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The Leopard from New York.

Holding the phone in his hand, the phone number for Mrs Capshaw's house glowing on the screen, Peter knew there was still time for him to drop the whole thing and go home.

He had come into the city again as he'd done frequently for the last couple of weeks to post his resume around town, and his aunt and uncle knew he was out here on one of his days off work. Indeed he had spoken to them shortly before delivering the last batch of resumes as close to the streets where Mrs Capshaw lived. He'd checked them all out online when he had been researching this part of the city in order to cover up his burglary, but Peter hadn't carried out the main part of the plan yet.

There was still time for him to turn back, but his feet were rooted to the ground in his indecision. In his bag, he had some bits and pieces to make this burglary work after spending time at the locksmiths where he'd had access to the knowledge of the professionals.

Peter had been standing there for five minutes, wracked with indecision while he stood in the shadows of the street though the light from the phone screen was probably showing everyone nearby he was there.

He wasn't sure if he could actually go through with his plans to burgle someone else's home, especially after his uncle was shot by someone who had no qualm about waving a gun around and stealing whatever he could get. His uncle was now back at work again, so the pressure had been slightly lessened from Peter's shoulder. A part of him snidely wished Ben was still off work so his decision and choices were already preordained.

He should never have waited so long to burgle this woman's house, he decided before the sound of a car's brakes screeching not that far away and the yowl of a startled cat snapped him out of his thoughts, and he decided to just get it over and done with, believing the sooner he got this over and done with, the better. He had been fighting with his conscience for five minutes, wasting his own time while thinking about the finer points of morality in the process.

One thing was for sure, he knew if he didn't go through with Mrs Capshaw tonight, Peter had no idea if another golden opportunity ever came his way again for the second time. He didn't know what Mrs Capshaw's intentions where to the security of her home, but while he didn't care one bit about whether or not the locks were cheap or not, he knew someone else, someone with fewer qualms about burglary might decide to burgle the house she lived in before he did, and he would have missed the chance because he had been wrestling with his conscience.

Peter decided to take a chance.

Slipping out of sight and walking down the street with the mobile pressed against his ear, Peter let the phone ring as he dialled the number, making sure that his phone number wouldn't be registered by the police. As it rang and he listened to the slowly irritating sound, Peter fought with his own indecision while he waited. And he waited and he waited. In the end, there was nothing, no response, no answering machine… Nothing.

Peter ended the call and he slipped into the shadows of the street and he walked down the road, staying as far from the streetlights as he could, moving slowly and silently over the cowlings over the doorways of the opposite side of the street, while he relied upon his leopard abilities to make sure he was close enough to Mrs Capshaws' house so he could see if there were any lights on or not, while at the same time using his enhanced senses to make sure he was not seen by anyone to see him through, however the smells coming from the city and everything else made it hard for him to tell if there was anyone else nearby.

Fortunately, Peter didn't need to go too far down the street to find out if there were any lights on in the house. He only had to go down a few feet of the street before he had a good enough view. True he had needed to stop on top of the cowlings a couple of times to get a clear enough view of the Capshaw house, but when he passed down a few houses, Peter got what he wanted. There were no lights on in the Capshaw house. She was out. Reassured no-one was home, Peter returned to the end of the street before he noticed, to his annoyance, a large and thick drainpipe. He looked at it with wide eyes and he mentally kicked himself harshly for not bothering to look around the street properly for a way to make sure there wasn't a quicker route down the street so he could reach the house Mrs Capshaw was living in and then coming back in half the time it had taken him originally in the first place. But then again it had seriously not occurred to him to look around the neighbourhood besides just the house. Peter had always assumed when criminals studied the surroundings, they would just study the target. He was now beginning to realise they paid more in-depth attention to the streets to find routes of escape, places to hide, and vantage points. He could have found all these when he had first arrived, but no, he had to find it out at the last minute.

Pushing aside his annoyance, Peter slowly made his way back down the alleyway, slipping on the black face mask he had hastily made a couple of days ago for this burglary. As he reached Mrs Capshaws' house, he slipped over the wall into her backyard and jumped down into her garden. He took a deep breath, noting the different plants but he couldn't tell if the woman had any kind of pet, like a dog. Slipping his hand back into his pocket, Peter took out his mobile phone and tried the number again, making sure once again his number did not register. In the backyard of the house he was planning on breaking into, Peter waited for a minute as the phone kept ringing, but there was no reply.

Good, he thought to himself, there's still no-one home. Slipping on his gloves, Peter moved on.

Moving swiftly and quietly towards the backdoor, Peter examined the lock for a second before he pulled out his tools out of his bag and got to work. In the hands of a professional locksmith, the lock would be snapped easily, but in the hands of Peter, who had the strength of a leopard to back him up, the lock was open within moments. Picking up the pieces of the lock and shoving them into his pocket, Peter strode into the house.

The moment he walked through his door, his nose picked something up, and he needed a few minutes to identify it as alcohol. It smelled musty, and he couldn't tell if it was fresh or days old, but he didn't care. He didn't care if the woman who lived here was an alcoholic. It was irrelevant to him since he was here to commit a burglary. With a shrug of his shoulders, Peter walked deeper into the house. As he did his leopard enhanced vision allowed him to see the interior of the house well enough without needing to turn on the light, though he did need to fight the instinctive human urge to turn the lights on.

Walking through the house with the grace of a cat, Peter looked around the kitchen, the living room with the bookshelves stacked with books, DVDs, CDs, and a massive television shoved into a corner. The living room was neat and tidy. It showed few signs of having an alcoholic living here.

Peter stood there studying the living room before he walked off before he stopped. He thought he'd just heard something upstairs, and he tensed instinctively, and he quickly stamped down his good boy instinct to run away or think the worst of what the source of the sound was, and he slowly moved towards the stairs.

When he got to the hall, Peter found a row of coats on hooks, and even in the dim light coming from the outside street lamps, Peter could clearly see the shape of the woman's handbag. Reaching for it, Peter opened it and examined the contents of the handbag. He found the woman's purse and decided to have a look at it in a moment. He found a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a bunch of keys on a ring, a pack of chewing gum, ID and a driver's license, some pawn tickets…

Dismissing the handbag, Peter went through the purse. There was quite a bit of cash inside. As he took the money out of the purse, Peter couldn't help but feel it was a rather exorbitant amount, but that was okay. He put it inside his coat pocket and he dropped the purse on the small table near the door, and he walked upstairs. The grainy, musty smell of alcohol was stronger as he walked up the stairs. When he reached the landing, the smell of stale liquor was stronger up here than anything else, and he walked into the bathroom first and opened up the cabinet. He had read online burglars usually stole prescription drugs from homeowners to sell for some extra cash. It was amazing just how many people would buy prescription drugs, but Peter was reluctant to take them since it might give the police leads he didn't need.

Peter walked out of the bathroom and went to the next room, this time it was an office area with a long desk with a chair in front of it, with a computer mounted in the middle sitting next to a printer. On one of the long shelves, Peter could see clearly the row of files arranged neatly along it. He looked at them for a moment, wondering if he should risk it…

He knew thanks to his research into burglary that many homeowners tended to keep their precious valuables in hiding places if they were afraid of burglary, though he wasn't sure if this particular homeowner had the same paranoia. Still, he decided to get it over and done with. He wanted this burglary to go well without any kind of hitches, and he wanted to get his mind into that of the professional burglar who would not leave a stone unturned, or in this case a file unopened, but he didn't want to be here long.

He opened a few of the files carefully and went through them. He didn't find any money in any of them, so he decided not to keep looking, but when he opened the desk drawers he found a small box filled with dollar bills and some loose change. That went into the bag. Tired of being in the office, Peter walked out of the workroom, mentally rewinding his memory to see if he'd left any of his DNA in there, but he couldn't think of any moment where he'd been careless enough to do so. When he walked to the door where the smell of alcohol was stronger and more mustier than before though he had been aware of how strong it was when he'd reached the top of the stairs.

He was just about to open the door when he thought he heard something coming from the other side. It sounded like….breathing. Peter pressed his covered ear to the door, listening. The sound was quite weak, and he stiffened with horror as he realised there was someone else in the house with him. The realisation that he wasn't alone was enough to bring his back up, but from the sounds of it whoever it was in the house with him sounded like they were deep asleep.

Peter frowned as he racked his brains, trying to remember if Mrs Capshaw had a husband, but he couldn't recall anything like that from the printout he'd taken from the records of the locksmith company. Part of him, the part that was still the cautious goody-two-shoes, wanted him to leave but after a moment Peter reached out so he could open the door to the bedroom. The stench of alcohol hit him but he had become used to the strength of it already.

Deciding to risk it, Peter pulled out the small torch he was carrying in his pocket. He had learnt a while ago that his vision was capable of seeing better at night because leopards were naturally adapted to hunt during the night as well as during the daytime, but he had learnt the enhanced vision needed some light to stream in otherwise he wouldn't be able to see. With that in mind, he had brought the torch when he had prepared for the burglary in advanced. He was glad he had; the room was so dark and there was little ambient light pouring into the bedroom from the window or from the hallway outside so Peter could barely see more than a few feet before him.

He didn't want to stumble around in the dark and potentially wake up whoever was in the room with him. He had brought the torch with him in case he might need it and he was glad he had, and he made a mental note to always take a torch with him whenever he went out on a job. He paused when the thought registered in his mind, and he realised he had slipped into burglar slang -

He came out of his thoughts harshly when his eyes caught sight of the figure lying sprawled over the bed, it was the figure of a woman with long, tousled dark hair, wearing a dark party dress that was quite crumpled.

Peter swallowed quietly and he slowly walked around the bed so he could see her face. The moment the torchlight shone on the woman's face, he recognised it instantly as the same face he had seen downstairs, on the ID and the driver's license. It was Mrs Capshaw and she was completely asleep, drunk he corrected himself when he saw the number of beer cans and bottles of liquor surrounding the bed. The woman was dead drunk. Peter crept closer to the bed, scanning the floor around him, mentally counting up to eleven cans and ten bottles and noting where they were on the ground so he could get close to the bed. He needed to know if this woman was completely pissed or not. After getting close to the woman enough to lean over her, Peter could smell the woman's breath as she let out a sudden snore and the acrid stench hit him in the nose. Peter pulled himself up, glancing around himself so he was able to list himself away without knocking anything around and causing a sound that might startle the woman out of her sleep.

Once he was assured the woman was asleep and drunk, Peter began searching the bedroom, keeping in his mind the quick online searches he had committed for the last couple of days about the burglary. Peter had learnt burglars didn't like to hang around long enough in a house, well not unless they wanted to get found out and arrested by the police. When they broke in, they would head for the bedroom since it was the logical place to store valuables like jewellery.

Slowly Peter approached the woman's vanity table, deeming it the most logical place to begin looking for the woman's collection of jewellery since it would give the woman easy access to them as she put on her makeup. As he went through the drawers, Peter was in no doubt he would find what he was looking for. He had learnt enough of this woman since his decision to commit a burglary to know she was rich, and yet she was incredibly complacent for reasons he couldn't work out. Peter had already known the woman had gone for a cheaper locksmith because they could do the work at a lower rate than Mr Hall's firm though what it was he didn't know.

Peter was not always clear when it came to other people. Everyone around him treated him strange, anyway. In their eyes, he was seen as a geek, and a weirdo simply because he liked to read and think about things instead of being like Flash or one of the other kids at school. As a kid, Peter had always tried to fit in with the crowd, none of it had worked, but now he simply didn't care. He had come to accept the fact he was not good at sports at a young age; while he could probably take part now thanks to his leopard abilities, Peter had taken steps to stop himself from attracting too much attention, since he had spent so long being hopeless in sports as a child, doing a complete three-sixty would be too suspicious - the last thing he needed.

Most of the classes he was forced to take part in were usually so dull and boring Peter had problems staying awake in some of them. But he put in the effort because he wanted to make his family proud of him, though at first, he had done his best to be good at everything before it occurred to him he didn't need excellent grades in other subjects he found boring so long as he made an effort in those he truly enjoyed.

As a result, he also didn't care about what was making Mrs Capshaw make the stupid decision to have a change of locks with one company, only to dump them and go for a cheaper one when she had more than enough cash to pay for the lot.

As he looked through the drawers, it didn't take Peter long to find what he was looking for. He soon found tucked underneath a few supplies of makeup a number of boxes tucked away neatly inside the drawer. Peter opened one slowly and was immediately greeted with the glint of diamonds and the sparkle of gold and silver in the torchlight. Peter immediately shoved the box into his bag before he went through the rest of the drawer. Within minutes he had completely emptied out the drawer of the jewellery within it, and he soon checked the rest of the vanity table.

In the other drawers, Peter found smaller boxes containing an assortment of rings, necklaces, what looked like ankle bracelets, earrings, but the piece de resistance of the collection was a large box and when Peter opened it he found himself staring at an ornate tiara studded with diamonds inlaid with silver filigree.

Peter's eyes widened as he studied it for a moment, his mind racing as he tried to imagine how on earth he was going to be get rid of this one. This tiara was extremely distinctive after all, and there was a chance if the police were given pictures of it then it would give them a lead straight to his door. In the end he decided to take the chance, and he shoved it into his bag, but his mind refused to leave the matter alone and as he shoved it into his bag for the journey back home to Forrest Hills, he wondered if he could find a way to melt it down and recast the tiara as a number of diamond rings..

Once he was finished with the vanity, Peter went through the rest of the bedroom for anything precious. He quickly guessed he already had the majority of what the woman-owned he could easily sell or launder, but as he came across the designer clothes and the expensive looking shoes and bags (he wasn't an expert in this type of thing, but he guessed he could probably make a profit on a few things), he realised he lacked the time or ability to get everything in his bag.

Leaving the bedroom, Peter headed back into the bathroom when he realised there was something he could take that was small enough to fit into his bag. The drugs in the bathroom cabinet. He realised now he had made the mistake in not immediately shoving them into his bag when he had first checked the cabinet out, and he immediately went back there to shove the lot into the bag.

Once he was done he quietly went down the stairs, his ears pricked just in case before he left the house through the backdoor before he clambered over the back wall and went into the alley. Safe in the shadows of the alley, Peter went on his way, ripping his mask off of his face, though he pulled his jacket hood up to disguise his basic features in case someone was watching, taking deep breaths in order to calm his pounding heart down and to master his breathing. He had a bottle of water in his bag, so he ripped it out and took a swig before he shoved it back into his bag, and then he swallowed the water, sighing in relief and delight as the liquid cooled his throat all the way down to his stomach. He was terrified of what he had just done, the things he had just learnt while he had been on the job…. and yet his heart was pounding in his chest over what he'd just done.

When he reached the end of the alley, Peter looked around in case anyone was looking, but his leopard enhanced vision couldn't pick out anyone or anything suspicious waiting for him, and he went on his way, making a mental note to try to find a plan to use for the next time. It took Peter a while to realise what he had just thought about as he made his journey back to the subway station that would take him home, to Queens.

When he was on the train going back to Queens, Peter was thinking about the heist he'd just pulled off when he heard his mobile phone go off. For a moment he was surprised because the mobile took him completely off guard when it began to ring, but after a few seconds he remembered calling his uncle and aunt back home to let them know he was going to be in the Brooklyn area of the city for a little while longer, and he would call them back in an hour or so.

Peter cursed as he realised he had still been on high from the burglary he had completely forgotten about the call back home to let his uncle and aunt know he was returning. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the mobile, and he wasn't surprised when he saw the word "Home" scrawled on the screen. Letting out a sigh, Peter answered it, "Hi. Sorry, I forgot to phone up."

He heard a sigh of relieved annoyance on the other end of the line. Uh oh, he thought to himself, praying to himself nothing bad was going to come from this one. "Peter, it's okay, the main thing is you're safe, though expect a bit of scolding from your aunt when you get back," Ben replied in his usual gentle voice, though Peter could hear from the tone of his voice he was not that worried though he had been concerned. "How did it go?" Uncle Ben asked, smoothly changing the subject around.

"Not bad. I posted my CV around to a few other places just after I spoke to you. I posted it in a few restaurants here and there in Brooklyn. I figured posting my CV to a busy part of the night would win me a few points for them, and now I'm on my way home."

He was telling the truth. He had been in the middle of posting his resume around the restaurants and a few other places, noting down their details while he did so then he'd have a record of who he had visited. But he had also used the opportunity to reach Mrs Capshaws and see if he could go through the committing the burglary. He had done both in just one night, and now he was placed.

"That's great, Peter," Ben replied happily before his voice became more businesslike. "Any hopefuls?"

"I don't know, not yet."

"When do you think you'll be home?"

Peter checked outside. "Another twenty minutes, I think," he replied.

"Great. I hope you're hungry?"

"I think so," Peter smiled over the line.

"I'll tell May," Ben replied, "great job looking for work, Peter. I'll see you when you get back. Give me a call if you need a lift."

"I might take you up on that," Peter replied.

"Okay. See you later, Peter."

"Bye, Uncle Ben," Peter said, and the line was cut. When he put his mobile away, Peter sat back. He wasn't looking forward to being scolded by his aunt for probably frightening her, he was just too glad he had managed to push his conscience aside. He looked at the bag sitting on the seat right next to him. Inside the bag was the sum total of all of his proceeds from the heist. Earning a living was one thing, but committing a crime was another.

Peter cursed his mind for bringing that up. What did it matter now? He had committed the burglary, and he had no intention of handing it all into a police station where his prints could probably be found.

And yet, Peter could not and would forget the indescribable rush he had felt when he had left Mrs Capshaw's house. His heart had been pumping with the adrenaline rush. The sense of power he'd gained, and he had to admit to himself that it was power, after committing the burglary, of walking away with a rucksack full of stolen jewellery, money, and drugs had been amazing.

With that in mind, Peter reached out for the rucksack and, after opening the top pocket, he drew out his notebook and a pen, and he started to write down the notes. He wrote down his impressions of the burglary, the things he had done wrong with the preparation stage; not bothering to properly check for ways to get to the house without blundering around the houses when he could have vaulted to the top and walked along the tops of the roofs. Peter knew there and then as he saw his own notes in black and white he was still thinking like an ordinary person. He was partly leopard like now, which meant he had the means of jumping up high or climbing on trees, and walking along rooftops, but his practice was limited.

He also made notes of what he had done wrong inside the house.

Checking the bathroom cabinet for prescription drugs and medicine was just the icing on the cake. The note taking was kind of therapeutic for Peter since he could, at last, write the whole experience down like a scientist making notes about an experiment so he could work things out in his mind. But the note taking became less and less like, so it was an analysis for him.

Peter felt as though someone had begun pumping liquid gasoline into his head. The idea of burgling Mrs Capshaw had been someone sparking the match, but the spark came from the burglary itself. Now his entire brain was on fire!

The burglary had opened up new possibilities for him, and later on, when he had returned home after meeting his uncle at the station and being driven home after he had eaten his dinner, Peter realised something important about what he'd just done.

He wanted to do it again.

Now Peter has become a thief, so much will change.

Until the next time...