Banks were a different place at night, and the need for silence weighed heavy on us all. Some more than others.

  “Can’t we just blow it open?” Samson asked, holding up a half sized stick of dynamite. “We’ll blow the vault and also position that delightfully plush chair nearby just for kicks. C’mon, you love a bit of harmless collateral damage.”

  I shook my head vehemently. It was pitch-dark beyond the light of the tiny hand-lamp we had to guide us. Vaults, safes, and lockboxes of varying sturdiness loomed around us. “If we do that, then the clock starts ticking down until we’re fucked by the Sheriff’s dogs. We can afford to take our time and break them one by one. No one knows we’re here.”

  Their entry had been swift, with Joey unlocking the front door within two minutes, allowing the small group into the front half of the bank. Getting through the doors to the offices and vaults had been laughably easy, and we’d gotten a handful of deeds and family heirlooms to ransom. The heavy, solid iron safe caught our interest when we couldn’t easily crack it.

  It took only five minutes of arguing before Samson suggested explosives, which was a new record for restraint.

  “No, we can’t afford the attention,” I argued. I knew he was itching to use that dynamite and hit the bank hard, but Mayor Gandor turned up the heat, increasing the bounty and now offering amnesty for any past crimes if they came back with my head in hand. Honor between thieves only went so far.

  Samson wouldn’t be deterred. “I have it on good authority that the Sheriff and his crew are out west, nowhere near close enough to get to us. Please? Pretty pretty please?” He grinned at me, patchy blonde beard making him look like the madman he was.

  Between us, Joey hissed for us to be quiet. He held one hand up, barely visible in the gloom. A second later, we realized why. Outside the bank, someone was laughing. A gunshot rang out, shattering the bank’s main window. Joey and I hit the deck, Samson came a moment later.

  “Jesse Jane and company, you are ordered to throw your weapons down and come out peacefully. If you do not, we are authorized to shoot to kill. You are surrounded and we are more than happy to collect only half the bounty. Go ahead and test us.”

  The three of us shared a terrified look. The rest of our people were supposed to be waiting nearby, but if they’d been surprised, they would take off without us. There were a few different places to meet up, and the priority was staying alive.

  Which was bad news for us, but I didn’t hold it against them.

  “What was that about your good authority saying the Sheriff would be far away?” I hissed.

  Samson smiled sheepishly, and held up the dynamite once more. “The only way out is through.”

  “Goddammit,” Joey hissed, peeking through the window carefully. “There’s a bunch of them out there. Armed, obviously.”

  Normally, this is when I would think of a clever way out that would embarrass the sheriff and get away with a near miss, but honestly, I had been exhausted. This was only three months or so ago, right about the three year mark of my career. I’d pulled off the stagecoach stampede and gotten away with it, the great train robbery had been a turning point, and each time, it was me who had the answer.

  Not this time. Samson grinned at me, and I sighed, knowing he was right. “Boom and bolt, gentlemen. Take your stick, and we’ll all throw it in a different direction. Count to three after the second round of blasts and get the hell out of here. Get to ground and lay low, three days before we get to the hideout. You understand?”

  “You’ve got ten seconds to surrender, or we’re going to start shooting! This is your last warning, outlaws. Submit or die.” The declaration was met with excited hollering of some kid, excited to be a part of history.

  Joey cursed under his breath, but took two sticks of TNT. “This was supposed to be easy, Jesse. Not a goddamned trap!”

  “It’ll be another fun story once we’re safely home,” I said, taking two as well. “Don’t worry about anything other than getting away. I love you both. You ready?”

  “Ready!” Samson got out a match. We lit our sticks and hurled them out the broken window. The first explosions cut off the panicked cries as soon as they started. Then came the second round, and we burst out three different parts of the bank. I took the main doors, while Joey and Samson split off to my sides.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Within seconds gunshots accompanied the booms, but visibility was impossible in the big dust cloud our bombs had kicked up. I ran into someone and hip-checked them to the ground. A second later I dropped the third stick I’d swiped and dropped it behind me for one last distraction. With the blast lighting up the night, I put on a burst of speed and ducked between a high end clothier and a hatter’s place, up and over a fence.

  Sharp whistles pierced the air, alerting all the good civic minded citizens that something was wrong. That would make getting away difficult, but I had a plan that was only mildly suicidal. I kept moving between buildings, keeping low. Main street stretched out parallel to me, the most likely place for me to be but I was out of sight, and it bought me some precious time while lanterns lit up and the hunt began.

  All of the exits would be watched, which is why I told everyone to go to ground first. We had sympathizers in town, safe places we could slip to where our friends would shelter us, lie for us, and even die for us if they had to. Unfortunately for me, I was nowhere near them. The Koda Junction First National Bank was smack dab in the center of town, where all the rich people huddled together for safety. There was nowhere for me to go now that the alarm was raised.

  Nowhere safe, at least. But what if I went somewhere unsafe? Somewhere no one would think of looking for me? I knew where the sheriff lived the entire time. It would’ve probably been possible to assassinate him, if we wanted to. We certainly talked about it a few times, but there was a complication, as it turns out.

  On and on I went, tumbling over the occasional outhouse, half-sized fence, or refuse. The further away from the center of town I got, the more chaotic and messy. But before it could get to junk heaps, I found the Sheriff’s house, marked by the expansive covered porch facing the courtyard and pond he and his neighbors shared. Joey was our best lockpick, but I was no slouch, and I quickly slipped into the home of my nemesis.

  It would’ve been too dark to see, had it not been for the lights trailing in the front windows. They were shuttered, but orange and silver light fluttered in between the wooden slats. In time, my eyes would adjust to it, and I pulled my pistol out, just in case. Every creaky floorboard and beat of my heart had me on edge.

  Outside, people shouted back and forth, no doubt wondering where I’d gone. Before too long, they’d start searching the houses, but there was no way they’d get me here. Eventually Rickens himself would come home, and there was a chance he would find me. If he did, I’d take him out and go off running as a last resort. But the man was famous for living in the jail during operations, so odds were in my favor.

  Or so I thought. We might have known all about the Sheriff’s life, but some parts were easy to forget. Like the fact that he had a daughter about my age that still lived with him. He spent most of his life on the hunt for us, it was easy to forget he had a life outside of the chase.

  “What are you doing in here?” Verity demanded, making me jump a foot in the air.

  I leveled my pistol at her, finger off the trigger. “Don’t make a sound, Verity. No need for you to die tonight.”

  “Is that so?” she asked, unimpressed. She held a lantern, letting out the dimmest amount of light around her. “If I scream my loudest, they’ll come for you.”

  “If you scream, I’ll shoot and you’ll die,” I said, pulling the hammer back. “You won’t get to enjoy getting me killed for long.”

  “Nor would you,” she countered. “We’ve got each other’s lives in our hands. Give me one reason not to throw mine away to see you finally get punished.”

  I could’ve and maybe should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. Ricken’s daughter was nothing like him. She seemed cool-headed and vicious, ready to accept a bad ending if it meant spiting us. Respect, honestly, but I didn’t think it was all there was.

  “I didn’t take you for a daddy’s girl,” I said, keeping my weapon trained on her. I chanced a glance out the front door, where lights shined in our direction. “Get back, go up the stairs.”

  Surprisingly, she didn’t argue with me and headed backwards up the steps, keeping us a little further out of sight of people on the streets, at the cost of pinning me in further. We came to an open room where her bed sat the opposite of her father’s, separated only by a thin wall. I didn’t envy her lack of privacy, but I lived with even less.

  “My father’s after you,” said Verity as she sat on her bed. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking mostly dignified in her sleeping clothes. “Worse than usual. What do you plan on doing?”

  I remained standing, occasionally peeking through the window above her bed. Only two people were outside the Sheriff’s house, but it was too many. “Catching my breath and moving on, if you cooperate.” I turned back to Verity and offered her a reassuring smile. “I’ve got no quarrel with you, even if I hate your father.”

  “That makes two of us,” she muttered, suddenly becoming a great deal more interesting.

  “Is that so?” I asked.

  Before she had a chance to answer, the front door opened. My blood froze over, and we both looked to the stairs. “Verity?” Sheriff Rickens called out. “Are you up there? We need to talk.”

  The daughter of my mortal enemy looked between me and the stairs, and I realized that her silence would get me caught just as fast as her screams. I motioned with the gun for her to respond, but kept it trained on her. I made eye contact with her, and we had a tense, silent conversation in that shared look.

  She smirked, and opened her mouth.