her elbows. Sweat beaded on her forehead, Cataleya unsure if it was from the swelter or her nerves. She lifted her hair into a ponytail as she stared up at the sign that read ' Benny's World of Liquor '.

"In and out. No hay bronca..."

She slung the empty backpack over one arm, reaching back to secure her small handgun in the waist of her denim shorts.

The tinkling of the glass door alerted the man behind the counter of her entrance. He looked away from a blonde woman to call out a quick "good afternoon," before returning to his conversation. Cataleya smiled in reply. She began snaking through the minimal aisles, looking up occasionally to check for cameras.

This was her second solo job, and with every passing second her heart quickened its pounding against her ribs. She overthought almost everything. The twenty-two year old had been robbing small convenience stores and gas stations for a year now, but it was always with a partner. And now that she was alone, she had a job for two on her shoulders.

A million reasons to just walk out and drive away floated around her head, but seeing as stolen money had become her only income she ultimately forced herself to go through with it.

Cataleya began taking her first steps towards the register, her hand reaching back for the gun, when she heard the bells above the door sound.

"Let's get some, uh, snacks. Drinks for the road..."

She groaned. Two men had walked in, making the small store more crowded than she'd like. She hesitated, pulling her hand away from the gun. Her eyes flicked between the two men and the register before she turned back down an aisle towards the drinks to wait out the new customers.

A young woman with dark hair was scanning the drinks. She looked to Cataleya and offered a small smile before walking to the front of the store. The mumbles of a conversation still going on were audible, only another obstacle in the way of what should have been an easy grab.

She sighed again, tugging at the end of her ponytail before completely pulling it down.

"Nice hair."

Cataleya jumped, her eyes wandering over to where the low voice came from as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Thanks," she nervously laughed. She inspected him, his fitted suit and old style glasses making him stand out from the other casually clad occupants.

"No, really, you've got beautiful hair." He took a few steps closer to her, his blue eyes piercing even through the glasses. His fingers twitched at his side like he wanted to reach for it.

Another small chuckle escaped her as she took a small step backward. "Guess it's a good hair day."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out." His voice was softer this time.

She looked over at him, his deep eyes boring into hers. She felt self-conscious in his fixed stare, like he was looking for something in her.

He seemed harmless, but there was something unnerving about him. Something off. Alarms in her brain were telling her to walk away, but instead, she threw a small smile in his direction as she opened the freezer door.

"You didn't. I've just been jumpy lately." She offered in reply. Being on the run tended to do that to a person.

He shoved his hands into his pockets as he watched her, studying the way her dark hair cascaded down her back and the way her eyes had a certain fire in them. Something about her had peaked his interest.

Goosebumps prickled her skin as she reached into the cooler to grab a drink and mentally thanked the somewhat foggy door for blocking her from his view, his intense gaze unsettling.

"All these drinks have such funny names... Beast, Demon Drink, Lizard Water. Whatever happened to the simple days, you know?"

When she didn't answer, he took it as an invitation to continue. "R.C. Cola was a really fancy name back in my day. Do you remember that drink Jolt? That was a great drink." A small chuckle escaped him as he awaited her reply.

"I never really liked soda." She forced a small smile as she waved the bottled lemonade that was in her hand. His attention started to make her nervous, more nervous than she'd been walking into the store.

"That's too bad." He shifted his eyes from her soft features back to the row of glass cooler doors.

She took this as her opportunity to escape an uncomfortable conversation.

"She's running. Bring her to me."

The words came from behind her, so quiet they sounded like they were whispered to her. She turned back around towards the man in the suit.

"Did you just say something?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "You heard that?"

"I mean, I have ears, so..." Annoyance etched its way onto her face as she witnessed confusion overtake his. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak.

He opened his mouth to reply before closing it again, instead taking a few steps to close the space between the two. Cataleya held her breath as he stared down at her, eyes squinted curiously, almost as if he was inspecting her. She felt inferior as he looked down at her, something she hadn't felt since running from him.

"Who are you trying to get away from?"

"I'm- Sorry, what?" Her breath hitched in her throat.

"You're running from someone. Why else would you be rushing to Mexico alone." He spoke it as a statement, no questioning in his voice at all. A shiver rippled through her as she looked up into his eyes, cold and curious.

"I'm not... I-I have to go." Cataleya backed away from his intimidating stare, her skin prickling with worry before turning and making her way to what she assumed was the bathroom. She hurried in, shutting the splintering door behind her and leaning her forehead against it.

"Fuck..." She mumbled to herself, before turning around to face another man in a suit. A look of amusement painted his dark features as he took in the obviously stressed girl in front of him.

"My bad, should've knocked."

"No problem, sweetheart. Rough day?" He asked, leaning back against the sink.

"You have no idea." Cataleya ran her fingers through her hair again before reaching for her tie to pull it back up. The dark haired man caught himself watching her do so before quickly looking away.

"Seems I'm having one of those, too," he sighed. He stared off at nothing in particular before pushing himself off the sink and walking towards her. "Well, I'll leave you to it." He smiled at her before walking out the door.

She stepped up to the sink, opening the bottle still in her hand and taking a big gulp. She groaned loudly, throwing it against the grimy brick wall she faced. She couldn't go through with the job now. Her nerves were past frayed.

Annoyed and frustrated, she stepped out of the bathroom to find the blue-eyed man alternating between pointing a gun at a blonde and the pretty dark-haired girl who'd offered her a smile.

"This isn't happening." She mumbled to herself, her day continuously rolling downhill.

"-Then shut up. Do you know who we are? Is my brother telling the truth?" The man she'd met in the bathroom asked the girl in the other man's hold.

"No, I swear!" The brunette choked out.

"I'm Seth, and this is my brother Richie..."

Cataleya watched the exchange from the bathroom door, assuming she was hidden behind a row of chips. That is, until she saw the one named Richie move his gun from the girl's head and point it in her direction.

"Brother."

She gasped before returning to the safety of the bathroom. She paced, quickly trying to figure out how to get out of this when she heard a knock on the door.

"Hey, sweetheart," Seth's deeper voice spoke through the door. "I'm gonna need you to come out here, nice and slow."

After realizing that there was no other way out, she opened the door and stared into his eyes, jaw set.

"Sorry to make your day even shittier but we're gonna need you to step out where we can keep an eye on you." He motioned towards his brother with his gun.

Richie's head suddenly snapped towards the exit before he looked back to his brother. "Someone's coming... Texas Ranger."

Seth grabbed Cataleya's upper arm, fingers digging into her skin as he dragged her toward the man at the register.

"Ow..." She grimaced.

There'd probably be bruises there tomorrow, if she made it to tomorrow. It didn't take her long to deduce that these were the infamous Gecko brothers she'd heard about on the radio. And if they weren't afraid to kill a few cops, they weren't afraid to kill her.

"This is your moment in the spotlight, friend." Seth pointed his gun at the man's face as he spoke. "Oscar time. Do you know what we're going to do to these lovely ladies if you do not perform?"

The other two girls whimpered, but went silent as Richie sent them a cold look.

"Just-Just leave'em be, all right?" The man at the register raised his hands in surrender.

"You twitch funny, and beauty queen here," he moved his gun to the side of Cataleya's head, tapping it roughly before continuing, "gets her face blown clean off." She struggled in his hold, which only prompted him to squeeze tighter. "Now whoever this cowpoke is, get him out of here."

The two dragged the girls to the back, crouching behind the shelves. Richie held up duct tape, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Seth sighed. He grabbed it and started wrapping Cataleya's wrists.

"Dude, ow. Take it easy." Cataleya whispered forcefully, irritated with the rough way he handled her.

He looked up at her, his dark eyes glaring into hers. "You," he placed a strip of tape over her mouth, "don't get to tell me what to do. You won't get hurt if you cooperate, sweetheart. Simple," he finished, a sarcastic smile on his lips.

She huffed and sent daggers his way as he stood up beside her.

Tape now covered the girls' mouths and bound their wrists. Seth had a fistful of Cataleya's fallen ponytail, keeping her in place. She tried to peek around the aisle to see what was going on up front when Seth pulled her hair particularly hard, causing her to wince. She caught Richie looking at her, a strange expression on his face before he returned to keeping the other two in place.

"I'll get your receipt all ready for when you step out of the vault."

The sound of the bathroom door closing caused Seth to drop his hold on Cataleya's hair and march up to the counter.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" His voice came out as an angry whisper. "Are you looking to redecorate this place in shades of red?"

"I'm just doing what you want!" The clerk whispered back.

"He's squatting on the throne, when he should be moseying on down the road to the next filling station where the inbred clerk doesn't have a gun pointed at his left nut."

Cataleya listened to the exchange between Seth and the man, noticing just how menacing he really was. This was an entirely different side to the genial man she'd accidentally barged in on moments ago.

Richie glanced over the girls before walking up to whisper something in his brother's ear.

"What'd you say about the vault?"

Cataleya heard the familiar cock of a gun.

"What?" The clerk's voice shook, Seth's gun still pointed right for him.

"You said..."

With both men occupied, Cataleya dragged her covered wrists along the edge of the sharp aisle shelf she sat behind, loosening the tape to slip free. The sound of her pulse beating in her ears almost drowned out their words as she moved her hands back and forth. She kept glancing towards the front to make sure they weren't walking back as she dragged the tape along the edge one last time, her hands coming free.

"...and you're a noun with no goddamned verb. Period."

A toilet flushed.

"All right, everybody, be cool." Seth looked back to the clerk. "You... be cool."

Richie turned around, his gaze almost predatory as he walked back over to the hostages. His eyes traveled from girl to girl until they landed on Cataleya. He took a step toward her, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her to the ground beside him.

The store fell quiet.

She turned her face towards Richie, watching as he turned his towards her. Up close, she noticed, light freckles sparsely dotted his skin.

"That lawman is sellin' you out."

The same whisper from before seemed to echo in Cataleya's ears, barely audible. She watched as Richie's eyebrows furrowed again, his lips parting before he quickly forced his eyes from hers to watch the Ranger walk to the counter.

He clenched his jaw. She sat as he slowly lifted himself and walked toward the distracted Ranger, gun raised.

Cataleya flinched as the loud shot rang out, causing Seth to jump up and run to his brother.

"Whoa! Hey, hey!"

"Texas Ranger!" A new voice came from outside.

Her eyebrows furrowed at the somewhat familiar sound of it.

More shots rang out as Seth pointed his gun toward the voice and started shooting.

Cataleya ripped the tape from her mouth with her freed hands before grabbing the gun from the back of her waistband. The other girls gave her confused looks.

"I was gonna rob- you know what, long story."

She crouched behind the aisle with it, not sure what she intended to do. Surely she couldn't shoot anyone. She'd only done it once before, by accident, and the sight still haunted her. No, she wasn't a killer.

Her breath became shallow at the thought, tucking the gun away in her waistband again.

"What the hell did you do?" Seth's tone sounding like one of a parent scolding a child.

"He said 'crime scene.'" Richie replied, nonchalant, before shooting the clerk as well.

"Stop! What are you doing?"

Cataleya had begun to untape the other girls' wrists when more gunshots sounded, causing her to drop their hands and return to her place.

"Texas Rangers! Surrender and nobody gets hurt!"

Seth groaned, attempting to reload as he replied. "Afraid somebody's already hurt, Sheriff. Your partner's on the floor. That's you in about five seconds, if you don't put your weapon down."

Seth continued his banter with the Ranger positioned outside, Cataleya again overthinking the situation when she should've just acted.

She could run, but she'd most likely get shot, whether it be by the Ranger's stray bullet or one of the brothers. She could try to go back to the bathroom and barricade herself there, but she couldn't leave the other girls. There were too many options with grim consequences. Her head was reeling.

She'd decided to make a break for it when a low rumbling caught her attention. Richie looked around the corner of the aisle right as the sound faded from her ears, his eyes flicking down to Cataleya's before looking to the girls standing behind her. He seemed almost... afraid.

Grabbing her arm, he all but dragged her towards the other two. His voice lowering before he spoke.

"I know you're trying to mess with my head." His stare was fixed downward toward the floor. "It's not gonna work."

The other two girls looked at each other, just as lost as Cataleya.

"There is nothing wrong with me. And I won't for a second let you make me think that there is." He seemed to be tell himself this as well, reassuring himself that he was fine, that he wasn't going crazy. "Are we clear?"

Cataleya quietly scoffed. As afraid as she was, she wouldn't be intimidated. Not anymore.

His eyes snapped over to her face, his head bowing towards her ear.

"You play with me again... and I'm going to play with you." He growled, warm breath fanning across her neck, "and you won't understand the meaning of the term until you've been played with, by me."

She felt goosebumps raise on her skin at his tone, having an intense gut feeling of what he was capable of.

He stalked off to where the dying Ranger laid, leaving the hostages trembling.

"Where are the girls?" Seth asked, frustration evident in the way he spoke to his brother.

"They're not going anywhere," Richie replied matter of fact.

"Yeah, that's what you think, pendejo..." Cataleya whispered to herself as she finished untaping the other girls' hands. She moved to the next shelf out of the brothers' sight, pulling out her gun again.

Seth looked towards where the girls stood. "Ok, Richard just go-" He had to take a double take, mentally counting. "Where is she?"

"Where's who?" Richie looked to where his brother was pointing.

"The firecracker in daisy dukes, Richard, where is she?"

"I don't know?" Richie shrugged, knowing she couldn't get far in this store.

"Well, go find her! I'm gonna go call Carlos, all right? All right."

Seth walked off towards the bathroom, Cataleya carefully following so that Richie wouldn't see her. She waited until Seth walked out again, leaning against a shelf that left his back facing her.

"Now, my brother and I have got what you might want to call a well-coordinated evacuation on the way. So I don't want anybody else to die." Seth began.

Cataleya cocked her gun, pressing it against the back of his head. "Well, that's gonna be a problem, sweetheart."

She wouldn't kill him. She couldn't. But he didn't need to know that.

"Woah," Seth raised his hands as he slowly turned around to face her, "didn't know you were packin', sweetheart."

"How about you shut it and listen u-"

A sharp blow from the butt of Richie's gun to the back of her head cut her off, her eyes immediately shutting as she fell forward. Seth stumbled back, grabbing her before she hit the ground.

"What the fuck, Richard?" He looked at his brother, eyebrows furrowed with a look of disbelief.

Richie shrugged. "You said you didn't want anyone else to die."

° ° °

Deep screams emanated from the back of the shop. Seth hurriedly walked to find his brother being kicked by two girls they'd held hostage, Richie on the ground curled up in fear.

"Hey," Seth said sternly.

The girls quit their abuse as they started out the store, breathing hard.

"There's something... really wrong with your brother."

Seth shook his head as he watched them exit.

Both Rangers and the clerk were seemingly dead as he tossed a lighter over his shoulder, a small area soaked in liquor igniting before he crouched down next to his trembling brother.

"Richie, Richie, it's gonna be all right." He grabbed his arm, starting to pull him up. "Richie, it's me. Come on."

Richie cowered away from Seth. He was confused, having difficulty differentiating between what was real and what wasn't anymore.

Seth yanked his dazed brother up from the ground. "It's just you and me buddy. We're going to Mexico. Yeah? Come on."

Richie nodded in reply, following his brother before a pair of legs caught his attention.

"Seth."

"What now?"

"We can't leave her."

Seth's face scrunched, confused, before remembering the unconscious girl lying a few aisles over.

Seth sighed, walking over to pick her up. "Let's just leave her outs-"

"No, Seth, we need her."

"What? What are you saying? We bring her?" Seth asked, exasperated.

Richie raised his eyebrows in reply. Seth groaned as he turned to walk out of the burning store.

"Low profile. We were supposed to be low profile," Seth grumbled, turning around to face his brother, "I know you know the meaning of that..."

His eyes scanned over the unconscious girl in his arms. Dried specks of blood stuck to her olive skin, her hair messed from his previous hold on it.

Seth placed her in the backseat. He stared down at her, shaking his head before shutting the door.

All the possible scenarios for how this simple stick up would go had flashed through Cataleya's mind as she planned it. And none of them could've accounted for this. Not a single goddamn one.

° ° °

author's note;

Finally decided to quit nitpicking and publish the first chapter. I deadass edited it like twenty times. But anyways, here it is!! I hope you liked it. It was my first go at writing since 2015 I think, so it's been a while.

I'm curious about what your thoughts are about the chapter and things that happened in it, so please comment! I love reading them and it keeps me motivated.

I don't want to make this too long so that's all for now! Updates may be slow because I relentlessly butcher and edit what I wrote before publishing. I'm super self-conscious about my writing haha.

Bye for now! Thanks for checking this out and don't forget to vote <3

;tabitha