The Eagle and The Rat [Arno Victor Dorain]

VII - Échapper à Ma Vérité

Maxime looked inside the house, checking corners and shadows for stray thugs. "Clear."

"Hm?" Arno asked, closing the door behind himself politely.

"No one is here. Not right now, at least," she said.

She held her hand flat out to him. Raising an eyebrow, he meerly looked at it, pretending as if he didn't know what she was asking for. Maxime cleared her throat, and he sighed, placing her gun back into her well-trained hands.

As she placed it back into her holster, she began to walk up the stairs. "Who taught you to shoot?"

"My father did," he said, as Maxime gave him a look, "adoptive father. Shouldn't we check downstairs first?"

"No," Maxime said, as she tried to open the door that led to the second floor, "you always start on the middle floor. It's the one furthest from all exits, and the sooner you get to it, the sooner you can get closer to an exit."

Arno asked, "Then wouldn't you start at the top?"

Maxime tried pushing the door harder. "The roofs of Paris are very close together. It's easy to climb out the window and jump into a new house," she explained, her voice a little breathy, as this time she used her shoulder against the door, "the houses here aren't as easy to jump between, but you can always climb down.

She threw her body at the door with a groan. It didn't budge. As she stepped away from it, Maxime pulled two pins from her hair.

He watched her pull the pins straight and shove them into the keyhole. Arno leaned over her shoulder, curious to see how exactly a lock was picked. Who knows when he'd need this knowledge.

That being said, it would have been better to learn from someone with better lock-picking skills.

Maxime's ear was pressed to the wood of the door, but no matter how hard she pushed and probed, they were getting nowhere quickly.

"Need help?" Arno asked, a shit-eatting grin on his face.

Maxime looked up at him. "Yes," she said, "I do.

She handed both pins to Arno. "Listen for the clicks of the metal being raised," she instructed him plainly, turning to the wall and opening a window, "I'll be back for you momentarily."

Arno didn't get a chance to ask where she went, as she had already slipped out of the window and had disappeared. He focused instead on the lock, sliding both pins in and pressing his ear against the wood. His hands turned slowly, his grip firm but gentle on thin metal pieces.

The first click came soon after, the second quicker, and the third might as well had blended into the second.

He smiled, as that last click made the mechanism loosen. Putting both hands against the door, the blockade in their path was finally removed. With a small stumble, Arno was waltzing through the... ransacked room.

From the far side of the room where the stairs were, Maxime peaked her head from the corner. "You got it open?"

"Of course I did," he said with a smirk, one that fell as he took note of the disbelief in her voice, "was I not supposed to?"

She opened her mouth and closed it quickly, rubbing the back of her neck before walking back up the stairs. "Help me with the third floor, yes?"

"Uh-huh," he muttered, practically dragging his feet there, "maybe you can make me pick another lock and jump out the window to face a gang of bandits alone. You'll miss me then."