Pieces

R

"I'm so sorry Brogan, I didn't mean to do this to you."

"It's okay Tia, but let's first start with why He is doing this to you?," I looked at her, " Okay, let's brainstorm. We know He is sneaky, we know He has access to drugs, and we know He also has access to tattooing tools. This person has a perfect profile for this school because all of us have a criminal back round."

"One problem," I looked at Tia in wonder, "No one talks about their past here. Like I don't even know what you did to get yourself here." she raised her eyebrows at me, "Actually two problems," she pointed two of her purple French nails, "How does this have anything to do with me!" she sounded irritated.

"Right," I bit my lower lip, "Then I know what we need to do," I sat down on the opposite side of the room facing her, "We need to brake into the school's filing room," I stood up and walked over to grab my grey trench coat.

"What? Are you crazy?" Tia stood up in objection, "The door has an alarm and a security camera. They know how us kids work!"

"Well they don't know how I work. Ever sense I've been here I haven't done anything bad. I've been sort of saving it up for something important and well this is important, although this wasn't what I was planning on, but, yeah, it's important"

"We don't even know what we're looking for!"

"A Burglar, Drug Dealer, and Underage Tattooing or what ever the legal term is for that. And for the camera, all we need to do is create a little maintenance problem for someone to come and fix. And we switch out the good batteries for very low batteries, so when the maintenance man puts them in the camera will show that the red recording light is on, but when he leaves it will die. And for the Alarm system, I'll just hack into the fire wall and shut it down for just enough time for us to get down there and read most of the files." Tia was still looking at me like I've gone completely insane.

"So this will be just a walk in the park," she was mocking me now.

***

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this!" Tia said in a hush, yet irritated, voice.

"No I didn't talk you into this, you just agreed because you didn't want me going alone," I glanced at her with a smirk, "There's a complete difference."

"Why are we crouching down? Doesn't it make us look more suspicious?" she looked around, "Well you better straighten up because here comes, Strawberry."

"Oh really!" I shot up and fixed my hair. 'Strawberry' is our code word for the hottest boy in school, Jake Winter. We're meant for each other because Brogan Winter sounds way better than Brogan Logan. I don't know what sick joke my parents we're playing on me, but it's not funny. "I don't see him."

"Well," Tia patted my back, as she stood up, "I guess it wasn't him, but now that we're up. We might as well stay standing up," she sarcastically remarked as she motioned her thumbs towards the sky.

"You little bitch," I glared at her, "Don't you ever joke about," I looked around and lowered my voice, "Jake!" Tia waved her hand at me almost like telling me to fuck off, in a nice way.

"Okay, now what do we do?"

I gave her an annoyed look, "Were you not listening to me back in our room?"

"No I was, it's just you never said what our 'cause of maintenance' was," Tia air quoted 'cause of maintenance'.

I looked forward blankly as I was biting my bottom lip again, it's a habit, "Well," I stared at Tia, "do you happen to have any ideas?"

"Why do I have to do all the work?" she stood up.

"What? You do all the work?" I snarled, "All you're probably going to do it throw a rock at it!"

"No, a knife."

"What? How'd you get a knife?" I looked at everyone, who was walking in the hall way, "More importantly, what if you hit someone?"

"No, I won't," she smiled at me, but I wasn't smiling back, "Fine, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. The knife will just skin the bottom, pop off the battery pack and allow the batteries to fall out."

"Oh really," I sat down like a therapist, my legs we're crossed and I was holding my chin, "And what happens if you're wrong?"

"We're kinda wasting time, Oprah," she motioned towards the camera, "Can I throw the knife now?"

I huffed, "Whatever," Tia angled her arm towards the camera. She held the blade close to her forearm, but it wasn't close enough cut her. She chucked the knife, it went directly under the camera. Instead of opening up the battery pack, the knife sliced the connection cords right in half.

"Well, I was close enough," Tia looked at me, "Aren't you going to do your job now?"

"Oh right," I grabbed my PC out of my side pouch. I clicked in my password and opened up the schools WiFi. I know reform schools are supposed to be dreary and bland, but our reform school is actually nice. I guess it's meant for rich reform students or something.

"Are you in yet?" Tia looked around, "I can't believe no one has showed up yet, this is a record low."

"Or they're trying to stop the person hacking into the firewall."

"Oh shit, you're the reason no one is here?" she sat down next to me, "But shouldn't they have someone out here getting us?"

"We're in a secure location and I'm messing with their location device."

"Well how obvious can it be? Was it just a coincident that a camera was taken out and then someone tried to hack them?"

"Well when you cut the wires instead of having the battery pack fall off, I replaced the image with the previous recording, I just made it look like they had a connection problem in the few seconds it took me to get on to my computer and hack the camera. We'll have until sundown when they realize in the recording the sun is still up and that there is still 'so many' kids still at school."

"Wow," Tia was clapping her hands, "Bravo!"

"Done," my hands shot up into the air, "I have officially over-ridden the alarm system!"

"Okay, let's go," We both jumped up and bolted to the door. I grabbed the door handle slowly and looked at Tia, "Let's hope you hacked correctly," Every second I put a little more pressure on the handle, until I heard a click. We both smiled, I swung the door open and we both walked down the concrete stairs.

The room was empty, nothing but rows of blank shelves, "How is this possible?" I grabbed my hair as a stress reliever, "Where is everything? No, no, no!"

"Brogan?"

"What Tia?" I yelled. I spun to face her, there was a white note card in her hand.

"You try so hard and you only fall," Tia read aloud, "Everything is right there in front of you, the tattoo says it all!  Signed 'R'!"

I sat down in front of her, muttering to myself.