Favourite Crime

Haoun

I was both surprised and disappointed to find that they hadn't stolen anything from me. "You only steal off of people's person, then?"

They frowned. "Happened only once. Did you go to help that man?"

"It's good to have people owe you favours." I gestured for them to sit on the other side of my desk. "You won't find anyone else that speaks Koewrim."

"I found you, didn't I?"

"And I'll be the last one you'll find." I pulled out a newspaper clipping from over a decade ago. "The city was burned down. There has recently been talk of rebuilding on the recovered ground, but as far as it is known, no one survived."

They took the newspaper clippings and stared at the picture. "What happened?"

"Marshall Fister was in-charge of the destruction of our town." I began. "Since our town had started showing support to Dorwejun after Carjimatra's government had half our water supply directed to a less populated but more profitable town, Marshall Fister thought it would be wise to set an example for everyone of what would happen if they sided with the enemy."

"It hardly surprises me that things changed. How'd you make it out?"

"I wasn't there at the time. Since you didn't know about this, you weren't either?"

They were thinking. I could see it on their face. "I wasn't." They didn't say what was on their mind but they looked up and an understanding passed between us.

We might've come out but we had suffered for it, and perhaps we both would've preferred to have gone down with our people.

"The letters in Koewrim and Hourmurja are mostly the same." I began.

Within a week, they were speaking basic Hourmurja. The languages were very similar, and they were keen to know what the documents on my desk meant and what the people that came to see me were saying.

"Are there other rooms here?" They asked once.

I hummed in response.

"Why don't I have a separate room?"

"I don't trust you."

"You trust the people in those rooms?"

"No."

They slept on the couch but never when I was present. Many times, I would enter and they would jerk awake.

It was late evening when I took them to an old lottery winner's house.

I was patient. They were eager. It was as if learning to do things by themself was something new. Like they had been denied the chance their whole life.

The balcony doors swung open. We got to work.

I heard the snapping open of another lock as Cada broke into drawer after drawer. I was slower. I analysed the surroundings. There was no shadow from the other side of the door to the room we were in, but I could hear music.

"Dinner party?" Cada suggested. "Is that the distraction you were raving about?"

I scowled. "You have a low bar for what you consider raving."

They hummed in response and got to opening the door while I took a look through the drawers.

Their speed at unlocking things had increased already and they were pulling the door open quietly.

I joined them and we found ourselves in the corridor right by the master bedroom. We stuck to the wall and reached the door.

"Someone's in there." Cada said.

There was no light on the other side so I had to listen carefully. The breathing I heard could be mistaken for wind.

I opened the door regardless. My senses had the dog in a chokehold. I saw it staring at me and slowed its heartbeat.

"Why isn't it barking?" Cada asked.

"Perhaps you should just be happy that we don't have a hellhound tearing us apart right now." I told them.

I stepped over the resting dog and found the laptop resting on the bed. "These are worth over a million hourma."

"Are they not common here?" Cada asked.

"No and they're not going to be. People here don't like things smarter than them." I turned my attention elsewhere.

"So we just won't take it? Even though its worth so much?"

"It will be the first thing he notices missing. It will also be the last thing we can sell."

"So you don't know how to use it."

I turned back to them. "You do?"

"They're very common in Jorebia." They shrugged. "I say it's worth the risk."

Then I heard approaching footsteps. Cada and I looked at each other and I pointed towards the closet.

Two people. And they were giggling together. Cada and I shut the closet door and held our breaths.

"Quietly." Whispered one of them.

"I can't find the light switch." Another voice said.

"Take your shirt off."

My vision began to blur.