The coffee shop is as warm as the mug in my hands; the smell of black coffee permeating the air and the brown room.  Everything was fine- until it wasn't. Time slowed to a heart-wrenching crawl. My gut wrenched and I was aware of everything around of me: the waitress, Cindy, turning, as her apron strings brushed the end of my table and eventually whisped across my knee like a soft whisper. All oxygen was zipped from the room, all sound sucked through the floor and ceilings. Cindy’s name tag flashes white, and then the red letters suddenly appear again, her red nails clutch her throat as she watches the men in black swarm her café- rushing in like a black inked colored tidal wave.
I can see the Cindy’s pretty lips open into a gasp. But she never gets that far, as far to take in a breath. Everything happened quickly, sudden enough to make my head spin.
I watch her face and try not to feel anything as her eyes widen and the barrel of a gun presses into her forehead. I’m pretty sure she can smell the metal. The silver flashes in her wide blue eyes. I turn my head a fraction- and look at the man in black. All that’s visible are his eyes through the slit of the ski mask: dark green orbs that flash iridescent, almost like a cats.
“Move.” His eyes are on mine as he grabs Cindy’s waist and shoves her body into his.
“OK. OK.” I stand, my hands raised into the air, palms out.
“Quickly.” His voice is soft. Softer than silk, and calm. His gloved hand shoots out when I’m close enough and yanks me to the counter and shoves me into it. Clumsily I fall into the face of the counter and slide down until I land on my ass- Cindy landing on top of me in the clumsy process.
I watch her face. She doesn’t cry and I’m impressed. Her face is set, her bright blue eyes, hard. When this is over I think I might ask her out. I watch her exotic form: Her dark hair with a ingle blue streak on the left side, and her sculpted facial features. She's a firecracker. 

She gives me a glance and the nothing else as the barrel of a gun presses into the tip of my nose. The smell of leather and metal sit at the tip of my nostrils and I glance up.
“No talking.” The green eyes stare me down. I bite the inside of my cheek as anger sparks its way across my chest. I resist the urge to throw my shoe at his face.
Fingers slide through mine, and a palm touches mine, softly. Lightly. I look down at the red painted nails that are short and rounded. The tips are jagged. She bites her fingernails. “We have to stop them.” Cindy. She breathes in my ear. It tickles.
I turn my head a fraction and her eye lashes brush the tip of my nose. Her blue ones are even prettier up close; laced with blue and gray and white.

“Yes.” I just barley breathe the word. I jerk my head up as green-eyes walks by. He catches my eye and before I can blink his gun whips across my cheek.

"I said, NO TALKING!" He roars. A few seconds tick by. I dont move and eventually he carefully walks on, stepping over outstretched legs. 
I close my eyes and breathe at the ebbing pain. “Yes.” I say again, fighting the anger and the hatred. A girl gasps across the room and then a sudden heart wrenching sob. A thump follows seconds after. A groan of pain. 
I look at Cindy. I can see her resolve on the matter at hand. Her determination: like a blue spark that’s just erupted into a fire. We both look at the girl with cocoa colored skin and other-worldly clothing with different prints and a soft brown jacket. Her nose is dripping blood, her body is in half. Her pain leaks from the corners of her eyes and mixes with the pool of blood on the tile, just under the girls nose.
I look back at Cindy. “Yes.” We say, together. Something needs to be fixed. And that Bastard is going down.