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In the summer of ‘33, four years after the start of what would be known as the Great Depression, two common criminals would become infamous for a spree of bank robberies across the continental United States. Henry Montague, known as Monty, the son of a wealthy—and simultaneously cruel—oil baron who had lost everything the day the stock market came crashing down… and I, Percy Newton, known as Angel-Face, the sickly nephew of a Mr. and Mrs. Newton, two upper crust merchants who were similarly destitute.
I cannot tell you exactly when our story began. We were childhood friends, you see. Together since before memory began. And we always said, from the moment we were old enough to think it properly, that one day we would run away and start a new life. A life far away from cruel hands and disdainful glares. It was a dream—a beautiful dream, the only dream we had. And in it, always, were the two of us, together forever.
In the end, we did not run. We didn’t have a chance. I’m not sure we would have had the guts to do it, anyway. What happened instead was that the banks crumbled and the stocks crashed, and the homes that would have held us comfortably, if not in compassion then at least in material comforts, were forfeited to higher powers.
The United States… it had never known such a leveler. Never before had the poorest man and the richest man in this country woken on the same day to the same news and the same fear. Inheritances… riches… it all meant nothing when the banks had run dry, and the man who had once stood high atop a golden pedestal of decadence was left kneeling, muddied and broken, beside the men who dug the ditches.
Monty and I… we were on the streets, same as many. Worse than that, we had no skills with which to barter for food. No knowledge to lend in exchange for shelter. No families to lean back on. We had nothing to our names, too old to claim the pity of children but too young to know anything about the world. Thus we turned to what we could, committing petty theft just to get enough to eat in a day. Until, one day, we were caught by the police.
Monty managed to wriggle free. I, however, ended up in jail, having been charged with a misdemeanor. And there… there I met our salvation. Scipio, an older gentleman, who had a crew of men behind him. He had a plan, you see… a plan to escape prison, and after that, a plan to rob a bank. All he offered for a cut of the money was a day’s work. And just like that… just like that, Monty and I were employed.
Our first heist… god. I still remember it like it happened yesterday. Guns blazing, hearts pumping, crammed into the back of a getaway car… lord, we had never been so alive.
We had never been so mortal.
That life… it was frightening. Terrifying. Horrifying. Full to the brim of danger, and violence, and death… but it was better than the alternative. To be starving on the streets, begging for sustenance that would not come… no, at least we had some agency in our lives. And we got to help people. We stole money, yes, but we also burned debt notices, unfair contracts—we freed people who would otherwise have died slow, horrid deaths as the government stared down, uncaring. Helping in whatever small way—that was the way we liked it.
We built our personas up from there, taking from the scraps of our old lives and refitting them into an image that the people couldn’t get enough of. I was the angel, the one with the deadly aim, who never shot a bullet unless shot at first. Monty’s sister, Felicity, when she found us, became the medic behind the scenes, always stitching us back together. And Monty… my darling Monty was the flirt, always there with a kiss to blow for the people. In public, he was everyone’s bad boy—he was captivating, charismatic, dimpled, never afraid to use his charms. But in private…
…in private it was just the two of us, me and him, all alone, together until whatever end was coming for us both.
***
There is a tension in the air as Lockwood pulls up to the steps of the bank. Monty and I are already ready, Monty stepping out first, adjusting his long overcoat as he goes. We’ve become adept in the last few years at concealing our weapons, but I know what that coat hides—a modified Thompson submachine gun, likely the deadliest in the states. It’s more for show, as Monty doesn’t like to open fire without cause, but the show is in itself a masterpiece—that Tommy gun has taken down chandeliers and shot out a dozen windows all in seconds flat. It’s a beautiful accompaniment to my own Winchester M1907, which I keep hidden at my side as we scale the steps to the entrance, Scipio following close behind with his twin revolvers holstered at his sides. At our backs, Lockwood peels away from the curb—our getaway is already in place, Felicity and another driver, Sim, waiting at the back.
We reach the door a moment later, and I turn to face Monty just as he turns to face me, forever and always synchronous.
“Are you ready, darling?” he drawls.
“As anything,” I reply, raising a hand to tip my hat down to cover our faces as he pushes up on his toes and presses a slow kiss to my lips. Scipio rolls his eyes—but he knows us, and he knows our rituals, our little superstitious dance. A kiss before and a kiss after, that is our way—the first a reminder of our mortality in case things go sideways and it becomes our last kiss, and the second a promise to stay safe until the next job.
Monty pulls back, grinning that dimpled grin of his. Then, like an explosion, a burst of fire and flame, he crashes through the front door and into the bank’s lobby, swinging his Tommy gun out in one smooth motion and firing a couple of warning shots into the ceiling.
“Hands in the air, everyone! We’re taking over this show!” he calls, voice cheerful and clear over the screams of women and men ducking down below tables. I come up behind him, training my rifle on the workers behind the large desk across the way, daring them to set off an alarm.
They do not dare. Not as Scipio locks and barricades the doors and follows along behind us, raising his guns as he goes. He’s a scary man—even after working with him for so many years I find myself shivering at the ferocity in his eyes, at the snarl of his mouth. He’s a proper gentleman at the safe houses we stay at, doesn’t even gamble, but you wouldn’t know it to see him in action.
“Open the vault. We’re taking everything you have,” he says, coming up beside me. “Slow and steady, now.”
As he moves to oversee the opening of the vault, and Monty handles the general public, I head to the desk to empty the tellers’ drawers. We all have our parts to play, moving around and about each other like oiled cogs, quick and smooth and effective all at once. We’ve done this before, many times. It works for us, though of course, not all of those times turned out well. Things go wrong, sometimes, when you’re on the wrong side of the law. This one is looking to be a deft and discerning success, though, for which I’m grateful—it’s never a good feeling to have to ride off in a haze of gunfire, empty-handed and with your lives toeing the line. We haven’t had to face that defeat in a while—our winning streak is alive and well, and today should be no different.
The first teller finishes emptying her drawer, and I snag the sack from her and toss it across the floor. Monty, Tommy gun held aloft, fetches it and slings it across a shoulder. The people he’s watching over huddle in the corner, eyes wide and mouths agape as he hums and reaches inside, pulling out a bank note.
“Here, sweetheart,” Monty says, and scrawls his signature on it one-handed, using one of the pens at the table beside him. He then tucks it into a lady’s collar, holding his gun steady with his other hand. He winks, stepping back again. “A little something for you. So that everyone knows that you met Monty Montague and Angel-Face Newton, the most handsome bank robbers this side of the Hudson.”
I roll my eyes, turning back to my task.
This, it turns out, is a mistake.
“Like hell,” the lady says, and suddenly she’s grabbed Monty by the collar. The gun goes off, shattering a few of the front windows, and I spin once more, raising my rifle, aiming at the two of them as they wrestle for the weapon. I try to get a clean shot—not that I want to take it, but I will if I have to—but there’s too much movement, too high of a chance that I’ll hit Monty. I quickly shift to the side to keep everyone in view, to prevent any other smart ideas from our current hostages, and as I do Monty manages to get in a lucky shot with his elbow, smacking the lady in the nose.
She howls, falling to the floor. When she raises her head I finally catch a good look at her face.
“You,” I say, rifle trained on her. “Helena Robles, Mr. Hoover’s choice FBI plant. I should have known.”
The lady, Helena, spits, blood running down her chin from her bloody nose. “The feds are coming,” she says, her eyes bright with triumph, and just like that the smooth seas we’ve been sailing turn choppy, water splashing up on deck. It’s not a tsunami, not a catastrophe, but it does put a bit of a dent in our easy win. Even if we’re arrested, if we can get Scipio out with the money everything will be fine. He’ll organize a prison break, we’ll break out, and that will be that.
“The drawers,” Monty says, huffing in distaste, clearly on the same wavelength as me. “Get them. I’ll keep her subdued.”
I nod, and turn back to the bank tellers. “You heard the man,” I say. “Hop to.”
And so we go, rushing things along as best we can. It isn’t too serious, or so we assume—overconfidence, I am to find out. Because it isn’t much longer before the feds arrive, and at their front, striding ahead of the rest, is a man only known as Agent Duke.
“Shit,” Monty says, grabbing Helena and pressing the Tommy gun into the small of her back. He leans around her as I duck down behind a table, tossing the last of the bags over to Scipio in the back. He’s nearly finished with the vault—it’s just a few more moments. If we can hold out for a few more moments everything will be fine and dandy—
—but alas, it seems our luck has run out.
We’ve hardly started for the back door, guns trained on the front and hostages at the ready, when there is an almighty crash, the sound of a brick coming through the front window. Everything is then thrown into chaos as the feds come in shooting, a percussive cacophony that leaves my ears ringing, our dearest Duke at the front of the procession brandishing a Colt 45.
I can see that the Duke has only eyes for Monty the moment he comes in. He doesn’t care about the lovely Ms. Robles—he’ll shoot through her to reach Monty, I can see it right here and right now in his wild-eyed stare. He’s a man on the edge of madness, full of unbridled fury.
“HAND OVER THE KEY TO THE HEART!” he roars across the room, over the noise of the other agents piling in, and his gun swings over and locks on Monty and Helena. I am running before I know I’m running, but even so I know I won’t get there in time—not this time.
Four things happen in quick succession. One, Helena ducks down and away, wrenching herself from Monty’s grip. Two, the Duke fires the Colt with a bang, the flash from the barrel a sharp spike against my eyes. Three, Monty stumbles—and four, the Tommy gun goes off, the bullets ripping up through the far wall and taking down two of the agents as they go.
I think, for a moment, that he’s okay. I think, for a moment, that we’re okay. That the two of us will get out of this unscathed, as we have so many times before, together, forever and always, to share a kiss once again. I take him by the arm and we begin to run toward Scipio and the back exit, Scipio covering for us with his revolvers as the Duke, frothing mad, advances. We are almost there, we are almost free—
—and then, all at once, Monty goes down.
I cry out, grabbing him by his lapels and kneeling down over him. There’s blood, oh god, oh god, so much blood. It’s everywhere—splattered across the side of his pale, clammy face and pooling underneath his head and running down his neck behind his collar. His blue eyes are hazy, and only focus on me after a good long moment.
“I think… I think he shot me,” he says, and I could laugh at the incredulity in his voice.
Instead I duck as a bullet ricochets over my head. “We need to go, darling. Let’s get you up,” I say. I’m hoping for a grin and the little grabby hands he does whenever I offer to carry him. What I get is a blink, sluggish, and a low, pained groan.
“Get him out,” Scipio says, suddenly beside us, his voice quick and dangerous. He’s providing cover fire, keeping the feds at bay.
I don’t pause to nod. Don’t pause to check that Monty is still breathing. Don’t even pause to grab the rifle I dropped. I just haul Monty up, wrapping my arms around his chest from behind, and drag him to the back.
The back is a firefight, Sim aiming out the window at the feds who have come around the building. Scipio keeps providing cover as I haul Monty to the getaway car, and I swear I can feel the bullets swishing past, mere inches away. Then we’re there, and Felicity is opening the doors for us, helping me haul her brother inside. I pile in behind him, and Scipio behind me, with our bounty on his shoulder.
“Feli,” Monty says, breathy and pained, as Sim guns the gas and spins us around. “Feli, I think I’m dying.”
“Don’t be dramatic, it’s not so bad,” she says, but I can tell by the way her eyes widen and she presses her hands against the wound, holding pressure, that it sure isn’t good. Sim curses, swinging us around through an alleyway, and I can hear the engines of the federal vehicles revving behind us as they struggle to catch up. Monty is so pale—and the blood splatter is so red—and the engines are so loud, and the road so rough, and all of it spinning, spinning, spinning around in my head, I think, for a moment, that I’m about to pitch into a seizure.
I don’t, thankfully. I have enough wits about me to hold onto Scipio’s belt loops as he leans out the window and Sim jerks the wheel, both of them desperately attempting to get the feds off our tail. I hold tight to him as Felicity holds pressure and Monty moans and Sim curses—
—and all I can think, after all that, is that I’d better get that second kiss.
***
We manage to shake the feds somewhere near the bridge. I’m not sure how exactly it happens, just that one moment they’re hot on our tail and the next Sim is whooping, turning quickly down a small side street so that we can loop around the long way and get to our safe-house. I watch, holding my breath, as Monty’s eyelids flutter shut for longer and longer.
We get there half an hour later, just when Monty’s eyes have well and truly closed. He’s out, unconscious—dead weight as we carry him between us into the small farmhouse.
Johanna meets us, letting out a squeak at the sight of so much blood dripping onto her kitchen tiles. “Quick, quick, my kit,” Felicity says, and Johanna runs to get it.
Felicity then spends the next hour or so bent over her brother, her hands steady despite the wideness of her eyes behind her spectacles, stitching him back together.
It’s harrowing, waiting. I try to do it quietly, to help preserve her concentration, but my twitching hands must get on her nerves because she kicks me out some time in. I swallow hard and head into the bathroom, washing off my hands. Once, and then again. And then again, and again, and again and I can’t help it when silent tears begin to fall down off the end of my nose as I wash my love’s blood from my skin. I strip off my coat, and my collared shirt, and look at my own frazzled face in the mirror, and I hope, I pray, that he’ll be okay.
Things are looking good by the time I’m allowed to return to his side. He’s all stitched and bandaged up, the gauze clean and white, and we move him, carefully, from the kitchen table to the bedroom. He’s so still when I tuck him down under the blankets, but he’s still breathing, and that’s all that really matters. I settle down on a chair beside him, holding his limp hand between both of my own. They cut his shirt off, leaving his pale chest bare, and I gently stroke his exposed shoulder, his neck, his bicep, the uncovered parts of his face, anything I can reach. I wait, like that, for him to wake.
It takes a while. Several hours, at least, I don’t really know. Johanna comes and leaves an offering of a hot meal that I don’t take, too caught up in listening to every breath that enters his lungs. I hum, softly, until my voice begins to go hoarse. Until, finally, I look up from where my eyes had been focused on his chest and I see blue eyes, half-lidded, peering up at me. He has a smirk on his face, his cheek dimpled.
“Oh, thank the heavens,” I say, sagging where I sit and pressing a kiss to his knuckles.
Monty chuckles, faint. “Heaven has nothing to do with me, Angel,” he says, and I laugh, tears budding in my eyes. Then he tugs at me, at my undershirt, gesturing for me to get into the bed with him.
“Are you sure it won’t hurt you?” I ask.
“Nothing you do hurts,” he says, so confident. I smile, watery, and slowly slide in beside him.
It’s just the right fit. His good ear is toward me, allowing him to rest his head against my chest as I wrap my arm around his shoulders. As I hold him I press my cheek to the top of his head, stroking his side. I can just barely see part of his chest at this angle, and there, just there, is the little tattoo of the violin that rests above his heart, soaring notes winding all around it. Its pair, a little bluejay, rests just above my own heart, a matching melody winding from its beak. They’re a few years old now, just starting to fade a little—a gift from Scipio after our first heist.
I swallow, and reach to stroke a finger down the curve of the violin’s body. It’s just a symbol, a physical representation of the ineffable bond that joins our souls, but I’m stupidly grateful that the bullet didn’t pierce the tattoo and thus Monty’s heart. The loss of an ear we can survive, but if I were to lose Monty’s heart? The steady beat of it that lulls me to sleep every night? I don’t know how I would survive. Losing Monty would be akin to being torn from the world itself.
“I love you,” I say, whispered into the night for him and only him.
“You are my everything,” he says back, as if he’d read my thoughts, his voice sluggish and sleepy. He’s half a step away from dozing right off against my chest. He blinks, hard, struggling to keep his eyes open. “…Tell Feli less drugs next time, hm?” he says. “I can’t flirt properly if my mind is soup.”
I laugh. “Rest now, flirt later,” I say. And then I shift, drawing his face up just far enough for me to press a kiss to his soft lips, completing the ritual.
“Really?” asks a voice in the doorway. “He nearly died, can’t you two put off being disgusting for an hour at least?”
“No,” Monty says against my mouth, and then groans as Felicity forces her way between us to check his stitches.
I laugh again, stroking a soothing hand up his back. “It’s alright, darling,” I say. “Let her do her thing. I’ll be here when she’s gone. Today, tomorrow—it doesn’t matter, I’ll be here for as long as we have, however long or short that may be.”
“You’d better,” Monty says, and hums as I fold our fingers together. Felicity huffs, complaining about the two of us making her work so much more difficult than it has to be, but she doesn’t move to separate us any further than we already are. Because it’s true. I will be here. Forever, if we have that—and if not, I will gladly take every week, every day, every second that we’re granted short of an eternity.
***
I cannot tell you exactly when our story began. I cannot tell you all the depth of the love I feel for Henry ‘Monty’ Montague, son of a cruel oil baron and the bluejay who sings along to the melody of my violin. All I can say is that it was the summer of ‘33 that shaped the rest of our lives and sent us walking the path of danger that we dance upon now. And as such… well… I cannot tell you the end. The end of the story… the answer to the question of whether we will survive and evade the law until we’re old and gray or if we will go out one day in a blaze of brutal glory… I’ll let you believe what you want.
All you need to know is that I will love him until the very end.