An Attic filled with Birds [Completed]

14. Now's the time

Damien
'Nora speaking.'

Nora picks up her phone. She was in her mother's room when it started ringing. I brought it to her.

'Oh, I'm so sorry,' she says.

She stepped out of the room, and stands next to me in the hallway. I'm not sure whether I should leave or not.

'Tomorrow?'

As long as she doesn't shoo me away, I decide to keep standing.

'You're right about that,' she laughs. 'I'll do it... Really... Yes, I'm sure... You're welcome... Talk to you later... Bye.'

She hangs up, and turns to me.

'Guess who doesn't have a day off anymore tomorrow?' she asks with a fake smile.

'Why?'

'Celia called. As you probably already knew. Her niece is in the hospital, and she needs to be ready the whole day to visit and fill in forms and such. And she conveniently remembered I still owed her one...'

'Lucky you,' I laugh.

She sighs.

'I should get back to mom. We'll talk later, alright?'

I nod. I take the her phone again, and walk back to the living room.

'What was it about?' Felix asks.

'A colleague asked if she could take over her shift tomorrow,' I explain.

'So she doesn't have time to talk about the plan tomorrow?'

'I guess not.'

We planned to sit down, the three of us, and talk about how we were going to approach this stealing-plan. If we were even going through with it. Now, Nora doesn't have the time to do that anymore. Once she gets home she'll be too tired to say something useful or even properly think.

'We'll need to schedule it for another day,' I say.

'We should.'

I sit back down, and reopen the book I've been reading for the past few days. I can't keep my focus on it, though. The longer we keep putting it off, 'it' being making an actual plan and executing it, the bigger the chance they'll find me. If I'm honest, I surprises me they haven't found me yet.

Maybe they have. They probably have. If they have been looking for me, they should already know my location. There are cameras everywhere around town. They could have easily followed me on those.

They. Who even is 'they'? I keep talking to myself about avoiding 'them', and making sure 'they' can't find me. But who is that?

My first thought goes to my boss. But then again, my work doesn't require any training. Well, it does. But not much. It was a two week boot camp somewhere in a forest. He can replace me anytime he wants.

Maybe they, whoever they are, are looking for me. But not for me. For Felix. Cameras caught me and Felix leaving. Now, Felix leaving isn't anything new. I've seen camera footage myself a million times before of him climbing down the windows, sneaking around the palace and so on. He always comes back. Sometimes with someone. I have never seen him leave with someone, though.

Maybe if he doesn't return in a week or so, they start looking for him. Then they'll come looking for me too. But not for me. For him.

So, if I want to avoid getting caught at all, we should do this whole quest thing within two weeks. Tops. If not, they'll come after me and I'll definitely lose my job.

But then again, who?

❖

Nora
Admittedly, I wasn't looking forward to taking over Celia's shift. Sure, I owed her so I kind of had to. And I'm glad I did. Not only because now I don't owe her anything anymore. Also because of a certain address I saw on her afternoon list.