Aftermath

A minute passed, the lights came back on inside the bank, and the henchmen's targets were nowhere to be seen. They searched for them among the crowd of fearful bystanders, but to no avail. 

They couldn't afford to worry about that for long though as they were soon surrounded by the police.

"Put your hands in the air and come out now!"

Despite how bad things looked for the henchmen, they still had a powerful bargaining chip in their hostages. At least, they would have if what happened next didn't make it impossible to use them.

An officer stepped too close to the henchmen's vehicle and unbeknownst to him, Eva was inside lying unconscious in the back seat. 

All hell broke loose as the henchmen took aim. The officers returned fire immediately. 

The bystanders kept their heads as low as possible as the smell of gunpowder enveloped the area and things easily devolved into a flurry of bullets.

Glass shattered. Blood splattered. A bunch of officers were mowed down, but the henchmen couldn't avoid being hit forever. 

Eventually, henchman one lurched over. His stomach was shot, and he couldn't continue the fight. Henchman two doubled down, desperately trying to salvage the situation even though his defeat was all but guaranteed. 

It was a miracle they survived as long as they did, but the numbers they faced were too great and they eventually met their gruesome end.

The shooting was over, and realizing what they'd done, the authorities rushed inside to check on the hostages, while also taking time to sweep the general area.

***

"Could you tell me exactly what happened here?"

The officer interrogated the bank teller, who didn't seem to be in the best headspace yet.

"Uh... I-I don't know, I just came out of the back and all of a sudden those guys were there, and..."

She continued to stammer through her disconnected story.

"I'll take it from here."

The manager walked up to the two of them and dismissed her subordinate.

"Apologies officer, my employees are still wrapping their heads around what just happened. I can give you access to our security feeds if you'd like, though."

She motioned for him to follow and spared only a passing glance at the safety deposit room as she walked by it.

***

*Ring ring*
Klein answered his phone immediately.

"Miles? How did it go?"

He waited for a second and then continued.

"I see. Well, as long as you got out it's fine."

He turned to look at the other two. They were sitting on a bench, quietly waiting for a bus to come and pick them up.

"Yeah, they're fine. But you'll need to get to us quickly-"

A siren cut him off, and Klein turned to see a lone police car slowly approaching them.

"Something just came up. Wait for us at the place for now, all right?"

The car came to a stop and an officer stepped out.

"Rin Ohara? We've been looking for you."

***

*Slam*
The door to the interrogation room shut and Rin was seated at the table. Lena sat anxiously to his right. 

An older gentleman in a simple button up shirt and tie sat opposite them. He was clearly a detective of some sort. Instead of asking any questions though, he simply poured over his files.

"Umm... So, why did you want to speak with us?"

The detective ignored Lena's question.

"...I don't want to be rude or anything, but we've just been here for a while now."

The detective continued to ignore her.

"If you don't have anything to say to us, then we're leaving.", Rin said.

Standing up seemed to do the trick as the detective finally cleared his throat and spoke.

"Well then, Rin. Why don't we talk about how involved you were with today's bank incident."

The detective waited for Rin to sit back down before taking out a photograph and sliding it across the table. It showed Rin and Klein running into the bank.

"The last thing cameras captured before getting scrambled was you being chased into the bank by these two robbers. At least that's what we're calling them for now."

"Why wouldn't you? That's obviously what they were doing.", Rin said.

"And yet, they only seemed interested in you."

He looked over at Lena.

"They even had your cousin as a hostage. We were also able to take their leader, Eva, into custody. But the weird thing is she was already knocked out in the back seat of their car. I can't help but feel there was a whole other situation going on here."

Neither Rin nor Lena responded to what he said. 

After waiting a couple of seconds, he looked directly at Rin and moved on.

"Well, let's put that aside for now and talk about another incident. A couple of weeks ago, the same people held up a mall. Except for that one, we have a lot more footage to work with. Can you guess who was there again?" 

Silence.

"You were a hell of a lot more active than all the other hostages there."

He didn't even bother waiting for a response this time.

"And about a month ago, you were at the center of yet another incident. When that trucker crashed your father's funeral. At the time, you even warned the police about it before anything even happened. I thought it was just a coincidence, but looking at the rest of your activity, I'm willing to bet this was connected to Eva somehow."

Silence again. The detective sighed.

"...Look. I'm not here to get you into trouble. I just need you to help me out here."

He finally managed to get a reaction.

"...What does that mean?", Lena asked.

"Whatever your relationship with Eva, it can't be easy... dealing with someone like her. You've probably started wondering how long it'll be until she comes after you. Or, if she already is, how long until your luck runs out."

Rin didn't like where this was going.

"So, if you tell me everything you know about her, I can get you two into witness protection. Eva? No problem anymore. You can have a fresh start and leave all of this behind you, but only IF you tell me everything."

The room fell into silence once more. Rin already knew how Lena would react. He clenched his fists as he waited for her response.

"...Then we're going to be okay?"

"As long as we have a deal."

"Of course, we-"

Lena paused to look at Rin.

"Rin? You're okay with this right?"

He couldn't respond at first. The other two just waited for his answer. It seemed important to them that Rin agreed to the deal himself. 

He looked at his left wrist and the watch strapped onto it. 

-Is this enough? 

It was the only thought that crossed his mind as he reared his head upwards. In order to avoid making eye contact with either of the other two though, he looked to the one-way window on his left. Despite the fact he couldn't see anything on the other side of it, his eyes widened.