I don't own Tomb Raider, unfortunately.

Please let me know what you think overall.

Lara.

The Wardrobe.

Lara and her friends got out of their van. "How far is it?" She asked John as she looked around the street after he and Ash came back. John had stopped the van ten minutes ago after they had arrived and parked up in their current stop. When they had parked, both John and Ash had run off down the street and they'd turned right, and they'd been gone for ten minutes or so before they came back.

As she stood on the street Lara shivered as the night breeze penetrated her jacket. It was late at night and the streets seemed quiet, but Lara was left wondering if this was a good move.

People tended to be at home at night.

"It's just around the corner, but we're going in through there," he replied as he joined Flip and Monkey with the large tool bags, pointing carelessly in the direction of a large gate opening out into an alley that ran down the length of the back of the street.

Lara barely batted an eyelid when she took them in. She knew what was inside of them. Most burglars broke into places using crowbars, drills, and torches, preferring a rough and ready approach to get inside. Lara had always believed burglary was about burglars being good at cracking safes, opening doors with lockpicks like the movies described before the burglars went off with priceless pieces of art or shining jewellery, but the reality was far different.

But she returned to her earlier concern. "Is she inside?"

"No, while she might be a heartless bitch, she has a raucous nightlife. It's rare she doesn't return here with a new guy every night."

Lara nodded, accepting the explanation without any more questions on her mind. She didn't really want to hear about that side of Astrid O'Connell's life. For the last 24 hours Lara and her friends had spent their time going over what was known about Astrid O'Connell, with John going over her sources about the woman.

Astrid O'Connell, who had a different surname (what possessed the woman to change her name, Lara did not know nor care) and life before she established Dosh4You. She had apparently gone by the name Astrid Porter, and she had ditched her name and she had gone as far as to refuse to head for her parent's funerals. God, what a bitch.

Once she went into business, setting up Dosh4You, she quickly took the concept of loansharking to new heights. But what sickened Lara the most was how everything they did was legal. Everything was done according to contract; Dosh4You handed out loans, no problem and they simply asked for a refund. Okay, that made sense.

But that was where their lack of morality came into it. Lara had never encountered loan sharks, but she had heard of them. To her, they were predators who took advantage of anyone who got in their way. But Dosh4You took the whole idea down a completely different route. They offered money with a smile on their lips, and a knife at their back. They gave unrealistic deadlines for their money to be returned, and if you didn't pay up then they would send in their own brand of bailiffs. What made it worse was no matter how many times they were sued, no judge could touch them since everything that they did was legal.

Lara didn't understand why people fell for the con that companies like Dosh4You. And then Chantelle gave her a piece of good advice.

"That's the trouble with the world, Lara. The world is not like what people think it is, its not a nice one where the roses smell nice, and everyone wears a smile on their face. Everywhere you go, there is someone lying about something new, or something that's essentially too good to be true. That's Dosh4You; all loan companies are legalised loan sharks, without the punches and the harassment since they have the law on their side. Do you think the cops really care, even those who joined to put people like us inside? But Dosh4You and other loan companies play the same con all over again, and everyone falls for it. They see the loans as free money, and they don't bother to look at what will be coming until its too late."

When Chantelle had laid that down on the line in front of Lara, the brunette had accepted the logic. But she was still troubled by the reality of what she'd heard.

It took the gang a few minutes to snip off the padlock to they ran down the alley, past the numerous rubbish bins until they found the right gate in the alley.

"Here it is," John opened the gate grinned under her mask Once through the gate the gang ran across the lawn, quickly rushing towards the edge of the garden when the security lighting switched on. Lara flinched with shock as the light came on and it seemed to blind her before she realised what it was, and she looked around the garden, hoping the light couldn't be seen by the neighbours. Unfortunately, they could.

Fuck.

Hopefully, nobody would see them and call the police.

Once they were by the backdoor, John slipped out a can of black spray paint and he popped off the top and he sprayed as much of the paint across the light and the sensor until the light went out.

A few minutes later, Lara was stood in the back garden while Flip and Monkey worked on the door with an oxyacetylene torch to cut through the lock.

"There, easy," Flip grinned as the torch went out and he opened the door. Lara grinned as she walked into the house with her friends.

"Okay, everyone. Let's get started. Flip, go to the van and find a closer parking space," John said, passing Flip the keys to the van, "the rest of us can get started."

The burglars went upstairs, Lara noting the fine decor as they moved through the house. There were enough things in this house to earn them a small fortune alone, and that was sited right next to the money and jewellery the woman was likely to have. All of it was paid for by bleeding people dry. The very notion made Lara want nothing more than to strip the house to the bones, and burn down what was left. Leave her with nothing. It would serve her right for all the pain she had caused over the years. There was no doubt in Lara's mind that Ash's family was the only one to suffer for no good reason. She also wondered how many of them had also gone through the same misery and stress.

Lara had never met loansharks before, but it sickened her there were legalised forms of it who were allowed to sit in cosy little offices and pass out loans…only for them to bleed their victims dry until they had nothing left. What made it worse was it was all allowed. Following Chantelle and Flip into the master/mistress bedroom, Lara could not help but whistle in admiration.

"Bitch sure does live well, doesn't she?" Lara looked around the room.

Chantelle walked over to the dressing table. "Yeah, she does," she replied, taking out what jewellery there was inside. Meanwhile in the en-suite bathroom, Flip whistled.

"What is it?" Monkey called after hearing the sound of the whistle.

"Look at these!" Flip came out, holding a large stash of pharmaceuticals. Lara blinked at the number of plastic bottles Flip was stuffing away in the shoulder bag on the ground.

"Well, we've learnt a couple of things about Astrid O'Connell; she lives well, and she appears to be a hypochondriac," Lara began while she walked over to the wardrobe to begin looking through the bitch's clothes for anything that they could flog. Mm, she had just found a nice selection of expensive-looking high heels. Lara grabbed a couple of handfuls worth and dropped them in her own bag while all of the burglars stripping the house were taking extra care not to leave any sign they had even been there.

They had plenty of time though. They knew that Astrid O'Connell worked from 9 to 5, and she always usually went out for a night on the town, letting her hair down.

That was telling. Lara privately believed the woman deep down knew how lonely she was, which only made her lash out at the world. But O'Connell was only interested in one night stands, and she didn't seem to want any kind of long term relationship.

Whether or not she was wrong or right, Lara neither knew nor cared. She had formed her own opinion just by looking Ash in the face, and seeing what this bitch's company had done to them. And it was not just Ash. What about the other victims? For a moment Lara wondered when the woman discovered she had been burgled, and if she would even advertise it.

After a moment Lara decided it didn't make any difference for them.

This was a kind of diluted justice the way they were concerned.

Ordinarily house burglaries took as long as 10 minutes, but considering the homeowner was out, John and the others had been prepared to take the chance of going for a longer job. From what John had learnt about the woman, O'Connell usually spent several hours out, and only just managed to return home after a long night of drinking and clubbing. But sometimes she would come home after a few hours regardless, so John had estimated they had plenty of time.

And they had.

They had got a lot of stuff from the house stored inside the van already; they had clothes, accessories, shoes, DVDs, CDs, drugs (pharmaceuticals), books, jewellery, and they were currently stripping out an expensive movie theatre in the house.

The burglary, John had judged, would need to be at a minimum almost 3 quarters of an hour-long, but all of them were prepared to get out as quickly as they could, or they could find a place to hide within the house and make their way out later; John had trained all of the burglars in his gang to respect those rules.

Indeed sometimes the training would take place during a real burglary. John expected his people to be prepared to use their common sense if they couldn't get out in time. They were focusing on clothes, small electronics, pharmaceuticals and jewellery. Nothing more. They had been at the house for half an hour, and John and Monkey were by the van, carefully putting the stuff in the back. The two men weren't bothered much about being seen by the residents. Not only had they parked on a corner, but there were hedges obscuring the view of the windows, and nobody on the other side of the road could see them anyway. John had been watching this place carefully for the best parking spaces, and he found them.

But trouble was waiting for them.

John, who had taken the task of being the watchman who would alert the others to O'Connell's return, was standing outside the van waiting for Monkey to come out with the last bags when he heard a car. Instantly stiffening, John quickly made his way to the front of the van and he made his way around.

John was a curious and cautious man who lived his life on the edge, and he was more than a little paranoid. He had been caught once by the police, and the experience had taught him many life lessons, lessons he had no intention nor desire to ever ignore.

John turned around the corner of the van to take a look at the car, hoping it was not the car Astrid O'Connell used. The sight that met his eyes filled him with horror.

Astrid O'Connel drove a Porsche in neon yellow. The car coming towards him was too identical to be a coincidence.

With reflexes born out of paranoia when it came to homeowners, John grabbed his mobile. Within seconds he was telling the others in the house Astrid O'Connell was back.

"She just appeared out of nowhere. Can you get out?"

"John, Chantelle and Lara are upstairs. Ash and I are out of the house. I can't go back for them-," Flip was speaking on the phone to John from the back garden where he was standing with Ash, who was on the phone to Lara and Chantelle.

"Can you two get the fuck out of there?"

Lara was looking cautiously over the stair rail. Already a giggling Astrid O'Connell who sounded more than a little tipsy, and some tall man with dirty blond hair wearing a dark jacket. They were nearly at the top of the stairs and there was no way past them. Lara was presently kicking herself for breaking into a small private movie studio in the house - why the woman even had it, they didn't know, but it was stuffed full of luxuries the gang couldn't resist stripping it bare of everything in sight.

In the meantime, Lara and Chantelle had both been going through the other parts of the house, and they were near the bedroom when they received the dreaded call. Astrid O'Connell was home, and by the time Lara and Chantelle had got the stairs to run down, back through the house, through the garden, and safely to the van, they realised it was too late. Lara looked down grimly at the sight. Even if they could somehow sneak past them, they might very well be seen.

"We need a place to hide," Lara hissed to Chantelle. "There's a wardrobe in her bedroom. We can use that."

The two female burglars made their way to the bedroom, and they had just entered the wardrobe when the sound of tearing clothes and snogging reached their ears. Chantelle and Lara watched the scene, disgusted but unconcerned by the sight of the pair of them having sex. The two burglars knew that they only needed to wait for a little while before they could make their way out back downstairs.

Finally after five minutes of listening to the sounds of the pair of them as they fucked each other, Lara and Chantelle quietly opened the wardrobe, and gently and carefully crawled out without making a sound, and they made their way out of the room. The two female burglars reached the top of the stairs before they both stood up, and they slowly made their way down the stairs, knowing from their training not to run down, not unless they wanted to be chased.

But they did run, but only when they got to the garden. It was a relief for both Chantelle and Lara when they were at the van.

X

"LOAN BUSINESSWOMAN DEAD IN BED!"

Lara looked at the newspaper headline two days later, while she was sitting eating her lunch at lunch. While to the other couriers didn't see any kind of concern about the newspaper headlines, Lara was far from unconcerned. Indeed when she had first seen the headlines and saw the picture of the familiar bedroom with the body removed, and the face of the facade Astrid O'Connell liked to present to the world, as a stern, expressionless, businesswoman who was unafraid of getting what she wanted and didn't care about looking like a battle-axe even if it marred her good looks the side of the article, Lara had almost thrown her lunch aside. But when she had spent a good minute reading over the facts presented in the article, she had calmed down and ate her lunch which mulling over what she had just learnt. Already the police had discovered the signs of a burglary; that was not hard for them to do, really considering the wardrobe had been stripped bare as hard other parts of the house, but because they believed the woman had been murdered by the burglars instead of coming out and saying the burglary had been taking place long before the murder and even during the time the woman had returned the police only had one line of inquiry.

At least according to the article.

Lara had no doubt that at some point somebody would come to see the burglary and the murder were not linked but were completely different things.

At that moment, her mobile went off. Lara leaned forward and saw it was John.

After putting her lunch away, Lara went outside and walked down the street where she'd have a few minutes of privacy. "John, I've just seen it," she began without preamble.

"Yeah. Did you also notice the police are fixing the murder and the burglary together? As long as they think that, then they won't realise we were there earlier."

"That won't be a problem, will it?" Lara asked, letting a touch of anxiety seep into her voice. She knew that Ash and John both fixed fake plates to the van each time they went on a burglary; thanks to Ash's resources it was easy to accomplish, but there was always the chance somebody had seen them close up enough to make an accurate enough description for all of them.

"Of course not, Lara. We all took precautions, and you know it. But we need to part ways for now. I've already told the others, and they're making their own plans for the time being."

Lara remembered the plan, but she wondered if they would all come back together. She knew the longer they would be a part, the more the others would have found their own paths, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. "For how long?"

"I don't know. I need to find people who will buy the goods or store them all for later. I haven't come up with a decent enough plan to sort through the various issues. I don't know if we should sell it all slowly, or simply store it. I don't want to use a fence unless I need to, but I definitely do not want a repeat of last time."

"No, we don't," Lara agreed softly while she made her own plans for the intervening period. After a moment she decided to think about them later, and she simply focused on the conversation at hand. "So, apart from looking for new contacts, what will you be doing?"

"I've got enough money left over from the last burglaries, Lara. I'm gonna go down south, spend a few days. I grew up in Sussex. It would be good to see the old place for a short time."

"How long, John?"

"I'm hoping for a month. I've told the others I'll be in touch by then, and I will."

"Okay. Take care," Lara would have asked John more about his plans if she didn't know how paranoid he could be, but she did know him so she didn't bother.

"And to you. Goodbye, Lara."

"Goodbye John."

When they cut the connection, Lara leaned against the wall and blew out a breath. What was she going to be doing for the next month? The gang had split like this before after a burglary, but with a murder case ongoing now, it was even more important they stay apart.

She glanced back at the courier firm and she wondered if she would even be here for another month.

Little did she know the upheavals in her life that were to come.