City of Thieves

Chapter 20: Silent Poison

Laura skidded along the small cottage she was ransacking looking for a fellow thief she shared no desire for sharing with. Both knew eachother where there, though they breathed no words. She skimmed threw every room of the house until she spotted him. A short scrawny stranger with the same ragged dirty clothes as any other thief. Since it was the night of day, he took cover under the sky's shadowing blanket, and without sound found his place to another room. He was smaller and shorted than Laura, quite young matter of fact my, so she could easily take him down- they both knew.

She followed the tracks of where she would think the thief to go. Her brain stimulated and ready for any surprises. She opened the door to a small study. She took a whiff of the air and held her toung between the fronts of her teeth, curling up the tips of her lips to breath the airs temperature. The room was cold, and there was no signs of life. The closet, that's where he would be. She took small steps forward, not a sound peeked it's head.

He was holding his breath, his body stiff. She had been in the situation before, and she knew any longer and he would knock himself out from oxygen loss. And that's exactly what she did.

She spent mere minutes that must of felt like bleeding years to him, as she walked around the room ever so dumbfounded. Looking and searching, or so he would think.
Eventually, she heard him whimper, and the harsh thump of a small body was heard. The edges of her lips curled into a smirk, she tip toed over to the closet, even though the only breathing souls in the house standed between the two thief's.

She opened the wooden closet door, sending small threats to the creeks it sounded. The small thief was barely visable, but still noticeably there. She wouldn't leave him to the trouble of the owner when he returned, she was better than this! Dragging him out by the legs, she still treated him like competition. Once his face was insinc with the bleeding moonlight glow, she took to shock that the face staring back at her was genuinely young. An orphan thief! She had been in silent battle with a child. She looked him over, he looked to be a preteen at most.

She gasped as a pair of arms where throwing her off and away. She tumbled, but didn't feel pain anywhere. The boy jumped over her and ran to the closet to reclaim a small bag. She ran out the minature study, and out the small cottage. She had come in dedicated, and when she hears the small creaks, she knew another soul breathed the same air inside the walls. Being it was a child however...

He could have whatever goods caved within the cottage, he was, most likely, on his own, and she has Aron, Shelby, Dustin, and the mysterious boy she met at the ring. Maybe it was selfish of her to go scavenging on her own when they already had all they needed, maybe it was also selfish to make the young boy sufficate himself in the closet. Whatever the matter, she quickly forgot about it and found her way home.

Opening the door, Aron was there and Shelby. They stared at her, and see noticed they looked like a traumatized child.
"No- she's empty handed, I told you we shouldn't rely on her!" Shelby said.
"Laura what happened, I left you at an easy target."
She didn't respond to his question, instead she made up her own.
"Whats wrong with you to?"
"We were robbed of all our food, all our water, and all our dignity." Shelby held her fists to the sides of her head.
"By who?" Is all Laura could ask.
"That kid you took on at the ring that who."
She froze, coming home empty handed was one thing, they couldn't blame her all that much for that. But getting them robbed.

Before she could ask how he knew, he got a note from Shelby who took it out of her pocket. The crumbled yellow sticky note he handed her had a hole on the top as if unnecessarily nailed to the door.

I don't do ties sweetheart, maybe this will break our even numbers. But hey, don't let this ruin your influence on me. Maybe we can meet up and you can bite whatever part of me you want then.

She crumbled it into a ball and sighed threw her nostrils, eyes squeezed shut closed.
"Come with me," she rubbed her forehead.
"Lets go back to the cottage."

Approaching the trail, Laura never mentioned why she left the cottage behind. Just that she did. No further questions where asked when they entered the forest, they pulled up their hoods and cautiously ran to not disrupt the sleeping silence of every green tree and sulking predator of the forest. After a while, they made it to the edge of forest, though kept there distance and followed the tracks of the main road, and to the cottage they finally made it.

Looking in, she saw a man staring down at the boy she met before as he was gulping a bowl of soup. Was this his home? This mans son? She left a valuable source of food and water all for a farm boy. Fireworks went off in her chest, and thought they where dead in quiet, they spit fire to her tongue, and she let out a long heated frustrated snarl.
"Shh." Aron warned, and she wanted nothing but to slap the annoyance put of his eyes.

Shelby and Aron crept inside, knowing how to get around small spaced quietly. Laura kept looking threw the window, at the boy with a soggy anger that would never die. And after a while, as she selfishly and dangerously hoped, he looked back. He looked terrified, his jaw quivered and pupils large. And when she thought it was toward her, she saw him open his mouth.
"Run" he mouthed the words. She gave him a look of disgust, then confusion as the look in his eyes turned to anger. Her heart stopped when she heard the man threw the glass speak.
"Looks like you finished, that was sure quick." He said casually, picking up the bowl and washing it out. She then noticed his hands, tied to the back of the chair when she dared looking higher than the lower part of the window.
"I hope you had a good last meal." The man said. "Sorry son its the rules, I don't make em', my partner does." He pulled out a shotgun and held it to his head. Laura looked higher and noticed the floor and wall behind him covered with white towels.
"Oh no." She thought.

"Maybe this outta teach you to steal from a farm folk." The gun clicked, and she thought she heard the pounding of both there hearts beating.

She couldn't. She had to do something and now. She took off her shoe, and smashed hit the window twice before smashing threw the glass, letting the gun land on her now.

"STOP." She screamed.