Page 3 of By Hook or by Wolf

I move carefully down the stairs. It’s completely black except for my flashlight. This is where things are going to get a little difficult for me. I’m doing my best to stay calm and keep moving through my breathing exercises, but my heart?

It wants to race.

This is getting exciting. This is the part of the adventure where I want to freak out and celebrate prematurely, but I know that I can’t. I have to stay focused if I’m going to have any shot at getting this stupid jewel and getting out before I inevitably trip something.

One thing I’ve learned is that no matter how much you prepare for something like this, there’s always going to be a mistake somewhere.

Making mistakes is how we learn as people. It’s how we change and grow and become better, but mistakes are also what get us killed, and I don’t want to get killed. There’s too much at stake for me now. I have too much to live for.

By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs, my heart rate has slowed to an appropriate pace. Good. If there are heartbeat sensors down here, they’re going to be hard to see. Usually, the tech is still fairly big and easy to spot from a distance, but it’s pitch-black down here. The only light is coming from my flashlight and my wrist unit.

I move forward.

Step by step, I inch down the hallway. I’m deep in the ground beneath the gallery now, and I’m a little overwhelmed by the scent of dust and mold in the air. I mean, I understand that the building is abandoned, but they should at least consider having someone come in and sweep once in awhile, right?

I swear, if I sneeze and that’s what gets me caught, I’m going to freak out.

Carefully, I move. One hand rests on the stone walls beside me. The stone is cool beneath my touch and keeping my palm on it offers an easy way to make sure I don’t accidentally run into anything. I pass one room and then another. The hallway curves, but I keep going, determined. It shouldn’t be much farther. If my calculations are correct, the main room where the jewels were stored should be just up ahead. Sure enough, the hall turns one last time and then it comes to an abrupt stop in front of a big, red door.

“Well,” I whisper to myself. “What have we here?”

The door looks more like a wall than an actual door. The only thing that distinguishes it, really, is the fact that it’s different from the rest of the walls. It’s red, for starters. It’s also made out of metal instead of stone. Reaching out, I place my hand on the red door. There is no knob: no lock to pick. There’s no keypad. There’s nothing.

This is where the jewel is, though.

So how do I get inside?

Preparing for my adventure didn’t offer any indication that I’d have to go through some sort of weird, secret door without a lock. I mean, how am I supposed to thieve if I can’t even get close to the jewel? Frustration threatens to overtake me, but that’s when I notice a small black stone in the wall beside me. It stands out from the rest of the stones because it’s smaller and a darker color than the others.

It’s an alarm, and it’s definitely angled directly at the door.

So I can try to get inside this door, but if my heartbeat gets too high, or if I feel stressed, or if there’s any amount of anxiety that comes over me, I’m going to be screwed. The reality is that at this point, I’m basically at the end of a maze. I don’t think there’s any way I’d be able to escape from down here.

There are no windows and no other exits.

There’s only the exit I came from.

With a sigh, I close my eyes.

Okay, think.

What should I do now?

What would I do if this were my mystery?

I don’t fancy myself any kind of creator. I don’t write books or sonnets or songs. I can’t create stories that make people cry or swoon or feel any sort of emotion. I can’t paint beautiful paintings or craft sculptures.

The only thing I can do is steal.

If I was going to set a trap, though, for something special and important to me, how would I do it?

The lack of doorknob and keypad is decidedly obvious, I think. Whoever designed this wanted to keep most thieves out of the room. They wanted to lock their items away and honestly, a door without any means of opening. Most people would take one look at it and just go away. It wouldn’t be worth their time. Either that, or they’d think there wasn’t anything back there, anyway.

I know better.

And I didn’t come all of this way just to turn back now.

At this point, I don’t even care that I’m going to get paid to steal the jewel. The owners aren’t using it, so I don’t feel particularly bad about taking it. Isn’t it better to take items that are locked up and hidden away, rather than letting them rot in the dark?

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