Chapter 10
It was Tuesday morning. My second day at DWMA. "I have to avoid making friends at school." I thought out loud as I strapped the knife to my thigh. I finished getting dressed, and shoved my dyed red hair into my hat. I picked up my make-up kit, and painted light freckles on my cheeks. Today I would make it my mission to retrieve the knives that Professor Stein took from me.
And, so I pushed my foot off the ground, and sped towards DWMA.
During the ride, I looked around me for any suspicious figures. During classes, and in the hallways, I looked around me for that Gang member. To them, we were the Grimms. To us, they were just the Gang. Ace, Kyle and Eric were the first to meet them. At the time, I was too young, and still in training. Ace and Kyle, being the oldest, taught Eric everything they know. They taught him how to escape tight situations, how to stalk targets, how to manipulate and negotiate, and how to blackmail and steal to get what he wants. All without ever getting caught. And, when the youngest sibling reaches their tenth birthday, they are allowed to come on real missions. This is celebrated by the children of our family. Our mother never knew about this, and all of us aren't too keen about her finding out. So, we committed minor crimes, and set up traps, and for every necessary and unintentional damage we caused, we paid for. But, not the Gang. They knew this, so they would frame us, and we would be forced to pay for the damage. Ace, Kyle, and Eric had part-time jobs over the years and when they pooled all their saved up money, they were able to eventually pay. (I pooled in my tooth fairy money). Ace and Kyle one day had an idea. They had gotten friendly with a group of architects who occasionally bought illegal contraband from Ace. They asked the architects to build them a space in an underground sewer. And they agreed to it. None of us had to pay because of Ace's kind services to them. Soon enough, it was done. And, though I was reluctant to step inside a sewer, I did anyway. All of us-except Jonathan, he was at a play date- walked through the sewers, following a list of directions handed to Ace from the architects. We took a turn, and were face-to-face with a stone wall. I let out a string of curses in Arabic. Ace looks up from the note of directions, and presses his hand against one of the stones on the left, and pushed. The stone moved. After pushing in some other stones, the wall opened up, leading them into a clearing. The floor and walls were all stone, and there was artificial light shining from the four lights on each corner of the room. Months later, various computers and PCs were set up on the farthest wall. Eric had bought me a professional makeup kit that got me starting on learning how to disguise myself to help with missions. Whenever we spent time in the sewers, we kept the TV on the news. Our missions would come from stories on the local news channel. If there was a wrongdoing in town, Ace, Kyle, Eric, and I would come up with a plan to fix that. But, in order to do that, we needed to break some laws. Our rivalry with the Gang was beginning to escalate by the time I was eleven years old. I had only been on one mission, but that was to hack into the computers controlling the public cameras in the area where my brothers would go stalk and intercept a the man who stole a woman's wallet. My second mission, when I was twelve years old, was a bit more exciting. And this time, I was the one to intercept the target. Eric was the one who originally stalked this target and gathered information on him. This guy was known to rob jewelry stores and whatnot, then sell it on the black market. Kyle hacked into his client's email telling him that I would meet him, buy something, then exchange "my" new email with him. After Kyle emailed the target, he shut down the account. Ace monitored the public cameras, and attached a tiny microphone to my ear. It was covered by the hat I wore. I remembered my jittery nerves, and how I ran the plan through my head over and over again. Of course, I didn't show it. I shoved my hands into my hoodie pockets, and kept a passive look on my face as I leaned against the wall. It was almost time for him to show up, and I desperately hoped there would be no unwanted guests before the target got there. After all, I was standing in an alleyway after dark. That never ends well. A man with a hood covering his face comes into the alleyway holding a briefcase. I push myself off the wall. I quickly brush the knife sheath under my shirt for reassurance. The only light was the light shining down from the moon. The moon before it changed. I pressed "record" on the microphone, and started the mission. We stood in the middle of the alley. I took my stance in front of him, and Eric took his place at the other end of the alleyway. He was also armed. The target stared at me. And then he knew. He had been tricked. He quickly grabbed his briefcase and ran towards the end of the alleyway, where Eric stepped out of the shadows and in front of the target. Eric, shrouded in darkness, cast a long shadow down the alley. I stayed where I was, hand on the hilt of the knife. He and Eric talked, while I recorded it. In a panic, the target swung his briefcase at Eric, who, in turn, ducked and sweep kicked him. The man fell, but quickly scrambled away, clutching the briefcase. I walked up behind him, knife out of the sheath. My brothers had told me that people are extremely dangerous when in panic. They had learned it the hard way, and barely managed to hide the scar from Mom. The man stood up, and ran towards me. I was momentarily shocked and confused, but noticed the pocketknife in his hand. I held up my knife, but Eric tackled the man from behind, thus knocking him out. Eric called the police, leaving an anonymous message. I left the recording device for the police to discover, and ran back to the sewers with Eric.
Liraz. Liraz?
I lift my head up. "What?"
"We're pairing up. You're with that guy."
"Kill me now."