Diamonds

Diamonds. Jeremy decided that he wanted some diamonds. He had never held diamonds before, so that’s the whole reason why he found himself shattering the storefront of an overpriced and gratuitously-decorated jewellery store at 2 am.

He hoped that no one heard the glass shattering, or tinkling down to the floor. He looked around the deserted street. The lights were off—the power cut out two weeks ago. The buildings were all dark. The fighting was on the outskirts of the city now.

Still, he cradled his old shotgun closer to his gut as he stepped through the hole he made in the storefront, stepping over the shattered glass and toppled display mannequins, showing off large pearl necklaces, golden chokers, and amethyst-inlaid earrings.

He didn’t care about any of them. He wanted DIAMONDS. Nothing else.

Stepping up to the central display case, he smashed it, rather unceremoniously, with the butt of his shotgun. At first it didn’t break. Didn’t even so much as shudder. He looked at the glass with narrowed eyes, as though willing it to break through sheer force of will.

Raising his shotgun up above his head, he brought the butt down on the glass again. This time, it cracked. He groaned and cursed the mater of tempered glass. He struck it again, and again, and a third time and—it suddenly burst into pieces with violent force. Jeremy stumbled back, covering his eyes from any wayward shards that were kicked up by the explosive force of the case’s shattering.

When he looked back at the case, and the desired booty held within, he immediately realised his mistake. The glass was thick, almost three inches. It was designed to shatter into cube-like chunks—if it shattered at all—and flood the compartment below, knocking anything precious off the stands, and making anything valuable virtually indistinguishable from the glass; his diamonds were now somewhere in a quagmire of glittering, sparkling glass shards.

“Dammit.” Jeremy sighed, and reached a bare hand in to gingerly fish about in the detritus for his precious stones. Yelping, he drew his hand back as though he had just been stung. He stared down at the wound on the side of his finger, dripping with crimson. He held his hand in a fist and squeezed it, before growling and slinging his shotgun over his back, using his OTHER hand to search for the diamonds.

Success! He drew out a platinum and silver brooch, inlaid with three diamonds the size of his knuckles, and a few smaller stones laid out on the petals that branched off of it. He pinned it to his shirt, just to have it, and then dove back in to find something equally as shiny.

“I’m tellin’ you, man. I heard something.”

Jeremy froze in place. Turning towards the front of the shop. He had no way of seeing past the destroyed window and out into the street. Jeremy felt his heart leap up into his throat, pumping three times a second. He crouched down, besides the cashiers station, next to the cash registers.

“Come on. If we’re not back on patrol in ten minutes we both get it in the ass,” a second voice said.

“Yeah, you’ll probably enjoy it in the ass,” the first man bit back.

Jeremy took a shaky breath in, then covered his mouth. There were two possibilities; a UNSC patrol, or Freedom Fighters. Both presented its own troubles for him; a UNSC unit was likely to shoot him on sight for carrying a weapon in an active warzone, or arrest him for theft.

The Freedom Fighters would at least question him first.

Jeremy cradled his shotgun close to his chest, sweat pooling on his brow. He shivered in the cool wind blowing through the wreckage of the window. He prayed that they would pass by, not notice the glass shards.

He heard crunching, a sound of surprise, and the clicking of weapons. “Hey! This wasn’t smashed up when we were here last.”

“We shouldn’t’ve even been here back then!!” The Second sighed. “C’mon, one guy wants to steal a few pretty stones, that’s not our problem.”

“It is.” The First’s voice dropped low, and quiet. “Suppose that one guy decides to use the diamonds to get out of this city?”

Jeremy balked. He just wanted some diamonds.

“So?” Secondasked, his tone exasperated. “I say let him.”

“Suppose the UNSC finger him for some intel.” First growled.

Second laughed, a hollow thing filled with incredulity rather than mirth. “What the hell could he possibly know? C’mon, man, it’s not even worth a bullet.”

Jeremy agreed with a rather enthusiastic nod of his head, and a prayer that the First would be convinced, and they would move on.

“To you, maybe. He knows where he lives,” First said. “He knows the streets, he knows the back roads. He knows where the stations are, the manholes—he knows enough that a UNSC Commando unit could make good use of it. We gotta find him.”

Jeremy gulped around a dry throat and held his shotgun even tighter than he was before. He begged Second not to give in, to think of the whole situation as absurd. Jeremy didn’t even consider that, he didn’t want to sell the diamonds, he just wanted them.

“Shit,” Second said. “Fine.”

There was more crunching of glass under heavy jackboots. The men stepped up and through the broken window, into the jewellery store proper. Flashlights switched on with a click, moving over the display cases, until they came to the broken one; the one behind which Jeremy currently cowered.

“Whoever’s in here,” First shouted, “come on out, man.”

Jeremy peeked through a gap between display cases. They stood in the middle of the store, between the dore and the cashier’s station, sweeping the area with ancient rifles. Red bands on their shoulder, and rag-tag civilian kevlar armour denoted them as Freedom Fighters.

At least Jeremy could potentially reason with them.

“Come on, we know you’re in here.”

Putting the shotgun down on the ground, as slow and as quiet as he could do so, Jeremy stood up from behind the cashier’s station.

“Hey—”

The Fighters’ guns trained on him in an instant.

“Whoa!” Jeremy held his hands up. “Whoa! Don’t shoot!”

“Hey!” the First shouted. “Hands up!” he ordered, brandishing his rifle. “Hands the fuck up!”

“Alright, alright!” Jeremy shook in fear, holding his hands above his head. “Hands are up.”

“Any weapons you got, drop ‘em.” Second said.

“Okay, I have a pistol. Lemme just—” he reached for his belt.

“Hey!” A sharp shout drew Jeremy’s eye back to the First man. “Slowly.”

“Okay,” Jeremy slid his hand down with glacial slowness. The two men’s eyes followed. The hand went to the belt of Jeremy’s cargo pants, reaching to one side, and hooking around the grip of an old six-shooter. He lifted it up, and out of his pants, careful not to hold it like he was brandishing it at them. He held it between one finger and thumb, lifting it up into the light. “Here.”

“Toss it away.” First flicked his gun.

Jeremy flicked his wrist, and tossed the pistol over towards the side of the room. It lifted up into the air, and arched down, over the leftmost display case, and out of sight.

Jeremy sighed in relief.

The pistol hit the ground, and fired. The gunshot shattered the tension like delicate crystal, and made Jeremy dive for cover.

“Shit!” he screamed, ducking back down just in time to dodge the two men’s first shots. The bullets hit the display case’s back glass and cracking it in a circular, spiderweb pattern. They were reflexive. The smoke from the six shooter went unnoticed.

Jeremy checked himself for wounds, before looking over to where he tossed his pistol. “Dammit!” he cursed, grabbed his shotgun, and clicked the safety off.

More shots hit the case, from more towards the sides now. They were flanking him.

The shots on the left side petered out, while the ones on the right kept going. Jeremy put his Shotgun on the right display case, so he wouldn’t be shot in the back, looked up enough to aim down the sights, and popped off a round of buckshot.

The pellets hit the First man dead-center in his chest. He flew back, blood spouting from his lips, and staining his fatigues a deep burgundy in the nonexistent night time lighting.

“Shots fired, east side,” Second said into his comms. “Some crazy civ whackjob. Need support, man down.”

Jeremy shook his head, still shaking. He’d killed a man. “It wasn’t meant to be like this,” he said. Then said it louder. “It wasn’t meant to be like this! I just wanted some stones, man. Lemme go!”

“You shot Marv!” Second yelled. “I’m not about to let you get away.”

“I didn’t mean to! I panicked. The damn pistol misfired.” Jeremy flicked his hand over to the corner of the room where the offending six shooter still sat on the tiled floor. “Just lemme go. I’ll go home, you won’t ever see me again.”

“Alright, sure,” Second said. “You just poke your head out and I’ll let you go.”

Jeremy put his shotgun down for the second time, peeking his head out over the display cases. “Just don’t—”

He was cut off as he saw a rifle barrel across the room. The muzzle flashed, and the first few shots went wide, giving him time to duck back down.

“You shit. You shit!” Second yelled, standing up, and keeping his finger jammed down on the trigger. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” He walked over towards the cashier’s station, and brought his rifle up and over it to point down at Jeremy. I’ll—”

The gun clocked empty, just as he came into view. Jeremy looked up, Second looked down. The magazine was ejected. Jeremy made a grab for his shotgun. Second fumbled, brought a magazine out of a pouch on his fatigues. Jeremy cocked the shotgun. The click of a magazine going into a receiver. The blast of a shotgun. The thud of a body. A shower of droplets hitting the floor and glass of the display cases.

Then silence.

Jeremy breathed heavily. Frantic, his chest heaving, heart pounding. His throat itched, pricked with dry pain. There was so much adrenaline in his system that he couldn’t think straight. He ran a hand through his hair, put his gun down, did it again with both hands, picked his gun up, and put it down again; caught in a loop.

“Recon One, how copy?”

A voice from the dead man’s radio broke the loop, and brought Jeremy back into the present.

''“Come in Recon One. What’s your status? We’re just down the street.”''

Standing up, Jeremy looked over at the dead man, and the blood pooling beneath the half of his skull that remained. Jeremy emptied his stomach onto the vinyled flooring as soon as he saw it.

''“Recon One, we heard shots fired. Everything okay?”''

He had to do something. Jeremy stooped low to pick up the radio, and wiped his lips.

“Yeah yeah,” he cleared his throat. “Um, roger that. We got him.”

Silence on the other end, and the static noise of an unclosed line mocked him. Jeremy got ready to run, until the voice on the other end said something else.

''“Copy. Sitrep?”''

Jeremy considered it for a moment. “Uh,” he clicked the broadcast button. “One wounded. Shooter down. Unresponsive?” He kept his messages short and succinct.

''“Copy. We’ll post op outside. We'll be there in 5 minutes.”''

“Shit. Shit!” Jeremy grabbed a clump of his slick brown hair and shook it with each word. “Shit, shit shit!”

He looked down at the corpses. Bland white fatigues, black market guns, helmets that were a size too big for their heads. On a belt that looked to be too worn to hold up the pants they were attached to, were three grenades; a stun, and two frags.

Jeremy gingerly reached a hand forward to take them.

Hefting the orbs in his hands, he shook his head and looked up to the ceiling. “Please,” he prayed. “I hope this works.”

He went over to one of the side display cases, grabbing his shotgun and bag on the way over. Despite the fact that he was faced with a potential life-or-death scenario, Jeremy couldn’t resist bagging a few extra diamonds on the way.

Posting up just in front of the wall, close to the entrance, he waited. Flashlights pierced the darkness outside, and muffled voices of at least five people came into hearing range.

“Recon One?” Two men peeked around the broken window and shone their lights inside. “We’re coming in.”

In they stepped, over the broken glass with soft crunching sounds. Jeremy pulled the pin on a flashbang, and pressed the primer of a frag. He rolled the flashbang under the display case, and then lobbed the frag over it, before bracing himself behind the case with his hands over his ears, and his eyes shut tight.

“Grenade!” Someone yelled, before two explosions rocked Jeremy’s bones.

He grabbed his gear and made a dash for the front of the store, priming the second grenade as he went. Without even bothering to check the street outside, he launched himself out of the store and dropped the second grenade right where he landed.

Three other men stood posted outside, eyes turned away from the blasts and too shocked to do anything about the man that had just come tumbling out. Confused shouts, groans of pain, and the frantic beating of his own heart were the only sounds Jeremy could hear.

He started running, as fast as he could towards a side-road. Jeremy didn’t bother to look behind him as the confused shouts turned angry. He didn’t pay attention to the thump of the second grenade detonating. He didn’t even look behind him to see if any of them survived. All he cared about was getting away.

He hollered into the night, clutching his shotgun and diamond bag tightly. The blood rushing through his ears, the adrenaline making his heart beat like a Hummingbird’s—one thing was for sure; Jeremy had never felt quite so alive.