The Undoing of Sidekicks | ✓

twenty five

twenty five

THERE WAS something otherworldly of breaking into your previous place of employment. Key words in this plan were breaking and into, which entailed both Josh and I committing crimes. 

Not that you're afraid of that, to be perfectly honest. 

I really wasn't. Besides, Josh and I were still fueled with hope — tendrils of it clinging to our thoughts, spurring us to actually go through with the entirety of this crazy plan. Whatever strange plan I'd come up with back in the kitchen of Sylvester House had seemed logical enough for us to actually get our heads out of our behinds and head out into the dark night again, sore and beaten as we were. 

I was sure I had bruised a decent percentage of my body, and my suit was torn in places that bordered on indecent. Experiencing a violent explosion and getting tossed like a rag-doll through mid-air tended to do that to humans, though. 

"Are you still sure about this?" I asked Josh for the umpteenth time, side-eyeing him. He crept forward silently behind me, both of us heading up the hill toward the Fokine Research Center. We'd jumped the impossibly tall fences surrounding the entire lot (me powering the sand beneath my feet to lift me across, while Josh begrudgingly agreed to it as he wanted to melt a hole through the metal fence-posts.) and now we found ourselves flat against the hillside, attempting to blend in among the bushy foliage. 

As there wasn't a ton of coverage on the hillside — and we weren't the type of idiots who strolled up and rang the doorbell — we progressed slowly. The slow progress meant doubts, millions of them, creeping through my mind, while Josh grew ever more impatient with the way I poked holes into a plan of my own making. 

"As sure as I was the previous times you asked, yes." Josh's head zig-zagged as he scanned the stretch of land before us, " — be quiet, Leo. It's our best bet." 

It's our best bet had also become Josh's standard response against the ferocious doubts that niggled in my mind. It silenced me for a while, but I found our slow advances across the hill supplied me with enough time to let more doubts creep in, hindering any belief springing up. 

On the other hand, Josh was completely right in his assessment that this was our best bet. My plan, however complete it was, was the only one we had. I didn't dare think about what would happen if we failed, and ran out of ideas, and so I circled back to my own plan, attempting to poke holes in its logic in an attempt to avoid issues ahead of time.

Such was the curse of an over-active mind. You tended to nitpick any plan or idea of your own making until you found it too useless to use, even if it'd been fine from the very start. 

Good of you to turn philosophical while you're breaking and entering. Idiot. 

Obviously, my self-confidence was currently sky-high. 

Josh crept a few more steps forward, raising a finger for me to follow. The entire reason we were shimmying up the hillside like a pair of antsy idiots was because the Fokine Research Center had a night guard — one who regularly checked the various cameras posted around the property. As neither me nor Josh had imagined ourselves in a position where knowing the locations of these cameras seemed handy, none of us had looked more into it. 

Though we knew they were there — hence the slow progression up the hill. I had sweat beading in the back of my neck, plastering my hair on sticky skin. A perpetual frown had etched itself into my face at the sensation, though it was periodically lessened by a gust of fresh sea-wind drifting through San Helios. It would sweep beneath the torn fabric of my suit, momentarily lifting the stifling heat which came with the exertion of dragging yourself up a hill in complete silence.