The Pact

Dogs bark and urgent footsteps approach just as Arpine lowers himself down into the hidden tunnel of the old mansion. 

“What the fuck have you done? I told you not to kill him!” Arpine whispers harshly. “I don’t have time to hide the body; we’re dead.”

“He was getting his revolver, what did you want me to do? Talk him out of it?” Finry hisses back.

“Guys, shut up. We’re safe, it doesn’t matter now, we got what we came for,” Hailey grins, opening a little display case showing five bedazzling diamonds. “One death for a million each, not bad for five orphans?”

“You mean five millionaires?” Brilton smirks, grabbing the diamonds with a fat swipe and handing them out. “With bad boys like these, it won’t matter if we’re still unwanted before the orphanage closes, we’ve got our insurance.” 

“Wait, let’s be smart about this,” Dala says, gingerly enclosing her diamond into her heart locket necklace. “They’re gonna know the one thing missing from the manor are the Ryland Diamonds because someone —” she shoots a death-glare at Brilton “— was too slow to replace them with the decoys. So we can never just sell or trade them. The police will be looking everywhere for them and if one of us is found out we all are. We’re the last five at the orphanage.” 

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Finry narrows his eyes. “Stay poor the rest of our lives?”

“Not the rest of our lives,” Dala smirks, prepared. “Just 20 years. I’ve done my research, that’s how long it will take for the case to be closed. But we can’t be stupid; if five people become millionaires overnight they’re gonna know so let’s make a pact.” Dala takes Finry’s bloody knife and slices her hand. “In exactly 20 years we’ll meet back at the orphanage and we’ll coordinate over years who will be a millionaire first to last in order of need.”

“Not much of a choice.” Brilton cuts his hand. 

“Well we know Finry’s getting the money first,” Arpine rolls his eyes as he cuts his hand.

“Damn right, I’ll be homeless if it means I get the diamond first,” Finry chuckles as he cuts.

“I’m not cutting my hand, that’s disgusting, but yeah I agree,” Hailey says looking down.

“Okay, someone hold her down, I’ll cut,” Finry mutters.

Above, a lone police officer swears he heard a muffled scream but he never finds out where.

20 YEARS LATER 

The rain pelts heavily down in front of the abandoned orphanage. Five hooded people in big rain jackets arrive exactly on time. Their faces obscured, they step inside the rotting orphanage and close the door behind them. Gathering around a dusty, circular dining table, the air seems to thicken with the weight of old promises bearing down on them like the storm outside.

One figure unhoods. Dala, looking aged beyond her years, starts. “I let you all down, I couldn’t wait, my husband needed money for his surgery. So I broke the diamond beyond recognition and sold the pieces. It wasn’t enough.”

A second figure disrobes: Brilton, a large man now. “I used the decoy diamonds to pay off a loan shark. Afterwards I had the real diamond appraised, turns out I must have mixed it among the fakes and gave the loan shark the real one. He’s still after me.”

Third hood unrobes, it’s Arpine. “I ended up selling the diamond overseas where no one would recognise them, but just as I had a flight home booked, the nation erupted in civil war. I couldn’t leave and inflation skyrocketed. By the time I got home, the money was worth less than my fridge.” 

The fourth figure, a woman who no one recognises. “I’m Fariya, the nurse who helped ease Hailey’s suffering. She passed away from a tetanus infection only four weeks after the pact, she told me everything. I thought it was only fair I take her place in the deal. Does anyone else here actually have a diamond?”

Finally, the last hooded figure pulled back his hood, revealing yet another unfamiliar face — an older man with a beard and an oddly serene expression. "Just you, dear," he said calmly. "Gillus Ryland — Murphy's only son. Naturally, I was the prime suspect in his murder. Twenty years I spent in prison before DNA evidence exonerated my name. I knew Finry — he was strung out on meth when he killed his friend, that’s how we ended up as cellmates. He's still locked up, and he genuinely has no memory of what happened to his diamond. The drugs took that from him."

Gillus paused, then continued, his voice softening. "But that’s not more important than what I have for you today, it’s papers from dad, written a few days before his death.”

He pulls out an envelope and tenderly leaves it on the table. 

Adoption papers for five orphans.