"Of all the days you decide to take a hostage you pick today!?" You scoffed as the thick, coarse rope burned your wrists. Wriggle as you may there was no chance of escaping from Harley's tight bounds.

"What can I say, I was lonely. Now shut up and be a good little bank manager and tell me how to get into the vault... the big one, downstairs... don't try and stick me up with some shoddy little safe either!" Harley rummaged through the drawers of your office in a failing bid to secure entrance to the valuable's storage.

"I already told you, I can't let you in by myself just like that. I need another key and like you asked five minutes ago the guy with the other key is on the way. Can't you just blow it up or something so I can go home and spend some time with my family? I wasn't even supposed to be in today I just had to pick some paperwork up."

"Blow this up, blow that up! What do you think I'm made of money? Explosives aint cheap you know and times have been tough thanks to you fuckers, damn, if I had enough money do you really think I would be robbing a bank? Yeah, that's right, you guys are the real criminals here so come on, tell your little buddy to hurry up or Harley Claus will be leaving a nice little gift wrapped body bag under the tree this year." She gave up and perched herself on the edge of your desk, sat her adorned baseball bat beside her and gazed around. "You know, it is a nice place you got here... is the pay good?"

"Meh." You shrugged. "It's alright, puts food on the table you know."

"You could do the place up a bit, fresh lick of paint, maybe a new security system in case somebody breaks in." She chuckled proudly to herself. "Come on I was hoping your pal would be here before the cops came, you know if the cops come, I'm shooting you in the face, right?" She pulled a large pistol from her badge decorated rucksack and fiddled with it in her hands. Suddenly the situation felt a lot more real, nobody was coming to help and you probably were not going to see your family again. "Nah, I'm just fucking with you, I wont shoot you... Its Christmas!"

You breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"I'll strangle you with tinsel instead!"

~*~
Written by Aaron.