expect the unexpected

“UGH! Why does this always seem to happen to me?! Alice said under her breath. She was sitting in the women’s restroom in one of the stalls for a discreet smoke break when the lights turned off. Her friends forced her to go on this blind date with some random man they knew from their book club and since Alice just got out of a two year relationship they thought that pushing her back into love would be the best idea. Alice only agreed to make her friends happy.

Taking one last long puff from her vape, Alice opened the stall door and did the awkward hand wave to show the automatic light sensors that she was in fact still in there. When nothing happened she drew in a big sigh as if getting up was a hard task to do. As she stood up she started to bounce around while waving her arms around. Still nothing. “What the hell” she said as she felt her way towards the door. Suddenly she tripped over her own feet as she was blindly staggering towards the restroom exit.

With a loud THUMP she landed on the floor. At this point she was not annoyed any longer but the feeling was replaced with confusion and pain. She laid there for a few minutes just listening for anything but all she could hear was the dripping from the old bathroom sinks. She pulled out her phone from her back pocket to see she had no service. 21:04 the time flashed on the screen in front of her. Realization washed over her face instantly as she remembered the museum closes at 21:00 on weekdays.

“Why did they not think to check the restrooms?!” she grunted as she slowly lifted herself up from the tile floor. As soon as her left foot hit the ground she stumbled back to the floor. Her heart rate quickened and the air started to feel heavy, panicking she felt around in her purse for her inhaler. Once she found it she fumbled as she attempted to shake it. After a few inhales from the device she was able to regulate her breathing and calm down some. In her right hand she brought her phone flashlight to her ankle to see the damage the fall did to her. The pain seemed to be lessening so she knew the injury wasn't severe thankfully. 

Grabbing onto the wall, Alice was able to pull herself back to her feet once again. Once she was able to stand she shifted her body weight to rest more on her right side to allow the twisted ankle to hopefully heal before she can get out of this mess. 

As Alice limped towards the exit of the restroom she heard a loud noise come from what sounded like inside of the museum. Alice was always the type of girl that did not get afraid of anything, she spent 8 years active duty in the U.S Navy so she always had a sort of “I can do anything” type of personality. A bead of sweat made its way down Alice's face as she crept the door open just enough to see what was happening around her and what caused that loud noise she heard. At first she didn't see anything, just a dark and empty museum. Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She could hear footsteps echoing and she was about to open the door in excitement of getting out of this place, that she was there as a misunderstanding and she didn’t want any trouble. Alice stepped back into the restroom swiftly and used the wall to guide her, that man that she saw was not a guard. She was trapped in a closed museum that was being robbed…

“The museum will be closing in less than ten minutes boss. When do you want me to signal to the other guys to proceed?” Jack asked the large man with his back turned to him. He watched as his boss put a black jacket on. Seeing his boss do this Jack followed with putting his on as well. The man next to him made a loud grunting sound as he turned to look at him. Taking a step back as Jack looked at him, his face large and eyes that looked like it could kill a man. His face was scarred from past heists. “Who do you think you are asking me dumb questions like that new guy?” the boss said. “Do you think you make any calls in the shots I make?” the boss added as his face was now inches from Jacks. Jack stood his ground in fear as he could feel the boss’s hot breath on his forehead. “No sir, I just..” Jack began to say but the boss cut him off. “We go when I say we go! Understand boy?” the boss snapped. “Yessir” Jack shyly whimpered. 

Once the crowd started making their way out of the museum for closing time the boss and Jack made their way to the closed off section that was off limits due to construction. As they hid behind a large tarp that draped over a soon to be sculpture, the boss eyed the security guard that was about to make rounds to make sure everyone was out of the building. Without hesitation the boss pulled a blow dart from his bag and aimed it at the guard passing by. With one sharp blow the guard was on the ground.

“Take these keys new guy and signal to the others to let them in” the boss said as he was taking the keys off the guards belt and handing them to Jack. Jack looked at the keys that were placed in his hands, regret washing over him. He had no choice though, his wife needed chemotherapy and this is the only way to get money for her treatment since the bank declined any loans to be pulled out in his name. “TODAY NEW GUY” the boss said annoyingly to him. Jack closed his hand around the keys and made his way to the back door where the others were waiting.

Jack could hear his breath as he reached for the door. Knocking three times waiting for the signal so he could open the door for the other guys that are involved. It took a few seconds but the other side of the door responded with a pattern of five knocks to prove that the coast was clear. Jack opened the door to three guys waiting for him, two walked in and the third guy took the keys from Jack and disappeared to get the rest of the guys in from the other side of the building.

Making his way back to the boss, Jack froze. He swore he heard a sound come from the restroom to the left of him. It sounded like someone fell. Jack shook his head, he must be hearing things. There's nobody else in here but the others involved in the heist. Jack joined the others as they game-planned the events one last time, just like we have one hundred times in the warehouse leading up to this moment. As they were all speaking Jack saw in the corner of his eye the women’s restroom door peek open a tiny bit and close real fast.

What should I do?! Do I tell my boss? Oh we are screwed. If I tell him then it will be my head on the line. Jack decided to take this matter in his own hands as he silently backed away from the group as they were still talking about what they were going to steal. Jack slowly made his way towards the restroom.

Alice grew afraid as she heard footsteps come closer and closer to the restroom. She needed to come up with a game plan and fast. Before she could put any more thought into the situation the door opened slowly and she heard someone enter the bathroom. Alice held her breath as she quietly shuffled herself to the furthest corner of the dark room. A flash of light came from the person that entered the bathroom. How did I not think he would have a flashlight?! I'm dead. Alice said in her head. Her thought came to an end as the light hit her right in the face.

Instead of instant death like Alice thought would happen there was silence. She lifted her eyes to see who was standing there and instead of seeing a hard looking criminal, she saw someone she knew. “Wait... Ramirez. Is that you?” Alice said in a soft and very confused voice. She looked at his face which had more fear than hers at that moment. What are the odds that the person robbing the building she was trapped in would be her old coworker from the Navy. he must have fallen off a bad path because last she saw him a little over a year ago he was only an E-3 that was getting medically separated for mental health reasons. Now he was here.

Jack took a step back, Alice could tell that he didn’t mean any harm but the question was, what in the world was he doing. Before Alice could try to get any information from him he ran to the door and yelled “WE HAVE SOMEONE IN THE BATHROOM!” Within ten seconds Alice was surrounded by a lot of hard core looking men. She screamed and thrashed around as they grabbed her and dragged her to the main area of the museum. “You two! Tie her up and the rest of you follow out with the rest of our plan!” the big guy yelled as he walked away from where Alice was at. 

Alice glared at Jack as he and another guy wrapped her up in ropes and taped her mouth. Jack stood next to her as guard as the rest of the men started throwing valuable artwork into bags. She could hear Jack breathing heavily as if he was in distress as she tried to loosen the rope. These men must be amateurs because they only tied her hands and not her feet so in a quick movement without thinking she swung her leg at Jack causing him to come crashing to the floor. On Jack's way down he hit his head really hard on the artifact next to him causing the glass to shatter, knocking him out cold.

Alice frantically grabbed a piece of glass and started to saw at the thin rope wrapped around her wrists. She struggled with cutting it because she had to hold the glass in a weird angle to reach the rope and not cut herself. As the string was fully cut through she ripped the tape off and tried to get to her feet. She was able to limp a few paces away before the guys got her down again and this time they were furious at her. Right as she thought this would be the end of everything; she saw her blind date that her friends set her up with in the window standing with what looked like hundreds of police officers.

The door to the museum burst open and within seconds police officers swarmed the entirety of the building. They were all yelling and holding guns. Alice looked around as one by one all of the guys involved in the heist dropped to their knees with their hands up. As the men were being cuffed and taken out, Chris, my blind date ran up to me. “I guess now is a good time to tell you I am a police officer, '' he said as he examined Alices’s body for injuries. “Gourney over here! She has a pretty swollen ankle and it needs to get looked at ASAP” Chris yelled followed by medics running up to her with a hundred questions.

Chris hopped into the ambulance as they were about to drive away. He explained to her that today was his day off so he decided to go on the blind date with her because he was also just straight out of a long term relationship and thought he would give it a try since his friends were pushing him to. He said how he heard from his coworkers a possible heist plan at that museum after they were already there and he went to look for Alice but she disappeared for the restroom a few minutes prior. He focused on trying to get everyone out of the museum and sat on the street waiting for backup to arrive to bust the robbery in action. 

Chris grabbed Alice's hand and looked into her eyes with regret and sorrow as he apologized for not being able to get her out of that situation sooner. Alice smiled and said “one hell of a first date huh?”