For Nevermore Season 1

the pills couldn’t calm began its chatter again.
    This is it. He’s got a gun in his pocket.
    Mets Hat turned his head in an odd way, as if he’d heard the voices in her head. Their eyes met again, and the hair on her arms went angry and standing. Noella glanced at the closed drawer with the knives, then down at the panic button on the floor, maybe four feet away, trying to decide which she should run to first. The knife would help her immediately, if she were able to defend herself. But the button could bring the police, and their guns, eventually.
    He stared at her as though he could read the conversation in her mind and feel the weight of her decision. His eyes went narrow, and Noella felt a sudden tear inside her mind. A violation. She wondered if he was really inside her head, or if it was only the side of her mind that never went quiet or stopped playing tricks.
    His eyes lit up in a manic glee, which eerily echoed that in the eyes of the man who killed her father 10 years ago tonight. You don’t forget those details, no matter how hard you try.
    This is it.
    He pulled the gun from his pocket before Noella could reach the panic button.
    She screamed as her foot stomped down on the button, anyway.
    “Shut up and give me all the money in your register!” he yelled, pulling a thin canvas bag from inside his jacket, and throwing it into her arms.
    Noella stared at the bag, her mind reeling as a fog of terror swallowed her ability to move.
    “Open the register!” the man growled, thrusting the gun inches from her face.
    Oh God, he’s not even wearing a mask! He’s gonna shoot me so there are no witnesses.
    Noella stood, frozen to the spot.
    Move, move, move, just do what he says!
    But she couldn’t. And she became certain that in her fear of doing anything which would get her shot, he would become frustrated enough to pull the trigger.
    “Now!” the man screamed again, and Noella jumped.
    Just stay calm, give him what he wants, and hopefully he will leave.
    Tony’s voice called from the back, surprising both her and the robber.
    “Did you say something?” Tony asked as he stepped from the back room, reeking of smoke, pulling white earbuds from his ears. Tony’s eyes widened in shock, bouncing from the gun to Noella, then back.
    He turned, and made it one hastened pace toward the back room before Mets Hat pulled the trigger and shot Tony in the back of the head. The gunshot thundered through the coffee shop and pierced Noella’s ears. She cried out, holding her hands over her ears, staring at Tony as he stumbled a few steps, then made a final sideways shuffle. He dropped, face cracking ceramic in a bloody crunch.
    Noella cried out, her voice and breath threatening to leave her.
    She stared at Tony’s dead body, and flashed back a decade, seeing her father die in front of her.
    No, no, no.
    She turned to Mets Hat, tears in her eyes. “Please don’t kill me,” she begged.
    He looked more surprised than Noella. She had expected him to pull the trigger since she first saw death in his eyes. He obviously hadn’t been planning to . . . until now.
    He opened his mouth but said nothing. The death in his eyes retreated, leaving behind a broken shell of emotion. “Oh my God . . . What did I do?”
    His eyes darted back and forth, panicked, trying to figure out what he was going to do now. He just killed a man. And now he had to determine whether to flee or take care of the only witness. Noella was frozen, not daring an inch, for fear of spooking Death to take another shot.
    He’s going to kill you.
    You saw his face. You saw him kill someone. He can’t let you live.
    Their eyes locked, and he looked down at the gun in his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, raising the gun to her head.

    * * * *

CHAPTER TWO

    Yesterday morning…
    Thursday, October 25

    Noella reluctantly woke to reality.
    She far preferred her dream world to this one. In her dreams, her dad was still alive, and she didn’t have to live with her Aunt Josie and Josie’s jerky boyfriend, Randy. At times, her dreams seemed solely designed to remind her how much of a nightmare her reality had become.
    She opened her eyes to the sliver of light spilling through her parted curtains, and thought of her father, Thomas.
    It had been 10 years today since his eyes closed forever, yet on mornings like this, in the lingering aftermath of the dreams, 10 years ago seemed like yesterday, and the wounds of grief still fresh.
    Noella faced the