Chapter 139 - Warring Premonitions (1/2)
Chapter 139: Warring Premonitions
“You’re clear, Nico. Hurry!” I whispered, looking over my shoulder in case someone passed by, since seeing two adolescent boys huddled up in front of a house door only spelled trouble.
“Just stay on guard, Grey. I think I’m close to unlocking it,” my dark-haired companion hissed back as he worked on the doorknob.
I watched in doubt as Nico fumbled with the hairpins he had stolen from one of the older girls into the keyhole. “Are you sure you can open it?”
“This is,” he said impatiently through gritted teeth, “a lot harder than that guy at the alleyway made it seem.”
Suddenly, the doorknob clicked and both our eyes brightened. “You did it!” I exclaimed in a loud whisper.
“Bow down to my powers!” Nico proclaimed, holding up the colorful hairpin he had used to pick the lock high in the hair.
I smacked him on the shoulder and pressed my finger to my lips. Nico shoved the hairpin back in his zippered pocket and nodded at me before we tiptoed in through the wooden door.
“And you made sure that the owners are out today?” I verified, scanning the meticulously furnished house.
“I scanned this house last week. Both the husband and wife go out at this time and don’t come back for another hour or so. We have plenty of time to grab a few things and go,” Nico answered, his eyes scanning for anything of value that we can stuff into a bag.
Letting out a deep breath, I reasoned to myself that it was necessary. Stealing from someone—however rich they were—didn’t sit right with me, but I had overheard the conversation between the orphanage headmaster and those government people. I was only able to hear a few comments but it seemed like our orphanage was in danger because we didn’t have enough money.
“This should be enough,” Nico nodded as we both looked inside the backpack we had brought.
“Now how are we going to get money for this?” I questioned. “We can’t exactly give Headmaster Wilbeck all of this jewelry.”
“Way ahead of you,” he smirked. “I found a guy willing to pay cash for anything he finds interesting.”
“And this ‘guy’ is okay buying off two twelve-year-olds?”
“He doesn’t ask questions, I don’t ask questions. Simple as that,” Nico shrugged as we headed out the door.
Taking the back route toward the back end of the city, we blended in with the crowd of people walking along the cracked sidewalk. Keeping our heads low and paces brisk, we veered left into an alleyway. Weaving through the piles of trash and stacked boxes of who knows what, we stopped in front of faded red door protected behind another gated metal door.
“We’re here,” Nico spoke as he motioned for the bag. Slipping it off my shoulders and handing it to him, my friend knocked the door four times in an unfamiliar rhythm.
Slicking his black hair and puffing his chest out, he let out a couple coughs and narrowed his eyes to appear more intimidating—as intimidating as any scrawny ten-year-old can be, anyway.
After a few seconds, a rangy old man in a worn-out suit came out from the other side of the red door. He stared down at us from behind the metal gate with a scrutinizing eye.
“Ah, the rather persistent child. I see you brought a friend,” he said, unwilling to open the gate.
Nico let out another cough to clear his voice. “I’ve brought some items you might have interest in.”
My friend spoke in a deeper tone than normal, but surprisingly, it didn’t sound fake. He opened the drawstring bag in his hands to show the lanky, narrow-eyed man a peek at some of the jewelry we had just stolen.
Raising a brow, the man unhinged the lock on the gate, opening it slightly with a shrill creak. As he scanned the area around us, he bent down to examine the bag. “Not a bad collection. Did you steal this from your mother, perhaps?”
“No questions, remember?” Nico reminded, tightening the string to close the bag. “Now can we come in and discuss prices?”
The thin man looked around once more with suspicion in his eyes but eventually let us in. “Close the door behind you.”
As we arrived inside the dainty shop, a thick layer of smoke greeted us. From the other side of the room, two men were puffing out clouds of smoke, each with a cigarette between their fingers. While the dense cloud of grey covered much of their facial features, I could at least distinguish their general shapes. One of the men was burly—muscles clearly displayed underneath his tank top. The other man was much more round, but with thick, firm limbs that showed he wasn’t any weaker than the other man.
“Come, children. Let’s get this over with,” the thin man said as he scratched his unshaven cheeks.
Nico and I exchanged glances but only he went up to the counter as I looked around the shelves displaying various books and gadgets.
After a few minutes, my gaze fell on a thin, tattered book. From the few words I could make out from the spine of the book, it seemed to be a rather old instruction manual on ki. Gingerly removing it from the shelf, the first thing that struck me was that half of the front cover had been ripped off.
My first instinct was to put it back; after all, the orphanage had books in much better condition on core developing for ki use. However, my fingers seemed to move on their own as they flipped through the pages. Inside it were pictures and diagrams of a person in different poses with arrows and other lines around the figure. I wanted to take it with me and was half tempted to ask for the price, but I held myself back. This book was a luxury when we needed the money to save our home.
As I continued my attempt at discerning the vague instructions, I lost interest, and my eyes kept falling back on the two men playing cards on the foldable table. The two had been taking glances at Nico as he and the shop owner did business. I buried my face in the old book, taking a peek from behind the pages. I wasn’t sure what they were up to, but I didn’t want to stay long enough to find out.
Fortunately, Nico had just finished his transaction and approached me, flashing a quick smirk before putting his stoic face back on.
“Did you find something interesting?” he asked, eyeing the book in my hand.
“It’s nothing,” I said, quickly putting the thin, coverless book back on the shelf.
“You can take it if you want,” the rangy store owner said from behind as he leaned his elbow on the front counter. “No one knows how to read it and it’s just been collecting dust here.”
“Really?” I asked, suspicion surfacing on my face.
He revealed his abnormally white teeth in something akin to a smile as he nodded.
Without another word, I quickly tucked the book in the bag and murmured a thanks to him. As Nico and I left the store through the back door we had entered from, my friend unzipped his jacket and showed me the wad of crinkled cash.
“See, I told you it’d all work out,” he beamed.
“I guess so,” I replied, still skeptical about this whole endeavor. I felt bad for the couple who lived there but I comforted myself in the fact that we didn’t take much of their jewelry. Nico explained that only taking a few items might make them suspicious, but they’d be hesitant in calling authorities for potential theft.
Also, since the married couple that lived there were well past their retirement age, the cops would most likely assume that they had just forgotten or misplaced the items. I let out a relieved sigh as we made our way back to the orphanage. The further we were away from the scene of the crime, the better I felt.
“What did I even come here for, Nico?” I asked, dodging people as we walked down the street. “Feels like you did this all on your own.”
“Hey, you got a free book out of this, right?” Nico patted my shoulder. “Besides, it’s more fun—”
“We’re being followed,” I cut in, whispering as I continued looking ahead. I had felt two pairs of eyes practically boring a hole in my back almost as soon as we had left the shop, but since we were going straight, I didn’t want to assume. However, I had been able to catch glimpse of one of the guys, and I instantly recognized him as one of the smokers from the shop.
“This way,” Nico ordered in a hushed tone.
As we reached the outskirts of the city, we took a right into an alleyway, hopping on top of a trashcan to reach the other side of the locked fence.
I landed nimbly on my feet as Nico clawed out at the fence to keep from losing balance as he fell to his feet. Quickly, we ran down the old alley that smelled like a mixture of rat turd and rotten eggs. Hiding behind a particularly large pile of trash, we waited.
Soon, two pairs of footsteps could be heard, growing louder as they approached.
“Little rats made it easy for us,” a hoarse voice snickered.
“A fitting grave for them,” a gravelly voice replied.
“It’s the two men from the shop!” Nico cursed as he quickly hid behind the trash again after taking a peek.
“I knew it,” I clicked my tongue as my eyes began scanning for anything I could use as a weapon.
“They’re probably here to either get the shop owner’s money back for him, or to steal it for themselves,” Nico deduced, clutching the money in his jacket tightly.
Suddenly, a darkened figure leaped out from the other side of the pile of trash we were hiding behind, casting a giant shadow over us.
“Surprise!” the barrel-chested thug exclaimed with a sinister grin.
“Run!” I screamed at Nico, pushing my friend forward.
He had no time to retort as he briskly made his way down the narrow alleyway darkened by the tall buildings around us.