DANIEL HERON: BECOMING

9 - You don't want to attract attention. Not today.

One of the door hinges of the Mayor's house creaked as the door slowly opened. Daniel's heart sank to his heels.

Run! What are you waiting for? Move! Someone is home! His thoughts were screaming, while his feet remained glued to the floor.

The door opened, and a familiar person came to view.

"Man, you should see yourself!" Manuel laughed to his face. "You shat yourself, haven't you?"

"This is no time to fool around," said Lucio and pushed Manuel to the side. "And you, Heron, get in and shut the door." Lucio's hand grabbed the front of Daniel's jacket and pulled him into the house.

Daniel closed the door behind him by leaning against the dark wood they were made of. "You're not normal," he said to the guys. "How did you even get in?"

"Back door, baby." Rafael was cheerful. He was putting the tools Daniel assumed were used to pick the lock into his pocket. Still, he didn't want to know the details, so he didn't ask any further questions.

He followed Lucio down a long hallway with walls dressed in floral wallpapers. They entered a living room. Comfy sofas and armchairs, glass coffee table, wooden cabinet with ornate carvings, soft rug; things Daniel could only dream of having turned this house into a warm home.

The living room lead them to the dining room with an oval table and eight chairs upholstered in floral fabric. The open door on the left allowed them to enter a tidy kitchen. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, the cabinet doors were not crooked, the windows were crystal clean, and the tablecloth had no holes made by cigarette buds.

Through the kitchen, one could walk out into the back garden. The wooden door with glass inserts were ajar.

"This is where we'll bring the spoils," Lucio said. "You have fifteen minutes. Use them well."

The boys dispersed throughout the mayor's house. Daniel stayed in the kitchen. There weren't any particularly valuable items. Household appliances weren't something he would be interested in. Nonetheless, he grabbed an electric coffee maker, a toaster and a small portable TV that stood in the corner, on the counter top.

He checked the drawers, cabinets and shelves. One ceramic cookie jar caught his attention. From it, a white goose with a blue ribbon and a neat bow tied around its neck was looking at Daniel.

His mother had a similar cookie jar, but nowhere near as beautiful as this one. Only, Irma Heron did not keep cookies inside it. She used it to hide the money. Daniel would often use it as his own personal bank that issued nothing but peanuts.

Thinking of his mother, he decided to check the jar in the kitchen of the Mayor's wife. He took it off the shelf, opened the lid and smiled widely. It seemed that Mrs. Mayor's wife was thinking just like his mother because this cookie jar was also hiding a small treasure. Of course, the amount he found inside the ceramic jar with a white goose was substantially larger than whatever his mother managed to put away.

And while Daniel was checking if some of the other decorative jars contained money, the rest of the crew was bringing much more valuable haul into the kitchen.

"Did you see this beauty?" Rafael asked when he and Bernard brought in a bulky TV with a huge screen.

"It's colored!" Bernard added.

"Too bad we won't keep it," Daniel said listlessly.

"Yeah, too bad about that," replied Rafael who obviously missed the indifference in Daniel's voice.

Soon the kitchen was filled with items that would bring Lucio a fortune. Although he never missed a chance to accentuate how this venture would make them all rich, Daniel wasn't buying those stories. Not after everything he's been through in the past five days. He knew that, if Lucio manages to sell stolen goods, the money would not be evenly distributed amongst the team. The most they had to hope for were the crumbs off Lucio's table.

When they all assembled in the kitchen, Lucio went into the garden to peak to the street. After Victor signaled him that the coast was clear, he gave out the order and they began to carry the pray outside to load it into the van parked in the driveway.

In addition to the large colored TV and the appliances Daniel took from the kitchen, there were two stereos, a video camera, gaming console with a dozen of discs, even a white computer with matching keyboard and a box full of things Daniel assumed were belongings of the Mayor's wife. The pockets of his friends were full of knickknacks their fingers simply could not resist.

"Let's go, Heron!" Victor called after the van left the driveway. "We're meeting Lucio and the guys in Ground Zero!"

Daniel cast another glance across the road, to the house they had just robbed. The front door was locked from the inside, back door closed, but not locked. He honestly hoped that they would be as far away as possible by the time someone discovers that the uninvited guests visited the home of the town's number one man.

As the car was moving further away, Victor's laughter kept getting louder and louder. "We did it! We nicked it all! Dude, we're kings! Only richer!"

"Yeah, lucky us." Daniel's voice was deprived of emotion.

"Cheer up, Heron! You sound like you just came back from a funeral!"

Daniel's face remained sullen despite Victor's words. "Let me tell you something. This all left a bitter taste in my mouth."

"Don't worry. You'll wash it off with some first-class whiskey as soon as we return to Ground Zero."

Victor gripped the steering wheel, pushed the gas pedal, and his old, run down car picked up the pace as it rushed towards the last intersection that would take it out of the town and towards the abandoned factory. Daniel sank into the seat, buried in his own thoughts, so his head almost hit the dashboard when Victor stepped on the break.

"You stupid bitch!" he yelled. "Get the hell off the road!"

After the initial shock, Daniel looked through the windshield. In front of the car stood a tall woman dressed in tight jeans and a black leather jacket. The wind was playing with the locks of her long, dark-brown hair. But the thing that caught Daniel's attention more than anything else were the eyes. She gazed in their direction, and when her eyes fell on Daniel, he could have sworn that he saw a trace of amber glow in them. She was too far for him to be sure, but there was something familiar about those eyes.

She looked at him for a while, when Victor lost the little patience he still had. He rolled down the window and yelled, "Hey, bitch! Why are you still standing there? Either move or you'll get a chance to see the bumper of my car up close!"

She didn't move. She kept gazing at them, immobile.

"Bone, shut up," Daniel seethed, moving only one side of his mouth, like a bad ventriloquist. "You don't want to attract attention. Not today."

"What do you care what I want!?" Victor shouted. "This bitch is pissing me off!"

Victor cast a glance at Daniel. Daniel looked at him. It only lasted a moment, but when they looked at the road again, the long-haired woman was no longer there. The only thing that remained was the feeling of discomfort, threatening to consume Daniel.

Thank you for reading my story!

Daniel got a chance to participate in another grand venture. Do you think that Lucio and his gang will get away with it?

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Until next chapter...