Honor Among Thieves

Chapter 1

The Paradise Mall was always busy during snowbird season. Customers wandered up and down the walkways, completely unaware of the danger that could come to them at any moment. From old ladies with large open purses to men with wide hanging pockets. The good thing about snowbird season was that it also meant bigger jackets, which resulted in the less they would feel if someone just so happened to sneak their hand behind them.

On a metal bench close by, sat a teenage girl with straight, golden blond hair and dark, tan skin who texted away with her cell phone in one hand and a steaming hot chocolate in the other. To a more proper person her clothes would've been considered sluty, from its low plunging neckline to its high riding short shorts, but to anyone else it was just what the kids were wearing these days.

She silently stood up and turned, still texting into her phone and unbeknown of the man who was about to walk in front of her. They violently crashed, and hot chocolate was poured all down the front his new white shirt.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! Let me fix that for you," the teenage girl said, finally looking up from her bewitching cell phone. She grabbed some napkins out from her pockets, and quickly worked her hands to attempt to clean off his ruined shirt.

The man laughed, "Oh no that's okay, you don't have to-"

"No, no! I insist," the girl interrupted, "My name is Vanessa by the way."

Against the opposite wall stood a girl with curly brown hair and light, creamy skin, silently watching the crowd of people as they rushed by her. She blended in with no one giving her a second look. The only thing that might have stood out was the deep scar that ran along one side of her jaw line, but people were too wrapped up in their own world to ever notice. It was then that she decided to stand up and walk past the hot chocolate accident in front of her.

While the man was distracted by Vane palming a napkin around his body, the brown haired girl reached into his loose back pocket, and plucked the leather wallet out of its hiding place, never missing a step.

No sooner than a millisecond after the event took place, a brown haired, green eyed boy by the name of Archer took the wallet out of her hand and shoved his fists into his hoodie pockets as if he were extremely cold. The two of them continuously walked away in opposite directions, never saying a word, and resumed to wander around the mall.

The whole ordeal would never show up on tape of course. Thanks to a blond haired computer wiz named Zach, whenever they went to look back at the security film, it would only show a slight glitch in the screen. Because the heist had happened so quickly, it was all the time they needed. Zach also just so happened to be Vanessa's older twin brother.

Archer never took all the money in the wallets they stole. Only about a fourth of what was in it. Not enough to cause a big problem. Of course, it only meant that they would have to steal more, but it was better to cause a small disruption in many people's lives, than to completely ruin one.

The wallet would later be found with most of its money still intact in the lost and found of Ultra Fit, a store the same man had been frequenting earlier that day before being robbed. His ID was in there. The store would call the man to let him know they had his wallet and everything would be back to normal.

The brown haired girl continued looking around the mall, thinking about the kind of lifestyle they lived. It wasn't a pleasant one. It's not like they took joy in stealing from people, no matter how high the adrenaline rush might be. There was always the horrible guilt that came afterward. Wondering just how much they must've hindered someone else's life, only to help their own. But precautions had to be taken to survive in the taxing world they lived in today.