Heists and Vengeance

Seventeen

Lana

Lana gaped at Brett, who was now hopping from foot to foot. "I need to pee," he repeated. "I need to pee, like, so bad."

"What- no. You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm not!" He looked at her, biting his lip. "Look – there's a bathroom in there. Let's just go back in, real quick-"

"Absolutely not. It's too dangerous." She shook her head, backing away. This heist had gone perfectly – she didn't want to jinx it.

But Brett seemed insistent. "Come on. We can do it – look how well it went just two minutes ago. I promise I won't take long, I just need to go to the bathroom so that I don't wet my pants. Please, please, please, pretty please with the cherry on top and all the whipped cream and sprinkles and everything-"

"Okay, fine! We'll go back in!" Lana had the feeling she was saying that only to get Brett to shut up.

He grinned at her, and raced back inside, careful to stay quiet. She stood there, dithering. Should she go back in? Or was it safer to stay out? Finally, she decided to reenter the house, worried that the security guards might finish their rounds and see her.

She followed Brett inside, filled with unease. It had gone so well earlier that she was worried that trying to go return was just pushing their luck. The fates may not be so merciful a second time.

But there was nothing she could do about it now. She stepped inside the house and tiptoed up the stairs, where she could hear the faint noise of Brett hurtling inside a bathroom. Quieter, she mentally chided him.

Lana walked across the landing, trying to follow the same route Brett had used to get to the study – maybe she could find something useful there. Then the group would definetly accept her as one of them.

The others had been nice, but Lana was painfully aware of her position as an outsider. Whenever they made jokes, referencing a previous heist or experience she hadn't been a part of, she just sat there silently, unsure of how to react. It wasn't that they weren't welcoming – Brett and Erin had both invited her to spend time with them, Cole had offered to give her sharpshooting lessons, and Ryder had also dropped in to chat with her from time to time. But she knew that she was regarded as the novice, the beginner, the new kid. Maybe this could change that she thought.

Her grand plans were derailed just minutes later, when she became hopelessly lost. She took one wrong turn after another, the more unfamiliar her surrounding were, the more hesitant she became.

Finally, she stopped, figuring that the best couse of action would be to retrace her steps to wherever Brett was, and to get out of the house quickly. She turned around, and started heading back, when something caught her eye.

It was a room that seemed like all the others, but something about it seemed different, though she couldn't place her finger on exactly why. She frowned, placing a hand on the handle, and slowly turning it.

It was locked.

Suddenly, she realized what had seemed off about it. The room wasn't protected by a passcode – no, this was your regular lock and key. She remembered the gate outside, which too had a padlock on it. Some things her protects electronically, and some in a more traditional way, she thought. But why?

She studied the door again. Maybe there was something inside she could present to the team after all. She bent to inspect the lock, and reached into her pocket for the safety pins she kept in there in case of an emergency. She was a journalist – she had to be ready to document any story she saw. Hence the pen, pencils and post-its that she kept in her pocket, with paperclips, incase she had to keep her documents together.