I almost got caught immediately. BJ's dad was reading the paper at a bar next to the kitchen. Just as I realized he was there, moments after slipping inside, he put his paper down as if something was wrong. Thankfully, whatever instinct that helps with breaking-and-entering told me "Move dummy!" and I dove out of sight just as he turned to the sliding glass door and realized his son had left it open. Which he closed just as I hid behind the kitchen's island.

I heard BJ's mom head downstairs. She pounded her feet with every step she took, and made a Beeline through the kitchen towards her husband. She was loud enough that I could hear her coming, so I squirmed around the island like I was stuck to it, just out of sight of both of them. She started going off on her husband about some bills that were higher than they were last month, to which he kept saying "Mhm," "Yes dear," and "Uh huh," which seemed like the perfect time to move further into the house.

I crept into the hall and headed upstairs. I found what looked like BJ's room and headed inside. As expected, Carrie wasn't in here. Besides his mom, I don't think any girl ever had, and I was skeptical even she had been in here. Wrappers from fun-size bags of chips littered the floor, as well as empty soda cans and balled to-go bags from a number of local food joints. Dirty clothes were piled up in the corner of the room, and when I say pile, I mean I thought it was some kind of homemade bean bag when I walked in. A nasty stench hung in the air, like an invisible fog. I could almost feel myself parting it away when I moved my arms.

I didn't know what I was looking for, but this dirty-ass room wouldn't stop me. I kicked a ton of trash around, a cleared a spot to get on my stomach to start looking under his bed, which told me BJ cared a little about how his room looked, because it was chock full of filth that put the rest of his room to shame. I pulled out a pizza box, figuring BJ might have been hiding something inside, only to find half a pizza covered in mold. I put it back where I found it and kept looking, and caught hold of something sticky. I didn't care what it is — it could have been a note listing Carrie's exact location down to her latitude and longitude — but I was not touching ANYTHING sticky in BJ's room.

I reached further in, making a wide berth from where I last looked, and grabbed onto something metal. I wrapped my fingers around it when…

BANG!

A gun. Definitely a gun. It shot out from underneath the bed and landed next to me. Thankfully, the gun had been pointing towards the wall, so it didn't hit me, but BJ's parents DEFINITELY heard it go off. BJ's mom stopped yelling and it was quiet for a brief moment, then I heard both of them rush upstairs to check on the noise.

I looked around the room, trying to find somewhere to hide that wasn't under the bed. Even if I could fit under it with all that garbage, I would rather get caught.

My eyes landed on BJ's closet, which I jumped into just as both of BJ's parents burst in. As soon as they saw the gun, BJ's dad swore at the ton of his lungs and yelled "Joe!" as loud as he could. He and his wife bounded downstairs and opened the glass door and yelled his name again, taking the gun with them. A few moments later, BJ was back inside being asked why he had a gun in his house.

"I-I don't know how that got there!" He said.

"Oh sure." His dad said, "And I'm sure it just magically got there."

"Where did you even find it?"

"In the middle of your room, after it went off." His mom said.

"What?!"

"Don't you know anything about gun safety kid? What were you doing, keeping it under your bed? You're supposed to keep these things in a secure location UNLOADED where they can't go off outta nowhere."

"B-but—"

"How do you think we'd feel if it hadn't been just now? What if it had gone off while you were sleeping and the bullet hit you?"

"It shouldn't have gone off though!"

They continued to lecture him for a few more minutes before sending him to his room. He walked in with the kind of angry swagger only a whiteboy could pull off, grunting and hissing as he threw his fists in the air, like he was trying to punch the smell. He gave his bed a few whacks too before throwing himself on it, and fishing his phone out from somewhere in his blankets. He held the phone up to his ear and waited for a whoever was on the other end to pick up.

He then said "Thanks for getting me a jank-ass gun, asshole!"

A reply came from the other end, but I couldn't hear it, I imagined he said something along the lines of, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The gun you got me, it just went off out of nowhere. Under my bed, undisturbed, and my parents heard it go off and found it."

"You kept a loaded gun under your bed?"

"It shouldn't matter that it's loaded! It shouldn't go off on it's own!"

"What do you have under your bed exactly?"

"Rob, this isn't funny, if you can't give me weapons that don't go off and get me in trouble with my parents, I'm out of this, and I'll tell everyone—"

BJ stopped talking as Rob's voice boomed through the phone. I still couldn't tell what he was saying, but he was definitely angry.

"I-I'm sorry. I-I didn't know the gun was brand new. It must have been from um… moisture in the air or— or— a fire!" He paused and looked under his bed, as if he'd convinced himself there were flames.

"BJ, you know what I do to people who get in my way."

"Y-yes."

"You're not going to get in my way, right?"

"N-no of course not, Rob! I was just goofing around, I would never get in your way or the other guys' way."

"Good."

"Um, I might need a new gun."

"Just use the one you have."

"B-but, my parents took it."

"Then take it back, cause I'm not getting you a new one."

"Y-yes Rob."

The conversation continued, and Rob started talking for a long time with no reply from BJ. Whatever he was saying, it got BJ's interest. He looked both shocked, and excited, at the same time.

"R-really? You think we can pull off something that big?"

"No, I think YOU can pull off something that big."

"M-me?!"

"This is a one-person job, BJ. The more of us are there, the more likely we'll get caught."

"Yeah, but we did the job last night all together."

Rob went on, giving some unknown details on what BJ had to do on his own. He looked like he convinced him, but BJ didn't like whatever he had to do.

"T-tonight?" BJ asked, breaking out into sweat.

"Tonight."

"A-alright. I'll get on that. W-what if I get caught?"

"Don't."

"Right."

He said goodbye and threw the phone back on his bed, sitting down and taking a deep breath. Whatever big "job" Rob had him doing, BJ didn't seem to like it. And neither did I. Was this just another robbery, or were they going after someone on their hit list again? I hoped it was just a robbery.

Just as I was processing the half of a conversation I had just heard, and the other half that I mostly guessed, my phone vibrated in my pocket. A text. My hand fell over my pocket trying to muffle the incoming texts, but BJ heard the first one. He looked around his room, unsure if he heard something or not, when he got up and walked over to the closet slowly.

If his parents hadn't called him back downstairs just then, he would have found me. But it seemed like his folks had another lesson to give him on firearm safety. I wasn't sure if they'd keep him for as long as they had before, so I decided it was time for me to leave. I had other houses to break into.

I threw subtly out of the window, in a sense, and went through BJ's back into the yard. His dog hadn't finished going yet, and he didn't really seem to care about me as I ran far, far away from the house. I wasn't worried about BJ finding a window open that he hadn't before, with any luck, he'd think that had opened on its own too.

Admittedly, it was a really sloppy move to make, but the rush I had been since I went in and in the moment before I left was too much to bear for any longer. Though, admittedly, it was one of the nicer boosts of adrenaline I had felt recently. I was out without a trace… mostly.

I stopped running by the creek, covered in a thin sheet of ice, and pulled out to check who had messaged me. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was from Penny, and I excitedly told her what I had just done.

"You did what?!"

"Crazy right?"

"You're insane!"

"Did you only just realize?"

"No but I thought I'd remind you."

"Gumball, what you're doing is dangerous."

"But if there's a chance that you find Carrie, then you should take it."

"I'm being careful, I promise."

"I didn't find her at BJ's, but I did overhear something between him and Rob."

"What?"

I told her about the conversation between BJ and Rob.

"I don't like the sound of that."

"Me neither, but if it's only BJ, it can't be that bad right?"

"I don't know."

"Just get home before dark. Don't chance running into him. Don't forget they're after you too. He might take a chance at getting rid of you early if he finds you alone at night on the street."

"Right. I will. Thanks for looking out for me babe."

"One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Where are you right now? I wanna get a look around myself."

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