Sorry about the short chapter. But I wanted to save this one, because I enjoyed writing it. (I HATE writing using 1st person). But although this is Marianne's story, its written as if told by an outsider. I figured it might sound better this way :)

The canteen hierarchy was obvious to any newcomer. Nearest to the door were the smallest, most decrepit tables, stained with ancient pizza sauce blobs, and caked in a thin layer of decayed food. These were home to a shy, retiring group of people, reading or studying whilst eating, paying little or no attention to the food before them. They were not friends, but drifted together, not out of hobbies or shared enjoyments, but out of pure fear for the next table's inhabitants…

Next to the windows, stood the newer tables, scrubbed with disinfectant before school every morning to ensure the surfaces were utterly unblemished, for this 'superior' race to dine upon. The rich kids. The 'popular' kids. The cheerleaders. All joined together each lunchtime, to pore over magazines, whilst fiddling with tiny dressing-less salads, to look 'totally hot' and skinny at that pool party next month, whilst their boyfriends sat sideways on stools next to them, fiddling with basket balls, and pretending to be interested. However, one of the cheerleaders, the shortest, blondest, and arguably prettiest, looked distracted. Marianne wasn't quite as distinguished as her so called 'friends' may have thought. Her family didn't have a four storey mansion. Their 'house' had 18 floors. However, different people occupied each one. Marianne and her family were storey 7. They had two bedrooms. A bathroom. A Kitchen, and a small cramped living room, with peelingwall paper, and suspicious mouldy growths in the corners. So, where was the billiards room? The library? The heated indoor swimming pool? Well, a single income from a Macys store assistant didn't have much capacity for a mansion. In fact, it barely paid the bills. Marianne's mother often came home with a deathly pallor, and black bruise like rings around her eyes, from working double shifts when the bills had to be paid. And it was visiting her mother whilst she was working one day, that inspired Marianne to begin the 'career' that would earn her a fortune, but one day be her downfall.

Marianne did not, as you would hope, see a homeless person being helped. Not even a cat being saved from a tree. In fact that was no act of unspeakable kindness that Marianne witnessed. Instead, she saw a small, skinny woman, dressed entirely in black, sneak an expensive looking jacket under her coat, and cautiously make her way to the door. Marianne's heart beat at twice its normal rate, willing this woman to get through safely. And she did. Once the woman made it outside, she whipped the bag from beneath her jacket, in front of a tall man in a pinstriped suit. He examined the bag thoroughly, before nodding his head, and producing a wad of cash. More money than Marianne had seen in her whole life. And to think, all that, for hiding a bag? She could do that in her SLEEP! When Marianne and her mother were leaving, Marianne excused herself to go to the toilets; however, she took a detour towards the purse & wallet section. She glanced around above her head, for CCTV cameras, and peered around displays for shop assistants. Seeing nobody who could report her, Marianne slid four purses into her oversized green coat, then hurriedly left the shop. Her heart fluttered like a caged butterfly as she walked past the security guards, but the big burly hand on her shoulder, and she deep voice asking her to empty he rpockets did not materialise. Instead Marianne walked freely into the dark, rain drenched high street, dodging puddles, and congratualting herself on her luck, and on a whole new oppurtunity.

20 year's later, Marianne West was at the top of her game, the number one stolen goods dealer in the USA. It had evolved, from purses, to jackets, to jewellery, to pure money. She kept a few jobs on the side of course, personal shopper, Librarian, Nursery Nurse. Ironic really that someone who would shoot someone dead in the blink of an eye, using a shocking pink revolver, should perform such ordinary jobs. But she did. And she did them well. So well, that no-one would've noticed. Marianne could be kind and sweet, but she didn't care who she killed, as long as it brought home enough to buy the mansions she always dreamed of. And those other cheerleaders? With the mansions and the pools? They started rich, married rich and would probably die rich in velvet lined coffins. But none as rich as Marianne. Though it wasnt always meant to turn out like this. It was a hobby, a help for the bills. Her mother belived her to have a saturday job, maybe in Mcdonalds, or a wallmart. Little did she know that Marianne used those saturday hours to exchange goods with the man in the pinstriped suit, the man she had tracked down, a week after her first stealing. But of course, it became obvious that Wallmart didnt pay in wads of cash. And a McDonalds salary wasnt thousands of pounds. So the sleepless night's returned for Marianne's mother, not because of overworkedness, but because of worry. Worry which eventually became too much for her. So Marianne's mother passed into one of her only uninterrupted sleeps, forever. And she never saw the mansions, the ferraris, the jewels. But Marianne kept going. The death of her mother only made her more determined to come out on top.

But you get too cocky. And criminals are, well, criminals. They don't have a moral code. They don't have a 'you helped me, I wont report you' chain of thought. Say, if one criminal was getting a littleeeeee bit worried about loosing business? So that said criminal might reach for his mobile phone, in the pocket of his pinstriped suit and give a certain detective certain details as to where Marianne would be that night? So that said detective could add yet another big shot criminal to the pile of them already littering up the prison cells.

Marianne didn't often personally exchange money anymore. But she owed this guy a favour. If she hadn't seen him buy that bag, back when she was sixteen, she'd have been living in a bedsitter right now. So Marianne figured she'd go along, get the cash, maybe give a quick note of thanks perhaps, and then leave.

But things don't always go as planned. People are always there to trick you. And that is why Marianne is sitting in a jail cell today.

You like it? Then review please! This has been my favourite chapter so far to write i thanks LemonDropDreams for reviews, and being ultra eager for the next chapter :) And Evanescant romance, for being generally awesome.