Behind closed doors

Like Father Like Daughter

Carmen didn't let the gloomy overcast of reality distract her. She was here for clues.

"A thief does not mope."

And mourning a 20 year old case wouldn't do her team well either. She needed to be focused for this, especially if she wished to find her birth mother.

Carmen looked over the ashes of the villa, hands in the red pockets of her hoodie despite the warm weather. She was sweating but... she needed the comfort.

It felt selfish to chase a personal matter. They should be using this time for their next caper, but Shadowsan insisted it may help.

Well, the trip wasn't very helpful.

Particularly not with the team walking eggshells around her like some baby they didn't want to disturb from a nap.

She wasn't a child. Carmen narrowed her eyes at the thought, she was 20 and had done more than most others her age. (Or perhaps all, not many grew up on an island of thieves).

She did lure her way into their hearts, though. Carmen's feet stilled, infancy tends to have that charm.

"Find anything, Carm?"

Carm, not Boss. She noted, Ivy was worried.

The thief brought her hands from her pockets, reaching down to move a surviving slab of wood for mild curiousity. Colonies of ants scrambled beneath it, she let it go before they could branch to her fingers.

"No." She responded as neutrally as possible, lips tight, the truth on her tongue.

They couldn't know it bothered her. But sometimes it felt like they did. Or they knew it should bother her... either way, it did, and they couldn't find out.

Who wouldn't be startled by the sudden information she'd received?

The life of her father robbed by a gun. Such stupid things.

Carmen had vowed never to handle a loaded gun. Even if her life depended on it.

Today, Carmen's life depended on it.

"Are you the thief??" A bogan accent, somewhat Mexican startles the two's conversing.

Carmen turns neutrally to see a man of under average height, she wasn't sure if he was a local.

"I'm sorry?" Carmen asks politely, turning her whole body to face the man, ensuring Ivy was safely behind her.

The man fumbles for the zipper on his fanny pack, Carmen's eyes widened, she immediately yells for the her team to move, pushing ivy along as she drags the team away before it's-

"Don't move!" He says finally.

-Too late. Carmen freezes. She's the only one he's got his eye on. But it's okay, she's trained for this.

Right??

It didn't matter how fearless the Argentinian was, one wrong step and she was simply a lifeless corpse on the cobble stone.

It hits her that this is what happened to her father, how her father must have felt, only with a daughter to protect.

Carmen wills herself not to get emotional as her mind reels.

Lesson 2:

If you're calm, they're calm.

finding herself staring down the barrel of a gun, Carmen slowly raises her hands before this deranged man in front of her.