At first, it was a simple knock. Both occupants of the house, woman and girl, had been sitting at the dinner table that was placed in the middle of the tiny house.

The woman set down the tea cup that had been prepared by the other, approaching the door.

“Who is it?” She leaned ever so slightly against the door.

“Police.” Her heart skipped a beat. She forcibly ceased all motion in her body.

“Joanne Moore, we know who you are and we know you’re in there.”

“Exit the house calmly, you and your associate, with your hands where we can see them!”

Her cold eyes widened as her pupils subtly shook. She swore not to make a sound.

“Miss Joanne?” The girl across the room sensed her fear, standing up as she whispered audibly to her.

She closed her eyes, retracting her hand from the doorknob quickly as if she was burnt. Maybe, if she stood still, they’d believe she wasn’t there.

Her body was shook from the banging on the door a few minutes afterwards. She began to step away and turned to the kid, fixing up her glasses and steeling her face. She withdrew her gun from her coat where it hung on the rack and was about to explain—

“—Joanne. You can’t hide forever in there. You either come the easy way, or we can do this the old way…” a venomous familiar voice slowly took control over her. Fear locking her limbs in place. Cutting off her train of thoughts. Her throat went dry and her lips were forced together.

No. No. No. This can’t be happening again.

“…Hey, snap back, Miss Joanne— I- We’ll get out of this mess, like we always do.” She held her rough scarred hands gently, rubbing her thumbs onto them. When had she gotten closer? She blinked back to life and immediately held the girl’s shoulders, looking her in the eye.

“Penelope, do you remember what I said?”

“Yeah, if we get caught—“

“If we get caught, we tell the truth.”

“What? But we agreed to lie!” Her whisper was a bit louder this time.

“Exactly.” She squeezed her shoulders comfortingly, before releasing her hands to reload her gun.

“I-I don’t get it? What do you mean?!”

“We’ll be telling them the “truth”, right, kid?” She raised her voice very obnoxiously as she turned her head to the door.

The girl took a second before, “Yeah, we will!”

“Follow my lead,”

“As always,”