The Great Heist

“Oh my God, that would look so cute on you!” Louise exclaimed, holding up a silver necklace with an emerald pendant, lined with small, glimmering diamonds around the exquisite gem, which hung down gracefully in the middle. It was clearly an expensive piece, as not only was there an emerald pendant in the middle, but even the silver necklace chain itself was adorned with tiny emerald gems the colour of dewy grass.

Alex looked over her shoulder at her, through her caramel-coloured brunette curls, attempting to restrain herself from rolling her eyes at her.

“I’m trying to break into this safe, will you be quiet?” Alex raised her finger over her mouth, in an attempt to hush Louise, and continued to sit back on her knees and figure out how she was going to open the safe underneath the satinwood desk.

Louise sighed listlessly, putting the necklace back where she found it on the edge of the glass table, in a careless and blase manner. “You know, I don’t even get why we’re doing this, I mean I never thought you of all people would do something like this…” An eery silence filled the room, apart from the sound of a bobby pin clinking against the metal mechanism in the safe, before Alex began to speak.

“Louise, this is not the time to be having this conversation.” Alex warned, with her back turned away from Louise, struggling away at her attempt.

Louise tried to restrain herself from saying anything more, but things had gotten out of hand and she couldn’t stand the fact they were even in this situation right now. It was too much. Louise had been dragged into Alex’s mess and it was beginning to overwhelm her.

“But seriously, this isn’t us, since when do we go around doing stuff like this?!”

Alex whipped round to face Louise, to show her how exasperated she was becoming, and her chestnut-brown eyes penetrated Louise’s. “I’m trying to open the safe, will you shut up for-”

In the opaque window which was situated on the door to the office, a man’s shadow was looming outside the door of the office the two girls were currently in. His hand was already on the handle of the door, opening it ever so gently which made a terrible, creaking sound.

“Quick!” Alex exclaimed, “Get under that desk over there!” pointing to another oak desk located opposite to the one Alex was under just now.  

The two girls turned around and dove towards it and positioned themselves underneath it, and just in the nick of time, barely escaping the manager of the jewellery store Graham and Co, a prestigious yet not awfully well-known store located in the out-skirts of London, who just so happened to be after the diamond necklace which he carefully stored in the security safe underneath his desk. A few tapping sounds later, he mindfully retrieved the beauty he was after, a show-stopper in fact, which he was planning to show the guests who had been invited for a jewellery evening where they could look around and he could explain to them more about the history of each gemstone and jewellery piece. Inside, the two girls could see other expensive jewellery pieces inside. He hesitated for a moment, as if he knew there was someone else in the room, which of course frightened the two girls half-to-death, before he slowly made his way out of the office, holding the extravagant piece in the palm of his hand as if it were his precious baby.

As soon as the manager left, Louise was the first to make her way out from under the desk and almost collapsed into a heap in the middle of the room, as she was so relieved that they hadn’t been caught. “Thank God!” she heaved a sigh of relief.

Alex followed her in quick succession out from underneath their hiding place, but rather than sighing with relief, she was absolutely furious, almost pallid with rage. She looked down at her friend, who was still lying down on the floor, with a look of almost disdain.

“If you had just left me in peace, I could have retrieved that necklace! Imagine the amount of money it could have been worth!” she whispered, as fiercely as she could given the circumstances.

Louise wore a look of total bewilderment and shock upon her face, as well as the bright, fancy party make-up she had put on in order to disguise herself as one of the guests interested in the most exquisite gemstones that were put on display that evening. It took a while after that fearful explosion, but nevertheless she picked herself up off the floor, and remarked in the most composed of tones she could manage at that point, in a whispered hush:

“Alex, I can’t do this with you, you’re on your own. I don’t know what sort of trouble you’re in, but I know that it’s bad, which is why you’re in this position right now, and I wanted to help you but we’re going too far. The way you looked at that necklace! Do you even know how many hundreds of thousands of pounds that necklace was?! You scare me, Alex. I’m scared for you, but I won’t put myself in danger like this as you won’t even tell me why we’re doing this. I’m leaving.”

Alex was frightened out of her skin at the previous events, but she wouldn’t dare show it. She was too tough to show her friend that. “I’d rather you didn’t leave me right now when I need you, but if that’s what you want, go. I’m not stopping you.” She uttered in a prickly, callous tone, through gritted teeth. Louise wished with her heart that Alex would come to some sense, but at this point Alex was wildly devoted to her task, and there was no stopping her. She was scared for Alex, but she was more frightened of going down with her. She had no choice but to leave.

Before Alex had the chance to say anything else, Louise creeped outside as carefully as she could without anyone noticing her, and made her way down the stairs and all the while trying to look as effortless and graceful as she could, rather than terrified, alarmed and guilty which is of course how she really felt. She had to stay composed to help her friend, the last thing she could do for her.

A few moments after Louise left, Alex could feel her fear rising and her heartbeat quickening now that she realised how much danger she could potentially be putting herself in. But she had to do this for her brother. Her younger brother, who was currently in a lot more danger than she was. She had to protect him. She had to save him. She wanted to hate him for getting involved with drugs, but he was so young and he’d been having such a difficult time of things, that she couldn’t bear such a dreadful idea. But there was no way her parents could get involved. No way. She was so scared. But she had to do this for her brother.

She approached the safe once again, and shone her torchlight over the touch pad of number. She could see his fingerprints over the numbers “8-4-9-3” and so she tried two combinations containing those numbers. Unfortunately for the third she tried-

“Beep beep beep!” A red siren that was linked to the safe now started flashing and the siren sounded in a high-pitched tone, alerting everyone in the building that there was an intruder. Alex was stunned, completely frozen in fear, as she had no idea an old-fashioned jewellery store such as this would have such high-quality security. She didn’t even know how long she had before someone would burst in the room! And she couldn’t possibly show herself running down those stairs like a bandit. No, she had to stay in this room and hide. She ran towards the cupboard next to the office door, and quickly positioned herself inside, looking out into the room via a small, convenient hole. Within twenty seconds, the manager burst into the room, along with a few other “tough” men, arming himself with a baseball bat in case there was an intruder inside of the room.

“Well, where is he?” The manager asked, pacing up and down the office with wild eyes.

“I don’t know, there isn’t anyone here…” A stodgy, middle-aged guest replied.

“We’ll have to check everywhere!” The manager announced matter-of-factly, “he might still be here somewhere”

The three of them, the manager and the two guests, started to inspect the room starting the furthest away from the room. This was it for Alex. Within minutes they will open the cupboard she was hiding inside and discover her. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to leave, and she had to leave now while they were preoccupied and their backs were turned away from her.

Creeeeaaaakkkk! Alex did not realise how loud the cupboard door would be! The three of them turned around to discover the 17-year-old girl, and were almost in a state of shock, almost as much as she was in shock herself. She was so young, and so beautiful in fact, with her long brunette curls and her ivory, pale face that it seemed impossible to link her with this terrible crime. Although this awkward moment only lasted a second, to Alex it felt like a lifetime. She looked down at the table and saw the emerald pendant, and without a second’s thought she snatched it from the table and made her descent down the stairs like a lightning bolt, while the three men followed her. The sudden rush of adrenaline stopped her from thinking about anything, from thinking about the terrible act she had committed right now in front of the men, to running down those stairs with the guilt written on her face and to see the judgement in all of those guests eyes. But Alex was too late, as someone had already placed themselves in front of the shop door to prevent the intruder from escaping. So, of course, Alex did the unthinkable. She u-turned right in front of the three men behind her and ran towards the fire exit, an act so inconceivable that it startled everyone who hadn’t even thought of blocking that exit at all. She burst through them and was running down the dimly lit alleyway, her ballet pumps sodden after running through the puddles that scattered themselves randomly throughout the street.

She had just turned the second corner before a policeman shouted “Stop!” behind her. Her heart dropped when she heard that word being uttered from the policeman’s mouth. She was so exhausted, but she had to keep running, as the policeman was gaining on her. She turned another corner, in order to lose the police officer, but it was a dead-end. As she was running towards the metal fence, she thought back to all of those movies where the hero jumped over it, and she was about to attempt the same thing when the police officer grabbed her by the shoulder.

He grabbed her by the shoulder, and turned her around to reveal the beautiful young girl whose face was as ivory and as graceful as an angel’s and framed by her contrasting darker curls. She looked as frightened as a mouse, standing there soaking wet in the rain. He was young for a police officer, only just making it on to the team, but somehow he sympathised with the young girl. She wasn’t much older than his sister, and she was so young, she probably had no idea what she was even doing, she looked so scared out of her mind. He looked down in her hand, and saw the emerald pendant she had stolen off the manager’s desk.  

In a calm, but hurried tone, he said to her “You have three minutes to drop that pendant in your hand and climb over that fence, and run, and when I mean run, you have to run for it. The police will be here any minute now, and they are in no way going to let you go like I am. If you are caught, you could go to prison for years. You need to make your mind up right now, what is it going to be?”

For the first time, Alex didn’t even hesitate. She dropped the emerald pendant in her hand, and ran for it, climbing the metal fence in a hurry, but her green dress got caught on the railings and she struggled to pull her dress away from it. The police officer felt pity for her, and helped her to loosen it from the other side of the fence. Alas, she was free from the fence! She mouthed a “thank you” to the kind, young officer and ran for her life, away from the police officer, away from the jewellery store. She felt that she could never repay him for letting her go, and she would never in her life forget his kind act.

(I'm really sorry for not sticking to the word limit exactly, I hope you don't mind) :)