The Circle of the Paw

Chapter 13

     From the darkness underneath the dumpster, the two cats watched as a woman knelt before a young girl across the street. Akhi and Halima looked on as the woman fussed with the zipper on the faded blue coat of her daughter. The mother's frustration grew with every failed tug upwards. The mother gave up and exhaled before casting her eyes downward. She stood up, the coat unzipped in the cold autumn air, and took her daughter's hand. Akhi could hear the mother scolding her daughter for forgetting to pick up supplies for a school project. The cats watched as the two humans exited the awning in front of Hope's Place, a 132-unit housing residence for the formerly homeless, and walked on the sidewalk towards the stores of Chestnut Street.

"I hate these apartment jobs," Akhi whispered to Halima. "Why can't we just stick to robbing stores?"

A car sped by on the street, splashing puddle muck onto the curb in front of them.

"What?"

Akhi furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance. It had been three moon cycles, or three human months, since he had joined up with the Legion of Mischief. In that time, he had decided that robbing apartments and houses was his least favorite of their usual stick-up targets. He much preferred knocking over grocery stores, bodegas, and warehouses near the dock. Seeing the actual homes of his victims made stealing distasteful in Akhi's mind. It was almost enough to remind him that he was taking something from a real living person, and not just the contents of a lifeless building. Almost.

But Akhi kept at it. The stakeouts, the sneaking, the stealing. On nights like these, where he faced a hundred threats from a dozen directions - people, traps, cars, poison, other animals - his anxiety and quick reflexes came in handy. For once in his life, he had found something that he was not only good at, but great. Thanks to Misha's training all those months ago, it was almost as if Akhi was able to sense a threat before it arose. This particular skill meant that Baldwin, the second in command only to Roman, personally requested that Akhi accompany him on all of the large rat's robberies. 

"What did you say?" Halima repeated as she poked Akhi in the ribs.

"Why are we here?" Akhi shot back in frustration. He hated having to crouch under dumpsters to hide from the street. It reminded him too much of when he was a kitten.

"You know why. The Circle of the Paw has stepped up their patrols around the pet stores and human shops, and these apartment buildings don't allow large pets," Halima answered.

If things were going to plan, Baldwin and a dozen of his most trusted rodents would currently be on the second floor of the building, sorting through some unlucky person's valuables. Akhi thought about the mother and daughter he had seen leaving the building. He wondered what floor they lived on. He imagined the cash strapped single mother returning to overturned boxes of cereal and apples with bite marks on them. The image stuck in his mind.

"I just don't like when we steal from actual people, is all."

"You don't mind stealing from stores, though?" she asked sarcastically.