Inspiration; If We Ever Meet Again by Timbaland Ft. Katy Perry.
Story; If We Ever Meet Again by Affarie Ava Mai.
Beta Reader; I LOVE Sparkley Scars.
Basic Summary; Bella Swan is a hidden criminal. As is Edward Cullen. When she is trapped in his lair after attempting to steal a classic from Francois Boucher, what happens then when the famous Thief of the century falls for the humble trainee... of the rival company? better than it sounds guarantee!! R&R
Bella Pov;
throwing my back through the vent I crawled my way into it, making sure that the latch was closed firmly after me. That was when it became difficult; Claustrophobia could either make you or break you right now. If it did take hold of you then you were done for, panic attacks accompanied them and in a vent this small air was scarce and hard to come by. So you had to take assured breathes before procedding. Which I did.
I shone the flashlight ahead and scanned through my memory to see the blueprints that i had been occupied with learning off by heart and attaining for the last three weeks, every nook and cranny and security camera was now stored into my memory as well as there position and worth.
It would come in handy for other missions too.
Getting into the building had been one of my biggest problems, aside from getting my hands on the blueprints. I had scaled up the side of the cliff face wall, rested and then prepared my equiptment for the rest of my trek to the house, in a small cliff cave that had been created thanks to erosion.
This was one of my most dangerous missions and my father or rather mentor, Charlie had entrusted me in the ability to attain this painting.
It wasn't that it was particularity important to me but because it belonged to our rival family. The Cullen's that It was of the utmost importance that I retrieve it.
I was a trainee, amongst twelve others in my fathers corporation that was sent out on special missions to retrieve paintings or other artifacts for our final exam. You started training from the age of sixteen and by the time you were twenty two you had pased three major tests and twenty seven smaller ones to do with the corporation.
I, meanwhile, was only 19 and this was my last mission. Father had begun my training or preperation for my training at least when I was eleven years old.
My first test had consisted of getting past a major security form in Missippi. Looking back it was one of the easiest tests I had sat but at that point in time it had been the most stressful moment in my life. Before it was trying to get past the gaurds for my fathers company but now that was real life;
I could get caught and like any sane person I did not want that to happen at such a young age of seventeen.
Back then I had only had to get past modular vault panels and vault doors along with the occasional key-pad or eye identification system, but now the system was more difficult, complicated.
As technology advanced so did alarm and bank deffences while us burglars were still left with the old techniques and only able to improve if we were able to steal the recipe to anothers success. It was the way all of our familys were.
On my second test it had been more so confusing rather than complicaated. We had been paired in two's and I, along with my then-enemy Rosalie Hale had been shipped out to the the Rain Forest of Madagascar where it was our mision to retrieve a valuable artifact from the Tsingy forest in Beanka.
We didn't know what it was but that we had to be careful with it.
On our way to it we had formed a silent type agreement of sorts. We had always been enemy's, rivals as her uncle was from one of my family's rivals. Father believed that Rosalie was different though, even if I had other ideas about her and were her loyalties lied.
But now that we had a healthy relationship established after I saved her life from a Black Widow spider that was about to take a chunk from her. Identification was never Rose's strong point though, so I just let her continue with her gratitude towards me instead of informing her that it was the male Black Widow which was less venomous and once I had treated her -I had the cure in our medical supply napsack- she would have been restored to her perfect self once again.
Rose was a perfectionist, and her ability came from the art of seduction. She was the perfect Grifter as she could act and had the looks to match. Her speciality was in Grifting where as I was more of a strategic gambler and had the special talents to match.
Struggling through the vents was hard enough but when you get stuck it is even harder to move either backwards or forwards, but of anything my father has thought me is to always go forwards. If you back out and then get stuck, panicking and crawling your way back in a haste will only get you caught. For this case I always wear leather to missions;
it is easier to maneuver around corners and the cooling sensation the gloves brought was both a way to calm and mask the heat emanating from my body if there were any heat sensors about.
There was a t-cross in this part of the vents and scanning through my memory again I turned to the right, and squeezed through the tight gap gasping for air when the metal dug into my side.
Sucking in as much breathe as I could I continued down the narrow tunnel until I was plunged into darkness.
My flashlight had run out of battery. I cursed silently and around in the darkness, searching for a way through the vent...
my hand hit against the cold metal and I cried out. This mission was just getting worse with each passing moment. My fingers latched onto netting in front of me that I immediately knew to be the outside coating of a vault panel.
Driling a hole was no problem if you had the right material and once retrieving it from my pocket, I quickly set to wrok on cutting a small eye-hole in the thin coating of metal. Staring into the room below I removed the netting of the vent from around the lock -that now had a small hole in it- and lifted the cover from it before placing it against the other side of the tunnel.
Attaching my belt with the harness once again, I unwinded the switch belt and lowered myself to the ground.
The room was big and very spacious. It was decorated with cream pillars and had an ivory curtain blocking the paintings inside from those that walked past each day. Luckily for me that also meant that no one would se me taking the painting from its frame.
Making sure to wind the cord into the far wall away from the direction of the camera, I unhinged it and
and made quick work of covering myslef in the darkness that the shadows brought.
I moved through the different canvases until I stopped at my designation; a portrait of Marquise De Pompadour by Francois Boucher that was hanging up on the far left corner of the wall.
Removing my tool set from my belt, I took out my screw driver and, being careful not to damage the spline of the frame I began to remove the canvas from the frame.
Half way through, and fifteen minutes later, I slipped up and cut my glove with the screw, resulting in the alarms blaring when the heat finally registered with the paintings, surrounding heat sensor.
Cursing silently to myself I attempted to escape.
I had under estimate twenty five seconds before one of the guard arrived and I was caught.
Scrambling my way through to the other side of the room towards where the rope for my harness was, I attempted to continue to stay out of the way of the cameras, to little success.
I heard loud footsteps and shouting coming from the hallway and fumbled with the harness.
The clip slid and I attempted to latch it on again but it was too late; I was caught.
"oi you! Stop where you are or i'll shoot! Raise your hands into the air. Slowly!" one security guard yelled as he pointed his gun at me. It registered in the back of my mind that I was familiar with its type; it was an Automated Small Calibre Gun that looked to be an DS30, that was like the one Mrs. Kate had shown me in Weapons Class.
Realising that any attempt at escaping was futile I slowly let go of the harness and let my hands raise into the air, stepping slowly away from the rope to assure the guard that it wasn't my intention to escape any longer.
He looked sad that I had complied for a minute and reluctantly lowered his weapon, letting the other gaurds rush passed him and approach me.
Whilst one of the gaurds patted me down another went to call the head of security and two of the three people left went over to evaluate the damage that was the result of my last attempt to remove the painting from its frame.
The left over guard who's name tag read Reese, was still poitning his gun at me in a possible attept to seem fierce, when in truth he looked so young that It was foolish.
During there search thaey took my lucky napsack, my tool belt and the knifes that I had concealed, within a knife holster at my waist and another at my thigh.
I waited in silence as they questioned me about the normal stuff.
Where I was from? Who I worked for? Where did I get all of my information from? But still I did not relent and it was with a great sigh that the finally accepted the fact that I was not going to talk and settled for shuffling me along the narrow passageway of one of the hidden doors of the servants quarters that had been placed there centurys ago.
Now that I was in no rush for time or excpecting someone to catch me, I finally had the ability to look around me and take in the sights of the castle.
It was here from medieval times and had been remodeled after a section had fell down over a hundred years ago. I knew that Esme Cullen, Carlisle Cullen's -my fathers rival- wife had been the one to renovate and redecorate the inside of the house once she had moved here and as I passed the paintings and ornaments that adorned the castle hallways, I wondered how my father could say that she was a cruel cold-hearted bitch.
She was obviously a very calm and serene person from the way she decorated her house.
Turning to the left we passed the kitchen and the servants stopped to gawk at me as I passed. I felt the familiar heat spread over my face as I let my gaze drop as we passed them out.
We entered an empty hall and I was made to stand in the middle, while two of the men stood at my side and the rest spread out amongst the room with four or so other guards.
And so the wait began...
..................................................................................
Around twenty minutes later the doors barged open and guards rushed in with M4 rifles in hand. Some approached and surrounded me but I kept up the cool facade on my face as they raised they're guns.
If they had wanted to kill me they would have already done it.
Staring ahead at the wall, I waited for the head of security or whoever was in charge here to arrive and held my breathe as I saw the next person to arrive;
that must be him I told myself. He didn't look to be any older than twenty two and I saw him scan the crowd until his eyes landed on me. A shiver of fear ran through me.
His features were perfect, almost too perfect and then his eyes... they looked like they had seen too much in their short life, too much pain, too many fears, too much death.
He held my gaze as his eyes widened when he saw my age, I presume and I jutted my chin out in disgust. I should have known he would be like some sexist pig over my age. He smirked at my reaction, giving me a crooked smile as he turned to the guard beside him and then alongside him, they both approached.
The guard by my side, held my arms behind my back so that I wouldn't attack him, I suppose and as he came closer I could see the amusement dancing in his cold eyes.
"so this is the cause of all this hassle?" he asked out loud and I heard a couple of his guard snicker under their breath. I glared at him as he came even closer and he then asked in a humorous voice "well you can't be more than eighteen my dear, what would you be doing in a place like this ?"
"nineteen almost twenty" I snarled at him, putting all my anger in my voice.
He was surprised for a second before he burst out laughing along with the man beside him. "Jasper, looks like we got a feisty one here" he snickered, directing his comment to the man beside him.
They both smirked at me causing me to see red. Nobody talks about me like that. "you disgust me!" I shouted causing there grins to fade as they evaluated my appearance finally.
"and why is that darlin'?" the guard asked me. I remained silent, until the head of security moved forward and pulled my chin up so that I was looking directly into his eyes "Jasper asked you a question, I advise, for your own safety, that you answer him. Now who are you and what is your business here" "never" I vowed and spat in his face.
He backed away and the guard behind me let go of my arms in shock of my actions. Realizing that this was as good a time as any, I drew the hairpin from my hair and pressed the clip at the side and the small pin changed into an automatic pocket knife.
I was about to close in on the guard that was beside the head of security that had disappeared -probably been ushered outside so that he could disinfect his face, the wuss- when I felt the click of a gun being taken off of the safety catch and being placed against the back of my head.
"nice move, young one. But obviously not nice enough to save you." I recognized the voice immediately and knew that it was helpless, but still I gripped the knife tighter in my hand resulting in the pain in my hand tightening as the blade cut through the soft skin of my palm, bringing his attention down to my hand.
"where did you get the knife?" he whispered diverting his gaze back to my eyes. I blanched as I knew what he was talking about;
my father Charlie Swan was a major producer of the knifes in question. His father,
my grandfather created the first of its kind for my grandmother, Marie and then it was developed when he invested it with his familiar publishers; it was the turning point for his career and made him the man he was today. All because of a hair clip.
"I...ugh, I took it." I mumbled as an excuse but I could see that he didn't believe me for a second. "men, bring the suspect to the towers. I will personally question her later" and with that he turned on his heel and I waited for them to escort me to my own towers.
Otherwise known as a prison.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
with thanks to my uncle for teaching me the difference between a safety catch and a safety lock.
Review for more & should I continue?
xoxo
Ella-Ava Rose