Thief (The Ichor Series: book 1)

Chapter 3: Chase

                        *Chase*

 My fathers face stared up at the library I was crouched in, he didn't see me. But I saw him. He just looked back to his fellow Elders with a perplexed look on his face that only lasted a few seconds till he was back to his normal self, chatting with his friends and pretending everything was all rainbows and butterflies in the country. 

Night was falling, and falling fast, and I had to find a safe place to rest for the night. I wasn't exactly keen on having the street police finding me and beating me senseless again. It seemed like too much work for one day, especially after my last stunt that I pulled off this morning.

I had been up all the previous night preparing for my theft that I performed this morning. I had listened to the police radio scanners the whole night while setting everything up just to make sure nothing would go wrong. 

*Flashback to this morning*     

I was listening to the police radio scanner trying to understand what I was up against and if i had to do any last minute preparations when I heard this over the radio. 

  --"Sir, we've secured the perimeter."                                                                                                                

  --"Good, make sure everyone is in their positions and be ready for anything. We can't let anyone get the artifact, it's secret government property."                                                                                                

--"Sir, do you know what this artifact is? Because I do not want my men to go in there risking their lives blind."                                                                                                                                                              

--"You are a soldier. You do not question your superiors. Do I make myself clear Son? If you continue to question me, I will see to it that you are sent to jail for the rest of your life for rebelling against the system and I will see to it that your family suffers for your mistake. Is that clear?"                

 --"Crystal clear Sir."

Hmmmm, there's definitely tension between the ruling class and officials. I wonder why.......

Everything stopped when I heard this. All the static on the radio went quiet, and the rustling that was on the other side of the building where the police men were went dead...........it was as if someone just turned off a switch to all the noise in the city.

I knew I had to get moving, but an odd feeling washed over me at that moment. It was is my subconscious was trying to warn me about some impending doom. But of course, I've never been one to follow my inner voice. Only my instinct and impulsive nature had any real effect on my thoughts about something. I guess that's why I've been able to live on the streets for so long.

That's when it happened. 

The rotting old concrete building across the street from where I was huddled went into flames. 

The windows blew out causing my ears to ring and shards of glass to go flying everywhere. And the main floor foundations gave out due to the blast. Making the building start to wobble and nearly crush me as it fell to its side and crumbled to dust on the street.

No. Its too early. I'm not ready yet.

I scrambled to my feet to get out of the dust, the crumbled debris, and the oncoming swarm of officers. 

I had set an explosive in the foundations of the building and it was supposed to be a distraction to the officers so that I could have time to raid their equipment and maybe see what that "secret artifact" is, and then leave before they caught me. But I guess that didn't exactly work out for me. 

Oh well.......I guess I'll just have to improvise then.

I shot off into the dust heading toward their base. I could hear their voices shouting for each other through the debris and the dust cloud that made visibility nonexistent but all it did was help me stay out of their way.

I got to their base unscathed other than some dust in my eyes and mouth that was getting extremely uncomfortable. Everyone was gone though, they had all rushed off to see if any civilians had been crushed when the building fell over. But all of their equipment was still there; their cars, weapons, some clothing, water, food, etc. Everything was just left behind. 

 I didn't have much time left before all the officers came back to base. And if I'm still here, I'm going to be in BIG trouble.

I did as much damage as I could. I dumped everything I could find into the cars that were around the base and rigging all the cars together so that when I press a button they all explode along with all their cargo. I was able to snatch some blue prints and weapons for myself along with some food, you never know when you’ll be able to get some food, and went off into the shadows. But not before I wrote my signature on the side of the adjoining wall where everyone could see it.

The officers all came back a while later after making sure everything was safe with the fallen building, only to find that their base was in flames and all their equipment and everything that was there was burnt to a crisp. But I was long gone by then.

*Back to the Present*

I was walking along the streets looking to find a place to sleep for the night before the officers came out and started patrolling. And as I turned the corner in some neighborhood, I heard this scream. It sounded like someone was dying in agony, it made my blood run cold. I stopped where I was and hid in the shadows to see what the heck was going on.

A girl, no more than 12 years old, was running for her life out of a house with 5 people running after her screaming at her. But she was slowing down, getting tired, losing steam.

I wanted to yell out to her to keep running, that they were right behind her, but before I could even open my mouth to say anything a man slammed into her making her go flying into a lamppost.

She hit it with a sickening bang that later turned to the sound of her body getting kicked and hit repeatedly by these 5 people that were chasing her.

They didn’t seem like they were going to stop any time soon either.

It was if they aimed to kill the poor girl.

The sky soon turned to black and I couldn’t see anything. I was still crouched in the shadows though listening to that girl moan as they just kept on kicking her. And then, they just stopped.

I could still hear the girl moaning in pain but I couldn’t hear the sound of her getting kicked anymore.

I stood up from where I was hiding and went back onto the street that I was walking on before to see if I could go check if that girl was dead. But before I could walk even ten paces I tripped and fell on top of something.

Oh shit.

Apparently the girl wasn’t dead, because she had managed to hobble across the street before collapsing, and then I just so happened to fall on her.

Just lovely. I’m so freaking smart sometimes.

I tried calling for her to see if she would wake up or even open her eyes, but she was unconscious. She wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon.

Which was just fantastic because an officer with a baton in his hand was just turning the corner.

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Breakthrough by Britt Nicole and Dakota Goyo as Chase.