Chapter 5 - Taken

The house had finally fallen silent after an unbearable amount of time.

"Well?" Natsu asked behind me, bouncing on the balls of feet, clearly raring to go.

I was gazing intently at the floor of the attic, watching the many souls fall dormant beneath our feet. The children were passed out in their rooms, and Matron's lackies were either knocked out cold in the living room - no doubt in a drunken stupor - or in their individual rooms. Matron herself was still awake in her office doing who knows what, but it didn't concern me. Tonight she was not my target.

I blinked and my eyes shifted back to focus on the solid floor.

"Everyone is asleep, except Matron. But she's holed up in her office."

"Alright! It's go time!" Natsu whispered excitedly.

"I'll head out then." I walked over to the futon, laying my body down and gave a sigh. My soul left easily and floated upwards, righting itself so I could stand once more on the floor.

"Don't bother bringing the money back here tonight." Natsu nodded to me. "Just chuck it out the window into the bushes. It'll save you time and we'll collect it when I teleport us out of here."

I stopped in mid step, giving him a weird look.

"What?" He wrinkled his nose at me.

"That's strangely a good idea."

"And what of it?" He frowned.

"It came from you."

He gave me an incredulous look before pointing to the attic door.

"Go on get." A small smile letting me know that he wasn't at all angry with me.

"Yes, sir!" I gave him a mock salute, but instead of passing through the intended door I simply dropped through the floor. I could hear him give a chuckle before the attic disappeared from my sight and I was on the next floor below.

I continued to drop down, counting the floors before I landed on the one that housed the adults. Might as well work my way down to the living room which was on the bottom floor. I got to work quickly. Hitting room after room, I took any and all cash I could lay my hands on. I did not bother to put things back as they were for I was not afraid of the repercussions tonight. Tonight I was going to rob them blind and they were going to know it. Each time I cleaned out a room I added to the steady but growing pile of cash hidden in the darkest shadow corner I could find. If anyone happened to stumble out into the hallway, they wouldn't see it - well unless they turned on the light.

I passed by Matron's office. Her door was closed and there was a light on indicating that she was still inside. The click clacking of pristine nails against a keyboard grated against my nerves. My only regret tonight was that I didn't have time to make her pay for all the things she inflicted on the pair of us. Sure, we were going to turn her in to the police and Pro-Hero's as soon as we got out of here, but there was a certain satisfaction to be had from delivering your own brand of justice.

I shook myself, stealing back my focus to the next target. I couldn't afford to lose myself tonight. Not when we were so close to our goal.

Finishing off the bedrooms, I gathered my haul and proceeded down to the first level. Sure enough I found the TV still on and several slumped figures snoring soundly on the couch. Beer bottles littered the ground along with fresh chicken bones and chips from a torn open bag. The place was an absolute pigsty.

It was times like this that I was grateful to be able to fly around as I was able to avoid stepping on the minefield that would have surely altered them to my presence. But first things first...

Proceeding over to one of the windows, I opened it and dumped my well earned spoils into the bushes below. A cool night breeze swept through and with it I looked up at the small parking lot that lay in the front of the house. The usual cars were there along with Matron's pink, and extremely expensive sports car. But there was a car that I did not recognize. It was black with its windows tinted, and it was pulled up right to the front of the house.

I gave a frown. Perhaps Matron had a late night visitor. It wasn't unheard of, but it was certainly uncommon. At the very least I had to hurry and warn Natsu so we could collect the stolen cash later without being noticed.

"Right." I spun around, eyeing the half dozen men in the living room. "Your turn."

It didn't take me long to find whatever cash they had on them. Granted it wasn't much as I had already hit their rooms where they stored the bulk of their cash. I dumped the few meager bills out the window and closed it.

"Mission complete." I grinned to myself.

"We did it. We're finally leaving this place." That thought in itself made my heart soar. My spirit felt lighter than ever and I pushed off the ground, shooting through the ceiling and upper levels of the house.

"Natsu must be impatient already." I paused on the second to last floor, an evil thought suddenly coming to mind. "One last scare before we leave."

Positioning myself beneath the center of the attic I vaulted upwards, letting myself be visible once more as I burst through the floor like the poltergeist I was.

"I'm back!" I gleefully announced.

There was nothing but silence.

"Natsu?" I called out, looking around for him.

Except he wasn't there. And neither was my body.

My eyes landed on the attic door and found it wide open, the padlocks that once imprisoned us now corroded and rusting on the floor.

A car engine started to life outside and I rushed through the attic ceiling, pausing when I got outside to orient myself. I located the source of the car engine and jumped off the roof, flying over to the front of the house. But what I saw made me pause.

It was Matron. She was standing outside on the steps to the orphanage talking to a strange man in a suit. I couldn't get a clear view of his face as it was mostly hidden behind a gas mask. He handed her a stack of cash while one of his associates slammed the back car door firmly shut.

"Pleasure doing business with you." The man bowed and started down the steps.

Matron's fingers skimmed over the cash, silently counting it out in her head before nodding back at the man.

"They didn't give you much trouble, did they?"

"None at all. Went right to sleep like good children." The man chuckled.

"Should have called you a lot sooner. Might have saved me some frustration." Matron laughed.

"Well if you come across any other promising candidates, you know our number." The man bowed once more, turning his back and getting into the passenger side of the car.

"Candidates?" I frowned at the word, wondering what in the hell he was talking about.

"Oh, I will." Matron purred, fanning herself with the wad of cash.

My eyes narrowed, a sinking feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. Quickly I focused my sight on the car, gazing beyond the shiny black paint exterior and to the occupants inside. Natsu's deep blue/green soul greeted my eyes along with the souls of the two men who sat in the front. A shiver shot down my spine when I fixed my gaze on the two men inside. The souls they had within them were suffocating and pitch black. I had seen black souls plenty of times in Matron's men, but they were often mixed with a variety of other colors depending on their mood that day. But these two, whoever they were, had no other colors within them.

The car wheels crunched against the gravel and sped away down the road into the night. I shot after them without a second thought, flying through the air at speeds I had never attempted before. The car continued to speed up and I was losing ground quickly. I locked onto Natsu's soul, willing every ounce of my being to reach him. With one final burst of energy I slammed myself forward through the back windshield of the car, quickly latching onto one of the front headrests to anchor myself to.

I looked back behind me, seeing Natsu passed out cold and my sleeping body propped up next to his. A brief sigh of relief at seeing both escaped my lips. I failed to take notice of the shiver that had passed over both of the men. One of them reached down and cranked up the heat to combat the sudden cold that had entered the cabin.

Knowing I couldn't hold on forever or risk losing my body and the car forever, I aligned my soul in front of my sleeping body and let go. My soul and body collided violently, carried forth by the speed of the car. I gave an audible wince as my soul slammed back into my body.

"You shouldn't be awake." The man with the gas mask shifted in his seat to study me. His voice was deceptively smooth, sending involuntary shivers across my skin despite the heated air being blasted in.

"Go back to sleep."

He reached for my face and I found that I couldn't move. Tried as I might, my body was paralyzed as his hand inched closer to my head.

Move, dammit! A voice screamed inside my mind. But my body did not heed the command.

"Shhh." The man whispered soothingly from behind his mask, and a fog rolled out from his palm, wrapping itself around my head until it was all I could breathe. My eyes fluttered and I felt my body grow heavy.

"That's right. Go back to sleep." The hand retreated from my face.

All I could do was obey and let sleep take me.