I don't own Frozen. Stolen Ice and its characters belong to Aesla. This fanfic takes place after the events of Chapter 51 and was written before future chapters were published.
With a violent heave, Anna pulled herself over the ledge of the museum's roof and collapsed on the ground, taking in deep breaths to steady herself as she let her duffel bag rest on the ground beside her. She was clad in black clothing and a beanie, her braids tucked behind her head but dragging over her shoulders.
She forced herself to reach out and grab the rope she'd been climbing, pulling on it to drag it off the side of the building and out of sight. Standing, still breathing hard, she stumbled over to the rooftop access shack and kneeled beside the door, prying open a power access box. The duffel bag came down and she pulled out a cheap laptop, rapid-firing fingerstrokes and glancing up at the control panel. Hefting a small box out of the duffel bag, she pressed it solidly against the access box and connected it to the laptop.
Step two complete.
Dragging her hook-pulley system out of the rest of the bag, Anna slipped her fingers around her bottle in the back and tossed it back, swallowing a few pills. She spat a mouthful of spit out and chucked the bottle back in to the duffel bag, kicked the rooftop access door open and descended, eyes on the ceiling.
She'd stared at the plans for hours. How did she make it look so easy? Two floors down. Up and into the tunnels. Three rights, two lefts. She'd be visible underneath the skylight but there were no cameras outside that would catch her through it. Get the party started, descend, grab the diamond, and get out before anyone was the wiser. It was a quick and easy grab, but if she was caught there'd be no talking her way out. It scared her.
Anna bent her fingers, hooked them around the edge of the vent, and pulled herself up, struggling and kicking the whole way, squirming like a fish into the tight space.
Her hands were calloused from working out in the vent in the corner- up, down, up, down.. It was like pull ups from hell. When she felt like she had the stamina, she'd throw in actually crawling through the vent, focusing on stealth, not speed. She still couldn't navigate the vertical tunnels silently. She was only Anna.
She dropped out from the vent onto the ceiling support beams, some fifty feet above her target. Narrow beams, thinner than her feet were wide. The support she'd need to hook herself up to was still a few paces away.
She practiced on an old gymnastic beam set up in her condo at first. Walk from end to end, then skip. Do it again until she would fall, get up, crawl back on, keep going. She tried to cartwheel only once before and her body's twisting had hit something near her stomach, and that was the end of her attempt. Her back slammed into the beam and she toppled off, crying out. She dug at her pocket desperately, but the bottle she pulled out was empty. Cursing, she threw it across the floor and just laid there, clutching herself, praying that nothing was bleeding internally.
She crossed slowly at first, one careful foot in front of another, then broke into a short run and cartwheeled, crossing the rest of the beam with a flourish. Hooking the pulley system up as quickly as she could-
"Again." She muttered, disconnecting the tangled ropes and weights. Again she set it up as fast as she could, dropping a weight, missing a thread. If this was for real she'd have dropped the whole damn thing on someone's head twice already. Only when she successfully set the damn thing up did she take a moment's breath.
"Again."
Anna fished her phone out from her back pocket and quickly swiped across to her customized program. She'd set this part of the plan up earlier today, dropping off a 'package' near one of the blocky sculptures in the museum's east wing, disguising it as one of the sculpture's own boxes. That had been Step One.
She couldn't help but grin smugly to herself as she hit PartyStart. There were now a few loose possums in the east wing. She tucked the phone away and glanced down at the exits to the exhibit. After a minute the two guards in sight answered their radios and dashed off to assist their coworkers.
This had been the hardest part of the plan. She had no idea how long they'd be distracted. All she could do was tell herself to do everything as quickly as possible. No mistakes. Get the jewel, get out. She knew the defenses.
A dull buzz was in Anna's head as she touched down on the ground, and shaking her head didn't clear it. Neither did smacking her temple with her palm. Gritting her teeth, Anna pushed forward, walking up to the jewel's case.
Just glass. The real issue was the motion detector in the stand, which would go off if a particularly heavy person was approaching it. That would activate the light grid around the case, and if something crossed a beam, the alarms went off.
Anna had sold them the design herself.
Getting up to the case was an exercise in patience, forcing herself to move as slowly as possible without it turning into a performance. Once there, it was all too easy to cut the glass and reach in, plucking the jewel from its pedestal.
"A."
Anna spun around, looking wildly. No one. Eyes up to the ceiling. No one. She was alone. A sweat broke out on her forehead and she tried to keep herself from hyperventilating, backing up into the jewel case.
The glass slid off the pedestal and smashed into the floor.
The lights went out, replaced by dim red glows. Anna broke into a run towards her harness, but a wall of beams lit up in front of her.
This wasn't part of the plan!
Solid light. Sizzling. Cutting her off from her escape route. Trapping her with the case. it was appropiate, in a sad way. She'd trapped her in a defense system much like this. Apparently its use was spreading. They hadn't mentioned installing this. No one had. In her preparations she'd calculated that if the alarms went off she had roughly two minutes before the guards were back on-scene. The seconds were counting down in her head.
There was no way through. No way, except.. hers.
Fly or burn trying.
Tucking the jewel into her pocket, Anna exhaled and studied the beams. Her vision was blurring.
The first few beams were easy. Duck, move carefully, put her weight on the floor. Limbs snaked through the lights and she was halfway out when she slipped.
She twisted, slammed both hands down onto the floor behind her. She was caught in a crab-like posture, back arched, bent over a laser beam.
Thirty seconds.
It took her everything just to keep herself where she was. Her feet slowly slid forward, unwillingly lowering her, and with a furious surge of concentration she forced them back and under, bent knees. One hand rose slowly, sliding over the beam. She'd have to put all her weight onto her knees and keep the rest of her vertical until she could pull herself over. Her muscles were screaming at her. She'd never done anything close to this.
Ten.
Inch by inch she pulled her other hand off the floor, supporting herself by her fingers, then fingertips, then.. like a miracle, raising both hands off the floor. Holding herself up over the beam.
She collapsed.
A distant explosion cracked the skyglass. Anna slammed into the ground, a searing pain in her back. The power was out. Back up plan: JaneDoe had activated. Spasming on the floor, Anna scrambled to her feet, ignoring the wailing of her knees and lunged for her harness, sliding into it clumsily and only half-strapped in when the lights came back on. Forgoing safety for getting the hell out of here, she began to pull herself up. Her back was on fire.
Seconds after she squirreled into the vents, the doors burst open and security ran into the room. Indistinct yelling. She climbed.
Anna dropped out of the vent onto her chair, vaguely thankful she had placed it there or else she may have cracked her head on the floor in the state she was in. Tearing off her beanie, she took a few minutes to stand, limping over to the diamond-blue box on top of the kitchen table. The jewel went in with the rest. She tore the turtleneck off, noting the diagonal hole in the back.
Another failure.
The bathroom mirror revealed her suspicions- a long red line stretched diagonally across her back. It stung, but it didn't sear. It looked like a welt more than anything else, but it was probably a burn. Her hands went to the medicine cabinet, grasped a handful of pills, and popped them back. A quick shower, pajama clothes, and she collapsed into her bed. It was then when she finally noticed.
She was cold. So cold.
It burned inside her like a venom, snaking through her arms and torso.
Cold.
It was happening again. Anna forced her eyes open, her breathing shallow. She forced herself to take deep breaths, scrambling off the mattress. Clammy. Sick.
Anna stumbled out the door, grasping at her throat. She had to purge. She had to get it out of her system. Falling to her knees her forehead slammed into the floor and she heaved, vomiting her stomach onto the hallway floor. It wasn't enough. Now her throat burned. She had to close the door. She had to lock the door. She had to get out.
Somehow she made it to the ground floor, clutching at her shirt, tearing it off. She needed to be found. She needed to be found. Not as Fox. They couldn't track her back to her condo. That was for her.
Anna broke into a blind run through the night, ignoring the pelting of icy wind on her skin. There was no one around. No one to find her. No one to identify her. Which one was more important? She broke free of the darkness and ran out into the lights.
"Young female, around 20, ...almost naked at the site of an accident. No form of identity on her, we're going with Jane Doe for now. Paramedics found her unresponsive and not breathing... they're attempting defillibration... but we've got the go ahead to classify her as deceased."
"Cause of death?"
"Overdose."
"Hm," Olaf said. "That's sad. I wonder if that would have happened if you had been there?"