"His gun was bigger than mine."

☆

"Who are you? What are you doing in my kitchen?"

Carlos stops in his tracks at the sound of a female's voice as if his statuesque appearance would make him invisible. He slowly turns to look, to see a woman, probably around the age of 50 staring at him with a baseball bat in her hands. "I just want some bread." He says, as he holds his hands up in defence.

"Get out...GET OUT!" Comes the cry as she takes a step towards Carlos, wielding her weapon, but she is stopped in her tracks by the feel of something pushing against her stomach. 

"I just want some fucking bread, but you just had to make things complicated." The click of the gun is heard and causes the woman to hold even tighter to the wooden bat. 

"My husband is upstairs…" she begins.

"He's not here." Carlos utters, even surprised at how quick he was to fit into the role he had seen his sister play on so many occasions. 

"He is…" she insists. 

"Liar." Carlos says once again. "What kind of coward would send his wife to see off intruders?" 

The woman keeps a hold of her bat, not phased by the gun pointing in her direction.  "Do you think that tiny gun scares me? Do you think I can't defend my own property?" Her boldness or possible foolishness causes her to take a step forward. "You would be wise to let me finish my sentence." 

"Why? There's no one else here. Just give me what I want." Carlos reiterates, standing firm. It was just a bat after all. A stick made of wood. He had a gun. He had the upper hand. 

CLICK CLICK

"Because my gun is bigger than yours." Comes the reply as a male appears with a very long shot gun. "Two against one. So how about you get the hell out of here?" 

Carlos knows the balance has been tipped. His fleeting confidence dwindling like the unravelling of a badly knitted pullover. "Ok, ok. You win, I'll go." He begins to back away, his arm reaching out to the side, feeling his way as he steps backwards towards the door in which he came, even being as polite as to push the door closed behind him. He turns in a hurry to see Rio, picking apples from a tree. "We need to go…now." 

"What's happened?" Rio pulls the pillow case laiden with edible bounty, over his shoulder. 

"Just…come on…." Carlos gets on an old barrel in order to hoist himself over, he gets to the other side, with Rio and the pillowcase following soon after, but it seems Carlos isn't done running. 

"What's happened Carlos?" Rio says, trying to catch up. 

"Bread…. My weakness… and his gun was bigger than mine."

"Gun?" Rio picks up the pace. 

Carlos finally slows as they approach an out building next to the white house. It just stood back a little further from the road, but made the man smile that for once in his life, he may have done good. "That doesn't matter now. I have these." He takes the keys from his pocket, holding them up in front of Rio's face. 

Rio looks at the keys, then turns to the two vehicles parked under the shelter of the outbuilding. A beat up, mud covered 4 by 4 and a tractor. "If those keys fit the tractor, I will never forgive you." He says as he takes the keys from Carlos' grasp. 

"And if it is the land-rover? What do I get for that?" Carlos smiles a little as he follows behind Rio. But the other male doesn't respond as the fob is pushed. "It has to be the car right, with a key like that." And sure enough, the car comes to life. 

"Just get in before they find out we even have the keys will you?" Rio says as he gets into the driver's side and hurls the pillowcase stuffed with food onto the back seat. The door opens the other side and Carlos gets in. 

"Ok, go go go!" He says, with urgency as he sees the man in the distance. 

"Shit!" Rio curses as he puts his foot down. It was just as his friends Morton and Oliver had told him about from their brief road trip. Village folk were fond of protecting their property at all costs. The truck makes a bumpy escape down the road and out of sight and allows the males to finally take a breath. "We did all this for…" Carlos lifts up the stuffed pillow case. "For peas and carrots? I'm a solid man. I need more than that." 

"It's better than nothing, you're sounding like a spoilt brat right now." Rio glances across to the passenger seat. "Besides, you were the one who went into the kitchen. All you had to do was raid the fridge and you couldn't even do that."

"He had a gun!"

"You had a gun!" 

"Y'know, you're beginning to sound like my fucking sister….Hey!" The car suddenly swerves to the left, causing Carlos to grab a hold of something as Rio takes an unexpected detour through a break in the trees and into the woodland beyond. 

The car suddenly grounds to a halt. Rio glares at Carlos. "Do you want to go back to your old life? I can take you back right now, or maybe I should leave you just here."

"Shit! Are you trying to kill me again?" Carlos eases a little on the hold.

"Did you hear what I just said? I will take you back to the city. Just watch me." Rio presses down on the accelerator, making the engine rev. 

"No! Whoa wait!" Carlos places a hand upon Rio's, which was resting on the steering wheel. "I know I messed up back there. I'm sorry." 

Rio drops his hands from the wheel and switches off the engine. He exhales a sigh. "You did your best." He looks around him. "You got us this car. I got vegetables." He laughs. "I'm sorry. I guess we are both not cut out for this. He looks at the knitted jumper and hat Carlos was wearing. "Nice outfit, by the way." 

Carlos looks down at himself. "Thanks. Just trying to blend into the surroundings a little more." He said, smiling for a brief moment until he realised what he had gone and done. "Shit SHIT!!" He begins to pat down his body. 

"What? What's the matter? " Rio questions as the panic radiating from Carlos seems contagious. 

"My trousers. I changed them." He looks at Rio, feeling sick to his stomach. "The diamonds. I don't have the diamonds!..."

**

A/N. Yes I shamelessly name dropped Morton and Oliver from my other book 'Road to Anywhere'. :)