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Mickey and Strap silently ran to the door and opened it, revealing a dark man cave. He let her go in first and shut the door behind them. Somehow, this was exactly what she imagined it would look like. Dead animals were everywhere. Trophies, rugs, blankets. It was like his only form of decoration had to come at the deaths of others. He even had an implausibly tall bear statue in one corner.
Not to mention the whole room reeked of cigars. Mickey’s nose almost burned at the smell.Disgusting.She saw a bookcase, all dolled up with baseballs in them. Six, to be exact. They looked strange and were all different sizes. One was even almost as big as a softball.
Mickey walked over to the shelf, Strap close behind her. He admired the balls for a minute before walking away, leaving her to bask in the case’s soft glow in the dark room.
She took care not to touch the glass, instead taking her time looking around the case for a seal she could open.Maybe I can laser-cut a circle into the glass? Or remove the panel altogether?Her brain was trying to rack together a solution as Strap slung an arm around her shoulders.
“This one, wecando old school.” He flashed a key in front of her, eliciting a shoulder jerk from Mickey. As he chuckled, he unlocked the case’s door. With a softclick,the cabinet opened up its prize.
They each grabbed for a ball, and Mickey swatted his hand away. Strap scoffed and reached out again.
“Hey, I’m the one with the backpack. I’ll hold onto these.” Her voice carried a little farther than she would’ve liked. As she closed her mouth, scared to attract attention, Strap picked up another ball.
“As if I don’t have one as well.” Strap tugged on the straps of his bag, and Mickey was surprised to see that even actively shifting, he was keeping track of a knapsack.
“Fine, we’ll each take three.” She would compromise, wanting to get this over with. Her watch ticked, reminding her to check the time. As she did, relief washed over her at the sight that they still had plenty of time to get out of there.
They wasted no time in silently closing the cabinet and heading back to the door. Just as her hand touched the doorknob, the sound of hushed voices came from the other side. Mickey’s face fell as the footsteps headed toward the office door.
She stumbled back, looking for somewhere to hide. Anywhere. But there was nothing. The whole office was an open-concept room with stuffed wild animal displays, and the one large desk had a giant gap in the middle where a body was easily be seen. They were fucked. The windows led off the cliffside, so jumping out of them was almost a guaranteed death. She looked at Strap, whose eyes matched hers in diameter. She was scared. His fear was directed towards her, though, as he made his way over with haste.
In the quietest voice, Mickey put her shaking hand on Strap’s chest. “I don’t know what to do.” She needed him to be the brains because, for the first time in a heist, she was about to fall apart.
TWENTY-FIVE
STRAP
Seeing the fear in his mate’s eyes struck Strap harder than a punch ever could. She looked so scared, and he immediately wanted to do anything to fix the issue. It was easy to see that Biagini was obsessed with ferocious animals, so when Mickey gently touched his chest and asked him for help, the plan conjured itself in his mind.
He pushed her to the floor, shifted into a panther, and wrapped his razor-sharp teeth around the back of her neck. Mickey’s eyes were closed in fear, and she assumed a comfortable, splayed-out position. He only hoped that she would understand where he was going with this plan since he had no time to explain.
The two guards walked in the door, and every muscle in Strap’s body stiffened as he held his position over Mickey, jaw unhinged in a frozen attack. Her body was pinned under him, and thankfully she wasn’t moving at all.
“Jesus Christ! What kind of sick art is this?” The guard’s light flashed down at the two, and it took every inch of restraint for Strap not to blink with the flashlight in his eyes.
“Biagini is a sick fuck, having a stuffed display of something so gross.” The other of the two guards piped up, his head turned away from them.
“It does match his personality, though.” The first guard chuckled, his deep laugh bouncing around the office.I guess sound really carries in here.He should have been quieter.
The two guards made a few more digs at Biagini before groaning about having to get back to work and leaving the room. Strap’s mouth came off his mate’s neck, and he gently licked her as she clambered to sit up and flicked him in the nose. He lifted a paw up to rub it before licking the injury.
“Stop pushing me on the floor. Next time you do, I’ll pluck out all your whiskers.” She huffed, grabbing her backpack and sliding it on.
Strap exhaled heavily, shifting into a human and grabbing his own pack, something he was surprised Mickey didn’t notice him carrying.
Although every time he looked at her, her mind seemed elsewhere. He wondered what secrets she was keeping, especially trying to leave him out on their mission together. He couldn’t blame her, though. He was going to do the same thing. Except he would have come back for her. Hopefully, she was coming back to him.Hopefully.
They snuck out of the office, taking care not to alert any of the roaming patrols to their presence. Retracing their steps, they made sure to stay far behind the two guards who had come into the room. One of the guards was practically asleep, which made Strap chuckle to himself. The security seemed top-notch from the outside, but with workers like that, it really was just a joke.
He led her outside, and together they sprinted into the wooded area away from the property. Just as they were out of the house’s range, Strap grabbed the back of Mickey’s backpack. It was now or never. He needed all the balls to keep her safe, and he was not going to let her run off and sell them to the black market.
“What are you doing?” she whisper-shouted at him, her movement jerking back with his tug. She whipped around and held the straps of her backpack tightly against her shoulders. Even in anger, her eyes wandered down to his chest, and it almost brought a smile to his face. Being in shape was nice, but the only one he really wanted to notice was his mate.
“I need the rest of them.” Strap tried to keep his voice calm, but Mickey’s gaze was suspicious. He quietly prayed that she wouldn’t ask too many questions, or he was going to have to explain a lot more than he could. Not now, not in the middle of the woods when they weren’t completely out of danger yet.
“No! You hand yours over.” She held out her hand as if he was just going to give up the purpose of his mission for her. To be fair, he would if there were any other way. If she wasn’t just a petty thief trying to sell off the one thing that was going to save her life.
“Why do you even need them?” she stammered. “You are rich enough. What’s the importance of these?” Her tone was more aggressive than normal. He’d noted earlier that a patrol came into the woods, and they were all heavily armored. More so than the inside guards. They were running out of time in more ways than one.
