The last thing I saw before everything shattered was his blood on my hands.
I tugged my hoodie further over my face: a paranoid habit. Pulling the black fabric mask further up the bridge of my nose for good measure, I joined the small group of huddled boys, blowing into their hands for warmth and stamping their feet. A thin layer of ice coated the ground, significantly diminishing the grip on my poorly chosen trainers. I lingered on the edge of the group, awkwardly shifting my feet, pushing a slab of ice idly with my toe.
Ben crouched precariously atop a bin, flipping a shard of broken mirror over and over in his hands. He unflinchingly gripped the pointed end with his bare palm before tossing it and catching the safely taped end again. The mask we all wore was casually pulled down to his neck and he was staring at something seemingly on the first floor of the block of flats opposite. Curiosity led me to trail his dark eyes, finally locating a security camera.
In a smooth action, the mirror shard whipped through the air, reflecting the mundane streets. It landed with a deafening shatter into the eye of the camera.
The boys flinched, one even letting out a small yelp. I kept myself composed, watching as sparks rained from the broken electrical wires. The group's eyes went from the camera back to Ben whose face was an unreadable mask.
He launched himself off the bin, landing gracefully on the street. The boys stepped back, now silent and unsure, watching as he stalked past. He pressed his foot against the wall of the building, shooting upwards and catching the shard where it lay buried.
Blood dripped from the shard from where he gripped it. Without sparing me his gaze, he tossed the shard to me. He looked absently down at his injured hand as he made his way back to the front. He gripped the hem of his baggy black T-shirt, expertly ripping off a strip from the bottom. Never flinching, he tied the T-shirt around his hand in a makeshift bandage, dusting off his hands and clothes afterwards as if he'd just finished spring cleaning. He leapt onto the bin, sending it wobbling slightly. A boy beneath him steadied it for him, cautiously, as if Ben were a venomous snake or some poisonous bug that could strike at any moment.
"So you all want to make money?" Ben began in his quietly threatening monotone. "Or are you wimps all just here to rebel against mummy and daddy." His dark eyes became searchlights as they landed on and considered each boy. "I don't know if any of you lot are cut out for this." He shifted his attention to his nails, digging the dirt from under them.
One boy stepped forward. I guess he thought he was being brave. "I am." The theatrical sturdy stance was significantly undermined by a wobbling voice.
If I wasn't afraid to react, I might've laughed.
Ben studied the boy for a moment, looking like he might want to laugh himself. He dismounted the bin, slowly this time, like a predator tormenting its prey. Ben towered over him, his scarred and weathered face peering down at the boy. I marvelled that Ben looked like he could be in his 30s, but we all knew he was just like us: barely a legal adult. I was convinced that some here were under 18, however, including the baby-faced boy that stepped forward.
Ben smiled. His smile wasn't an expression of joy, it was a wicked curved dagger. "You go first then." With his fate decided, Ben gave him a hard shove down the street, towards the building they'd targeted days before.
The boy studied the building. It wasn't easily scalable: several feet of flat forbidding concrete with no footholds. At least the window had been left open. Our victim was a naïve student whose family was clearly rich. She was talkative, way too quick to trust. Ben had bragged that getting information from her was as easy as buttering toast. We'd spied many things in her apartment that would be of use to us, including the gun she kept illegally in the safe. The code was her birthday, of course.
The boy gulped. He sent a frightened gaze in our direction that begged us for help, for us to do something. No one moved.
There was an awful sensation of guilt deep in the pit of my stomach as I watched the boy begin to struggle up the stone wall, his palms slipping and toes sliding. He finally found a chink in the stone. Cramming his fingers into it, he hauled himself upwards, breathing heavily. Stuck, he battled to stay on the wall for several awful minutes. He tried to launch himself up a second time before falling what looked to be almost three feet and landing in a sprawled heap on the hard concrete.
Ben let out a deep chuckle. He pushed through the group and crouched in front of the poor boy. "Show offs are dangerous. You're out." He turned back to the rest of the boys. "I believe one of you has rope?"
The betrayal on the boy's face was quite hilarious. All that embarrassment and several grazes for nothing. He quickly got himself up and brushed himself down. He failed to meet any of our eyes, studying his scuffed shoes shamefully. The ridiculously bright white trainers looked like they'd been polished meticulously just for this occasion. Now covered in dust from the wall and gouged with a few scratches, they looked just like the boy: defeated.
One of the boys lifted up his shirt to reveal what looked to be several metres of rope, coiled around his stomach.
A battle to uncoil the rope later, the group had it knotted and looped, ready to lasso onto a hook on the window above.
Ben grabbed the rope, inspected the knot. "At least you seem to know how to tie a knot. That's something." He pointed to each of the boys in turn. "If any of you mess up even a little bit, you're out. Be warned, I'm watching your every move. As far as you're concerned, I'm omnipresent."
With one last threatening smile, he pulled up his mask and adjusted his hoodie.
Finally he turned to me, his voice muffled slightly by his mask.
"You. Throw the rope."