Leverage

I do not own Leverage.

Sorry if there are any mistakes in the text. English is not my first language so please be tolerant!

She lay in the ventilation shaft over the kitchen, staring through the grids of the vent down on the delicious meal that was cooking on the stove. She inhaled the smell of chicken and spicy sauce while contemplating whether it would be a good idea to steal a few tidbits to annoy the cook. Said man just left the kitchen to do an errand for her foster father since he not only was his cook but also his assistant and willing servant for anything else. He reminded her of a cringing dog who did everything just to earn a few stroke units of his master.

But maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Although she was sure her foster father hated her anyways, no matter what she did, he was recently especially sensitive to anything that didn't run his ways. He had some strange new mission for his business to do and that made him constantly nervous. She had stopped long ago to try to make things right since she had just learned that it was impossible to satisfy him. Always was something wrong with what she did, something wrong with her, and then she had to do it again and again… Can't you just behave like a normal person? He asks her. Why do you have to act like a lunatic that just escaped out of the crazy house? It hurt to hear these words. She tried to change but - how when she doesn't even understand what she did wrong?

No, it was definitely a bad idea to aggravate him even more. But she was hungry - and this bag of grapes literally shouted for her to steal it…

She fumbled for her self-made angling rod and just wanted to put it through the grids to get the grapes when suddenly people entered the kitchen. People she didn't know. Her foster father seldom let people into this big company building of his she was in right now since he was a very mistrusting man, having only a few loyal employees. He owned a very big and very rich company that acted all over the USA. The company, the work, that was his world, his life. She often wondered why he wanted to foster her although he was always working, never spent time with her and had no interest in what she did the whole day while he was busy. And then she remembered his wife, the vain bitch that thought it would be cool if she could tell her friends that she was so selfless and took care of an orphan. And now she was away for two weeks, on a vacation in the Caribbean. Of course without her. Would be too "stressful". Since her foster father could not let her at home all day he had decided to bring her with him to his workplace when she wasn't at school.

But if she was honest, it was okay like this. She could do whatever she wanted the whole day. Her foster father didn't care about her. She was sure he had forgotten her long ago. She could crawl through the ventilation shafts of the ten floor office building which belonged to her foster father's company. She could annoy her foster father's employees that worked here. She could just lie in a ventilation shaft, reading, thinking, safe and warm above them all and inaccessible for her foster father. Or she could do more adventurous things: escaping out of the building and hanging around in the city. But she had to be careful that her foster father didn't notice her absence. Otherwise he would imprison her for a few hours in an empty storeroom.

She thought about running away but she already tried that in three other foster families and of course several times in the children's home but it ended always the same way: with her being caught and punished.

She was awakened from her trail of thoughts when she noticed the three people sneaking carefully across the room while whispering quietly to each other. There were one women and two men. The first men was the oldest of the three and had a brown curly-head. The second man was big, tall and very muscular, with long, very long brown hair. The women was slim and had light blonde hair with a fringe. In her hands she noticed the tools being needed for cracking a door or a safe.

She observed them crossing the room and disappearing into another room. She frowned. Who was that? Surely nobody who worked here. Then she would knew them. Gracefully she let herself fall down from the ventilation shaft vent down to the ground and followed them carefully.

She peeked through the crack of the door and silently followed them truogh a few rooms until they stopped in her foster-father's bureau. Three people began to dig through cupboards and drawers. She frowned again. What the heck did they do there? They… they had to be… There was no other possibility. They had to be burglars. The mysterious, careful, mistrusting and quiet way they moved was proof enough for her.

Finally they seemed to find what they were searching for. "Nate, I've got it!", the young blonde woman shouted excitedly.

"Shush! Quiet!", the long haired man hissed.

"Show me!", the curly-head, Nate, whispered and hurried over to the woman.

"What? Hardison!", the long-haired man suddenly cursed as if he would talk to someone. But she noticed he looked at nobody in the room. Strange people, she thought. "Yeah, okay, where?", he then asked. The man took a USB-stick out of his pocket and stuck it into the laptop of her foster-father on the desk. "How long does that take?", the man asked impatiently.

Nate took the folder from the woman and tugged it under his brown coat. "Well done, Parker!", he nodded at the woman. She smiled proudly. "But now we have to go!", Nate urged the other two. "Eliot, ready?"

"Yeah, yeah! Hardison, how long?", the man asked again, getting more and more impatient.

Finally he, seemingly Eliot, pulled the stick out of the notebook and the three hurried back to the door through which they had entered before. She hurried away as fast as she could and crawled back into the ventilation shaft.

Just when the tree people entered the kitchen the cook came in. He stood still, shocked, in the door, staring at the three. Immediately the long haired man stepped forward. "Be quiet or I will hurt you!", he threatened.

"Ahhhhh!", the cook squealed like a beaten puppy. She could barely hide her gleeful giggle. The cook tried to run away. But he had no chance. The long haired man seized him by the collar and knocked him out.

Then the three people hurried out of the kitchen. Down the stairs. Out of the building. She followed them. She couldn't otherwise.

Criminal and lawless. Free and independent. What a dream.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! What do you think, should I continue?