The Avalon Club

Prologue

                 

"I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't betray." –Albert Camus, The Fall

The music starts out rapid and blaring, with a merciless bass line and propulsive, skittering percussion that refuses to let up. I scramble from window to window, my breath keeping time with the drums in my head, slamming black out curtains that I had installed earlier that week closed; they couldn't see. I am so afraid, my vision begins to blacken at the edges but I push pass it not waiting for it to clear. Just as I am blocking the last window I see the first flash of headlights. That was too close for comfort, but it was just as I planned it, exactly on time. I'm still jumpy.

I begin tapping out the frantic rhythm of my heartbeat on my hipbone as I turn in circles trying to collect my scattered thoughts. The plan, the voices assure me, the plan is flawless. I know, and that's why I'm so nervous. A plan can be perfect in theory, but only in application, if all the variables work out as they are supposed to, can it be successful; namely the variables that can be heard arguing over a vault in the next room over.

And as long as I don't loose my grip on the plan before it starts to unravel; all of a sudden I see a roll of film covered in music notes slowly being unrolled from my hands, the more I grasp at it the faster it runs until it's gone and the room collapses around me. I blink. The room is fine; there is no film. I take a breath and a step back.

I had been scouting out this warehouse for months, and I know the rotation of the guards by heart, all I had to do was sit at the noon guard's coffee booth every other day for the past month. It doesn't really take that long to make him like me. I've got the process down to two minutes; the other 673 were an added precaution. The subject of his job came up randomly in conversation; he's a special forces officer charged with protecting... "Oh kid, ha, that's confidential, (wink) don't want you stealing from me! Ha!" (Wouldn't dream of it). I projected my interest and he got too comfortable, but it's not his fault, I have that affect on everybody. That wasn't the bad part though; sure what I did with the information was illegal, but I don't know what isn't in my life. It was exactly as the Fosters had told me to do. They just don't realize that anyone else had gotten wind of my endeavors.

"Hey Cecy baby?" Jean crooned from the next room. "Everything right in there?"

"Only could have been better had you done it mother." I reply carefully as I begin doing what she wanted, kind of. I climb up the wall supports into the rafters that span across the whole warehouse. I feel along the ceiling for the loose roofing tile just big enough for me to climb out into the cold night. I check around outside and sure enough the police are covering the perimeter. I then check the false panel in the wall that I had designed two weeks ago when my full plan came into perspective, and sure enough my insurance policy is still safe and sound. I pull everything back into place and jump silently down.

"Everything's ready!" I call out, and on cue Walter stumbles in carting his normal scowl.

"It better be, boy." He slurs in his southern accent. "You prove us your worth and you might just get to go to an actual school. No matter how much you burden the rest of the class being your dumbass self." I chew on my lip, a nasty habit since I was three. That offer would have been all the motivation I needed to guarantee success on my part even just six months ago, but with the change of the seasons my heart has also frozen over to all of his bullshit. Either way he's lying, I now know his tells. Every single word he's ever said to me has been a lie; it comes more natural to him than breathing. He doesn't expect an answer and I don't give him one other than a slight tilt of my head. He stalks back to Jean with a grunt and I follow counting off the beats in my head until I'm free of them.