Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar (unfortunately).
"Where is he?" Special Agent Peter Burke muttered.
"Just around the corner…and he should be walking into the gallery right…now" replied Jones, one of Peter's agents.
Forgetting that he was supposed to be disguised, Peter risked a glance behind him, only to see con-artist and forger (not to mention teenaged) Neal Caffrey come sauntering down the gallery, wearing what appeared to be an official museum curator uniform. He watched as Neal stopped in front of a glass display case, scrutinizing the delicate diamond corsage piece within the case. Carefully removing the glass shell with a pair of gloved hands, Neal gently lifted out the sparkling jewels. A small smile flickered over his face as he laid the diamonds in a case and snapped it shut.
"What are you doing?" a young woman wandered over and was now watching Neal with sharp eyes.
"Just taking it for cleaning" Neal replied, a bright smile lighting up his face. Peter shook his head, the kid had guts, he had to admit, especially for a fifteen year-old. But he also knew Neal preferred to get the job over out quickly, and talking to this woman was probably the last thing he wanted to do.
"Oh. I didn't know they needed cleaning" she said, about to turn away, when she suddenly pulled a gun.
"Freeze! FBI!" she snapped. Peter grinned; Diana really was too good at this.
Neal's smile dropped off his face and he slowly raised his hands. However, instead of looking frightened, as Peter would have thought, he simply looked cool as a cucumber.
"Agent Burke" a cocky smile played on his lips as Peter walked over to them.
"Neal Caffrey" Peter stated as Jones quickly pulled Neal's hands behind his back and zip-tied them. Peter was not taking any chances by putting handcuffs on Neal. He knew they wouldn't stay on anyways and he still wasn't too sure about the zip-ties. Diana grabbed the case of jewels as Jones took a firm grip on one of Neal's arms.
Neal (surprisingly) didn't protest or struggle as the agents walked him towards the exit of the gallery. They were passing a door marked 'fire exit' when Neal suddenly smiled and slid easily out of Jones' grasp.
"Bye Peter" he called mockingly over his shoulder as he locked the fire exit behind him.
"Dammit" Peter swore, already knowing that this would be one hell of a chase.
"He's moving" Diana warned, speaking into her radio.
Meanwhile, Neal sprinted down the stairs as best he could. It was time for Plan B; he hadn't exactly expected his hands to be zip-tied. Panting, he reached the ground floor and threw himself against that fire exit door, this time setting off the alarm. He smirked, hearing the frantic voices of visitors mixed with museum guards, and FBI agents, knowing that there would be pandemonium throughout the museum, and hopefully buying him a few extra seconds.
The fire exit door burst open and Neal skidded to a halt as Burke, Jones, and Diana confronted him.
Barely pausing he turned around and started to sprint down the stairs, this time to the basement level. He made it down three steps just before he heard a shot rang out and an agonizing, burning pain slammed into Neal's left shoulder sending him crashing down.
He cried out involuntarily, his vision darkening around the edges. Pausing for precious seconds, Neal shook his head desperately, trying to clear out the sudden fogginess.
"Neal!" Peter roared down the stairwell, just catching a glimpse of messy brown hair disappearing around the corner and hearing the pained cry.
Diana and Jones were already running past him, Jones taking the stairs two at a time and Diana holding her gun.
Neal heard the pounding footsteps over the pounding in his head and mentally cursed. He should never have agreed to this job. Jewels weren't really his specialty anyways. The piece that he was supposed to have gotten was a corsage piece made by Tiffany's with 325 diamonds and sapphires arranged in a garland of flowers.
Suddenly startled out of his musings, Neal was almost overwhelmed by a wave of dizziness. He grasped the stair railing tightly trying to find a way to stop the ever-increasing vertigo. His legs began to buckle and he lost his grip on the railing.
Barely able to stay conscious, Neal tumbled down stair after stair until he collapsed on a landing.
Dimly he felt hands rolling him over, someone applying pressure to his shoulder, but then his eyes started to roll back and his vision went black.
Me: Thanks for reading! Just a little note on the diamond corsage! This is an actual piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I stretched it a bit, the piece does not have sapphires and has only 305 diamonds. Link to the corsage: toah/works-of-art/41.84.20a-e. Please feel free to leave a review!