My Classified Life

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Welcome To Prison

I love my grandfather, I truly do. But, to put it nicely, he is quite a... character.

My mother comes from a long line of thieves, each one with their own legacy and my grandfather is not exempt from the list. His latest endeavor: stealing the Mona Lisa. He wanted to go out with a bang, retire after one last mission. And he was now, just in prison.

If word had gotten out of his plot to steal Paris's beloved painting, there would have been an epidemic. Only the spy and thief communities know about it, and those very high in the French government. For obvious reasons, my grandfather has been put into a high security prison, and like almost everything about him, it's a secret to the public. As far as I had heard, it was a nice place, made to last him his whole life. How he was doing, being locked in his room all day, I wasn't quite sure. He could have been insane for all I knew. No one really made the trip to see him.

I was anticipating his reaction when he saw me, one of many granddaughters, in Paris, France. Without my mom. Or maybe dreading was a more accurate word.

The little white puffs of clouds bloomed out the airplane window as we flew over them. It was picturesque, the blue of the sky breaking over the horizon above the tufts of white cotton candy. It just made me feel good inside, that kind of view. Dylan, however, was not enjoying his plane ride as much. Maybe it was childish, but I was still getting revenge on Dylan. And my latest plot had succeeded, getting him a ticket to an aisle seat next to a stranger. I sat alone, comfortable and spread out. He got stuck next to a weirdo who seemed a little bit too eager to tell him his life story. Revenge is sweet.

He kept shooting me a 'Help me!' look the entire ride, and I pretended not to notice as I absorbed myself in my iPod and formulated my plan of attack.

There was going to be guards, listening in on us and making sure I wasn't trying to bust him out or something. Either we would have to talk in code or very, very quietly. I was hoping for the latter. My grandfather was like a chest full of treasure, just waiting for me. He had nearly sixty plus years of experience in the field of thievery, he would know what to do. He was our only hope.

The scene outside the window changed as the plane started it's slow decent into Paris. I had taken the precaution of buying multiple tickets, multiple identities. I thought my family was monitoring my movements, this scared me. They now knew that I had gone home after I purchased the tickets from the D.C. Airport. I bought all round trip tickets this time to shake it up. The last thing I wanted was for them to drag me away from my mission, I wouldn't go unless I was kicking and screaming, of course.

I looked behind and to the right of me, Dylan was shifting uncomfortably in his seat and looked ready to get off the plane. I let a light smile play at my lips, enjoying my revenge. He mistook it as if I was smiling at him, and returned it after seeing me. I looked away quickly after my heart did a little skip in my chest, I could tell he wanted so badly to take giant steps, get back to how we used to be. He was slowly urging me, dropping very flirty comments whenever possible. I was holding back, still guarding myself. He knew it, too. And yet he was going to persist, I couldn't really blame him. Someone had to try and make the relationship progress.

I stuffed my iPod into my carry on satchel and gripped the seat as the plane landed, no matter how often I went through this I couldn't help but hold onto something. Soon, I was out of the terminal and Dylan was jogging to catch up with me.

“So, where is this secret prison, anyway?” he asked me, his voice was ragged after trying to catch his breath. Dylan had been skeptical of my plan, thinking my grandfather to be some cooky thief for trying to steal the Mona Lisa, he thought we were on our way to loony bin. I'd convinced him the trip was worth our time, saying how my grandfather was in sound mind and just a little ambitious for his age. He decided to play along, let me have my fun. He would shut up once he met him.