A/N: Ok from now on unless there's something I absolutely have to say, there will be no A/Ns... Mostly so I don't inadvertently annoy anyone. I'm anxious. Anyway... Enjoy I guess?

Chapter 11: Heist?

Not much happened for the next week or so, and Rajan rarely left his room. I caught him a few times sneaking large amounts of food into his room and occasionally bolting down the hallway and into the bathroom.

For the most part, I ignored him and worked on Speakeasy. I spent the majority of my time in the living room, and at the end of the week, Atlas emerged from his room around noon for lunch, as usual, but after he ate, he sat down with me on the couch and watched TV. I smiled slightly.

He stopped hanging out in his room all the time after that, and though he didn't say much, he socialized a lot more. Rudy shied away from him at first, but eventually gave him a warm welcoming to the team via a bear hug and an invitation to play video games with him. Ritchie accepted him right off the bat when he finally came out of his room, explained that he'd only been a dick because he was worried, and then hugged him. Atlas had hugged back and they'd spent the rest of the day talking about how acrobatics can help keep your muscles from aching.

Not sure if anything they said was true, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Anyway, after a while we got a tip from Henry about a rather large amount of treasure suddenly disappearing from the local museum, and he vaguely made reference to a new person in town.

That got all of us, even Rajan and Atlas, into gear. Lindsey got to work finding the new person and Rudy fixed up the van a bit, even going so far as to buff out the dent from me punching it. Rajan started training, quite aggressively, and Atlas started doing some pretty painful looking stretches. Ritchie just grabbed his gear and made sure to grab some first aid in case things went awry.

Couldn't blame him for that, considering I'd had a concussion the last time I went on a heist and had gotten pretty beat up. Even being recovered, I would still most likely be at least slightly off balance due to the incomplete healing of my wounds from my encounter with Dodger. Not to mention I still had just the slightest bit of soreness from mine and Rajan's little romp. Internal injuries hurt me longer than external ones, mostly because my skin heals faster than anything else. My muscles, depending on where they are, heal pretty fast, too, but apparently that one didn't particularly want to.

Either way, it took us about a week to get into proper shape. Lindsey had a plan together by the end of it, and we had all been briefed by Saturday on what we needed to do. We set off on Saturday night to steal the stuff and possibly fight the new guy.

Unfortunately, if there was any fighting to be done with him, I was going to have to do it.

According to Lindsey, the new guy's name was Skyler. He was supposed to be a wolf, pretty thin and lanky for his species. He kept some bandages wrapped around his head and arms when out in public, and for the most part he looked pretty well harmless. He walked with a limp and for some reason, I doubted I'd have to fight him. As long as we did the job quietly, he would never even have to meet me.

When we pulled up to his block, Lindsey began pointing out each of our specific entrances and very briefly covering what exactly we were supposed to be doing again. It was mostly for her own benefit, so she knew we knew what we were doing and wouldn't have to worry about one of us having forgotten something she told us quite a few hours before. It wouldn't have been the first time, so she certainly wasn't just being paranoid.

We went our separate ways, Ritchie staying in the van, as he usually did, as the rest of us could do fine all on our own and he was mostly there for medical emergencies. I did most of the things that required lock-picking and he'd taught me everything he knew about it so he wouldn't have to do any of the so-called "dirty work". I was, quite obviously, fine with that as it meant there was more for me to do and therefore I had more of a chance to use my skills.

It took about an hour to get to the part where all of us met up and they handed off the job entirely to me and headed back to the van. This was my favorite part of heists. The part where I got to go all by myself into the belly of the beast to get the actual loot. I hated having to take people with me to get the loot, so this was nice.

I managed to sneak almost all the way to the room where we'd figured out all the stolen goods were when I made the most idiotic of all rookie mistakes.

I didn't look down when I walked into the hallway.

My mistake activated an alarm, a laser turret, flashing red lights, and a loud siren. I turned invisible and bolted straight to the treasure room, barely dodging the lasers as I did. I slid into the room, activating a second tripwire I had, again, not seen due to being an idiot. Thinking it was going to set off traps all through the room, I braced myself, hoping I wasn't standing over a pit or some sort of booby trap that would make me look like a damn fool.

Not that I didn't already feel like one.

However, the second the string broke, the stuff in the hallway stopped, and the door slammed shut behind me, locking. Well, I wasn't trapped by any means. There were lots of windows and doors I could get out through, even some vents. At least I hadn't completely screwed myself over by being a dumbass.

We had assumed that this Skyler character would sleep near his loot. We weren't entirely wrong to assume so. We were, however, wrong in assuming he would sleep in a separate room from his loot. In the middle of the room was a bed, and up against a wall on the other side of the room was a very comfy looking chair. In it sat Skyler.

He was staring in my general direction, though he seemed tired, and not annoyed or upset in the slightest..

"You can release the trick, Cooper." He was very soft spoken. "I know you're here. I know you're going to take my loot. I don't mind. As I don't have access to ThiefNet it doesn't do me much good to have it. I can't even make money off it."

I released the trick with only slight hesitation, and his expression barely even changed.

"Have at it." He said, and motioned around, "Take anything you want."

"... You're serious?"

"Absolutely."

I was wary of this. Why in the world was he so ok with this? Why wasn't he at least mad I was trying to jack his shit? Even if he couldn't sell it, why wasn't he at least slightly pissed off that I was trying to take his stuff instead of like buying it from him or something?

"I can tell you're questioning why I'm letting you take it, so allow me to explain. I don't steal things for the money. I do it for the thrill. So take what you want and go."

Something about his voice seemed off for a moment while he was speaking. I shrugged it off and took a few things, then spared a last glance at him as I went to leave through a different door. His eyes pierced into me. I shivered and quickly left. I didn't tell the gang about how it went, just said it went smoothly. They didn't question it. We went home and I spent the night wondering about this Skyler dude. Something, aside from the fact that he was completely ok with me taking his shit, was off about him. Something just didn't seem right.

I just couldn't figure out what it was.