Of Thieves And Do Gooders

There was a moment of silence in which both Hayden and I stared at the light on my chest and then--quite abruptly--Hayden's hand found it's way to my chest and I stiffened, "H-hey! Watch it!" I shouted, jerking away from him, my face a little red with frustration. Every second he got he was trying to either see me naked or reach down my shirt!

...Then again, I was a guy, so it really wasn't too uncommon to be shirtless...and it wasn't as if he was expecting to find anything…unusual if he reached down my shirt, besides something glowing.

"Well, what is it?" Hayden asked in irritation.

I reached down my shirt and blinked several times in the blinding light that was coming from something hanging around my neck.

"...My necklace." I murmured, pulling it from around my neck and holding it gently in my hands.

"Why does it glow?" Hayden wanted to know.

But, frankly, I had no idea, it had never glowed before. "I...er...I'm not sure." I admitted with an invisible grimace. I held my necklace between my fingers and ran my fingertip over the back of it, finding nothing but the smooth metal it was crafted from. "Well, whatever the reason, it's pretty nifty right now." I pointed out with a shrug.

I lifted the necklace from around my neck and held it out in front of me, finding a foreboding hallway rather than a light at the end of a tunnel. "That's creepy..." I murmured to myself but Hayden heard me as well.

"Creepy or not, we have to find a way out of here, and we sure as hell ain't gettin' out the way we came." Hayden pointed out logically and gave me a helpful shove forward so I stumbled over rubble and barely managed to keep from smashing my face on the ground.

"Thanks." I muttered sarcastically and began to walk forward just as I came to a wall, I peered around it, holding my necklace in front of me. I examined the wall closely, holding my necklace almost against it. “It thins out again…” I murmured.

“What?” Hayden asked from behind me.

“The wall, it thins out again, right,” I pressed my finger to the portion of the wall, “here.”

Hayden had to maneuver to get passed me in the thin hall-like area. He actually crushed me against the corner while trying to get to his destination.

“H-hey! Watch it!” I protested, but Hayden ignored me.

“You’re right.” Hayden admitted, although he did so quietly.

“Again.” I pointed out smugly.

Hayden glanced at me, seeing the smile on my face he rolled his eyes and said, “Beginner’s luck.”

“Catch twenty-two.” I replied smugly, nodding to myself.

“…”

“…”

“That doesn’t make any sense, you used that completely out of context.” Hayden finally said.

“I don’t think I did.” I retorted haughtily, crossing my arms over my chest.

“You did.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, ‘cause I was right.”

“Do you even know what that phrase means?”

“Of course I do!”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Look can we just drop it? Aren’t you forgetting the main point here? I was right!” I said in an attempt to change the subject.

“…That wasn’t even close to how you use--”

“Enough! Just give me the key!” I snatched his key from around his neck and dug it into the wall. As I began to work the key through the powdery wall I was restricted by a string, only after I’d almost choked Hayden did I realize that it was around his neck. Heh. Whoops.

“Are you trying to kill me?” He demanded angrily, slipping out of the string I’d almost throttled him with.

“Sorry.” I replied with at shrug, feeling no remorse whatsoever.
I continued to carve another door in the thin, powdery stone when I got caught on something, and couldn’t move the key anymore.

“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked curiously, leaning in to examine my work.

“I…er…can’t move it anymore.” I murmured embarrassedly, I knew I didn’t have much upper body strength but this was just embarrassing..

“Wow, that’s pretty sad.” Hayden sounded like he was smiling when he said it.

I scowled, “Shut up, just finish this thing will you?” I fought my way past him so that he could get to the key.
“Sure, sure." Hayden replied shouldering his way past me and pushing me to the side so he could grab the key.

Silently, he worked the key past the point where I was stuck and nearly cut straight to the bottom when he stopped and stood up, taking the key with him. "That should do it. Now, all we have to do is apply some pressure..." He rammed his shoulder against the wall and it groaned in protest, but didn't quite crumble away.

I snickered. Hayden glared at me in the dim light and my snicker changed to a cough of some sort. What an odd power, he could make someone's snicker become a cough with just a glare...

"Just help me with this will you?" He demanded, scooting over a little to give me a portion of the wall to try and break my shoulder on.

I crammed myself next to him, trying to ignore the fact that I was close enough to smell his absolutely godly cologne, and readied myself for an assault against the wall.

"On three?"

"On three." I agreed.

"One. Two..." I leaned back as far as I could, "Three!" I rammed my shoulder against the wall at the exact same time as Hayden and the wall groaned again.

"Well that was a smashing success." I said sarcastically, and turned to lean with my back against the wall, "How 'bout round two?" I inquired.

Hayden shrugged, although he was also rubbing his shoulder absently.

“Alright, on thr--” I squealed as the wall gave out behind my back and I tumbled into a new room.

I was on my back swearing profusely when Hayden poked his head out over the rubble, “Dude, did you just squeal?” He was grinning,

“Like a girl?” He added with an even wider grin.

“No!” I exclaimed, flying up into a sitting position as I absently brushed dust and dirt from my clothes, then ruffled dirt out of my matted short hair. “I just…er…got something’ stuck in my throat…you know…there’s a shit load of dust here!” I pointed out defensively.

“You know what habit you have?” Hayden asked me suddenly, stepping quickly over the rubble and brushing dirt from his jeans.

“When anyone mentions anything about you being girly, you make your voice really deep. That’s a pretty weird habit, you know.” He was teasing me but I couldn’t help but slap myself inwardly. Did I really do that? I must have done that! Damn.

“Yeah…well…shut up. I have a…voice…disease…no. Disorder? Yeah, disorder.” I murmured, trying to rack my brain for a decent lie.
Too bad that was a terrible lie, but luckily, Hayden took it as a joke,

“Yeah, whatever, maybe you just haven’t hit puberty yet?” He jeered and dodged away from me as I lurched to my feet and tried to punch him. Key word: tried. I missed horribly, and I was pretty sure that even if he hadn’t moved I still would have missed him.

“Shut up dude!” I demanded threateningly, but I was already distracted as I tried to focus on the room we were in. It was much like the last one, but this room wasn’t split with a second floor, there was a simple door with about thirteen stairs leading up to it, while on the other side was a staircase leading down into a hole in the floor. I could see a door poking out of the top of the hole, so it wasn’t leading down into nothingness. Other than the two doors and stair cases, this room had nothing in it.

“I don’t like this room…” Hayden muttered as if he might disturb the air around him if he even breathed.

“Why not? It looks like there aren’t any traps.” I coated my sentence in sarcasm.

It was a blank room, of course there was going to be traps.
I did a double take, examining the door that the staircase led up to.

“Hey…” I tapped Hayden’s shoulder, “Isn’t that the same door from the other room?” I didn’t take my eyes away from the door.
There was a moment of silence and Hayden replied, “Yeah, I think it is. Do you think we can get to it? Do you think it’ll be locked?” He inquired eagerly.

“What? So you can see Laura again?” I cooed and dodged a punch he had directed at my head.

Man, I never realized how violent boys could be with each other, until I had to pretend to be a boy myself.

“Shut up!” Hayden hissed, his face a slight shade of red.
Oh. My. God. He really did like Laura! Oh, I was not letting this go. Ever. “You do!” I exclaimed with glee.

“Shut up Ray! I swear to god, if you keep talking…” He trailed off to let my imagination work its magic.

“So…” I kept my face serious, “Do you love her?” I lost it then, and a smile cracked through my seriousness.

Hayden lunged for me and I dodged left, but not before he got a fistful of the back of my shirt and dragged me to the ground and straddled my stomach, lifting me up by the front of my shirt. I yelped and raised my hands in surrender before he could do something drastic. “Sorry. I apologize for my misdeeds and was not intending to harm your feelings.” I feigned formalness and Hayden groaned, letting me up and shaking his head.

“That mouth of yours is gonna get your ass kicked one day.” Hayden informed me, pressing his palm to his forehead in frustration.

I smiled as I stood up and he looked me, “Then I suppose it’s a good thing I have tough friends like you, eh?” I nudged his side with my elbow and he jerked away from me. “Aww, come on, don’t be like that Hayden, I was just kiddin’. Okay, I get it, you don’t love her, I have a crush on Penelope Cruise if it makes you feel any better.”

That got a grin out of Hayden, “What?” He asked incredulously, “Penelope Cruise? Dude, have you seen that chick’s nose? It’s huge!” He retorted gleefully.

Okay, so I lied a little bit, I actually hated Penelope Cruise, but I figured it was the only way to get him to forgive me. Well, no reason to stop with the lie now, “I don’t know, I think I’ve got a thing for her accent. See? I know your little crush and you know mine, now let’s get on with our lives.” I took a single step further into the room and the stone beneath my foot sunk, with a disgustingly brisk click.

“Uh-oh.” Was all I had time to say before the wall across from me crumbled away to reveal a foreboding, incredibly tall, silhouette. I maintained control over my bowels and didn’t shit my pants as the dust cleared away and a huge man stepped out from the rubble, holding two thick chains which held back two savage looking Pitbulls, both foaming at the mouth and lunging against their restraints. The man himself was intimidating, with a matted curly beard and long tangled hair, it looked like he’d been stuck in that wall for years.

“Hayden.” I squeaked, swallowing hard and back-peddling so that I was behind him.

“Wot ar’ yeh doin’ ere’?” The man demanded in a bellowing roar.
Hayden seemed to catch on much faster than I did, since I was still speechless and trying to hide behind Hayden before he shoved me along side him again. “My name’s Tim Holiday, and this is my brother Todd. Could you help us? We seem to be a bit lost.” He spoke calmly and politely, despite the fact that the giant man was holding back savage dogs!

When I looked at the giant man again, he reminded me so much of Hagrid from Harry Potter I almost giggled. Almost. But the man’s scowl kept me from even smiling.

“Whas’ wrong wif’ your brudda?” The man asked suspiciously, eyeing me as I once again tried to slip behind Hayden and hide.

“He’s shy around people.” Hayden replied with a shrug, nudging me roughly so I had to stand next to him again.

Yeah, around people that look like they’re going to eat me, I thought bravely.

Dropping the topic including me, the man asked Hayden, “Why shud’ I help ya?” He demanded, tugging one of the dogs back as they lunged against the chain. “Quiet yeh’!” He jerked on the chains and the dogs yelped, falling quiet and ceasing their snarling.

“Of course, we’ll help you in return, if you can point us in the right direction.” Hayden continued calmly.

And if you don’t kill us. I added silently.

The man seemed to consider this and jerked his head toward the staircase leading down to another door. “I los’ me axe down ther’ the oter’ day, yeh fin’ it an I’ll tell yeh teh way oot.”

“That’s reasonable.” Hayden confirmed, his eyes darting to the door opposite door only briefly before he added, “Do you mind if I get my sisters from the other room? They have much better sight than I do, and we’ll be able to find your axe much faster.” Hayden reasoned.
The man scowled and shrugged his giant shoulders. “Wot’ eva’ yeh say.” He said.

Hayden nodded to me, and I hurried over to the door, listening as the dogs growled from their positions on either side of the man.
As I opened the door I heard the man ask Hayden, “How can I be sur’ you’ll be comin’ back?” He sounded suspicious again.

There was a moment of silence in which I thought Hayden may have been stumped, but he spoke quickly, “You can hold onto this until we return, it’s a very valuable key, given to us by our mother on her deathbed, it’s made of solid gold. Not only is it worth a lot but it also has sentimental value.”

I peered through the door to see that Laura and the other girl were on separate sides of the balcony-like upper half of the room looking over parts of the wall and anything else nearby. “Er…Annabelle! Lucia! We found someone who will help us!” I yelled and Laura looked at me like I was high.

“Ray--” She began but I interrupted her.

“Yes Annabelle I, Todd, your brother, came back for you.” I hinted urgently, gesturing for her to come over and bring Amelia with her.

“Okay Todd, but there are traps, I think there’s a switch over by that door.” She told me, although she looked as confused as humanly possible.

I leaned out of the door, yelped as arrows struck the wall beside me, took a deep breath, and leaned out of the door again, smacking a green colored button, and swung back behind the door and heard six dull thumps as arrows struck the door.

Laura and Amelia dashed over to me and I gave them a short version of our situation in a low whisper, “Big guy, help, find his axe, leave. Don’t stare.” I turned and walked back into the room with Laura and Amelia trailing me, looking more composed than confused, although that was understandable since I’m sure my version wasn’t very clear to them.

I saw the gold key wrapped in the large man’s hand, along with one of the thick chains and he nodded for us to go toward the other door.

“Thank you, Sir, we’ll be back shortly.” Hayden assured him and we all approached the door, and disappeared down the stairs and into the door.

Not until we were a safe distance away did I say, “Holy shit! Did you see that guy?” I still spoke a little more quietly than necessary, but my tone was readable. "He was huge!"

“I know!” Hayden agreed, turning to grin at me, then he added, “You completely froze! Thanks for the help, Raymond.” He rolled his eyes at his own sarcasm and turned back around to lead the way down a stony hallway, that took turns left and right, what seemed like, constantly.

“Are you two all right?” Laura wanted to know, interrupting my reply before I even started it.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Just a little dusty.” I replied quickly with a shrug, receiving a glare from Hayden when I realized he wanted to answer her. I mouthed the word “sorry” but shrugged it off. I wasn’t going to let him talk just because he had a crush on her.

Laura sighed, “That’s good to hear, I thought that boulder crushed one of you at the least. I was really worried about you Hayden.” Hayden turned around to look at her with something like surprise on his features. “You were the last one in that hole. And that was quick thinking Raymond, if you didn’t know the wall was weak there you might have both died.” She complimented and I grinned.

“Thanks, at least someone knows when a compliment is due.” I sneered at Hayden, but he was already looking forward again.

Was that a blush I saw on his face?

I chose to ignore it and yawned as I walked, stretching my arms up in the air and then putting my hands in my back pockets. “Man, this test has got me beat.” I said as my yawn died away. “How long do you guys think we’ve been in here?”

“I’d say about three hours.” Hayden replied simply, then paused as there was a fork in the hallways. “Great. A maze.” He murmured to himself.

Amelia spoke up from the back of the line, “Are we really going to find that man’s axe” She sounded skeptical.

“Hell no!” I retorted quickly, “Give that guy an axe? He’d probably just kill us with it when we got back.” I snorted at the mental image I’d created.

Amelia sounded like she was frowning now, “Well, then why did we give him our key? We might have needed it for something else!”

“Well we needed a bargaining chip, if he thought it was important enough to hold on to and make sure we came back then we’d be able to leave. This is the direction we wanted to go anyway, since the door we came from was the way out of the tower.” Hayden answered quickly.

“And you gave him fake names so he couldn’t find us again. There was no way we were going back to that room, right?” Laura added shyly.

Hayden turned to smile warmly at her and nodded, “Right.”

I rolled my eyes and Hayden glared at me.

Amelia murmured something that sounded like, “I’m glad I’m on your guys’ team…”

I wasn’t sure how she couldn’t have picked up on that plan, since Laura picked it up easily enough, but maybe planning wasn’t what she was good at. Sort of like Damion’s thing was agility.

During my thieving lifestyle, I’d realized several things, one being that well-roundedness was a good trait for a thief, so I forced myself to be as well-rounded as possible. Even though I was pretty terrible at some things. I had to practice so that I was at least decent at them. Sneaking, for example. I had two bells on separate strings that I tied to my ankles every night, and I snuck around my house to the point where the bells wouldn’t even make a sound when I moved. Speaking of which, I needed to start doing that again, regardless of where I was living. No doubt I was already getting rusty when it came to sneaking around. I hadn’t broken into a house in, what, three days?
My train of thought broke when I heard Hayden grunt in annoyance. “We’ve already been here!” He said with clear exasperation in his tone.

I looked around and realized that he was right, the place that we were in was just a right turn from the door we came from. “Do you want me to lead?” I offered, although I knew it was like I was shooting Hayden’s pride in the heart.

He scowled and shook his head, “I got this, I just need some paper to map out where we’ve already gone…”

I was silent for a moment then said, “Do you see any paper around here…?”

Hayden glared at me as if saying, “Are you trying to make me look stupid?”

“Just trust me, I don’t need a map for this, I…um…I can just remember where we’ve been.” I didn’t want to come straight out and tell him that I had a photographic memory. It was something that was really useful for me, but I didn’t want to shout it to the world.

“What? How could you possibly remember something like that?” Hayden retorted, although he sounded like he believed me for the most part.

“I have a…really good memory.” I murmured.

“What, like photographic?” He asked more loudly than I would have liked.

“Yeah, something like that. Would you just let me lead? Then we can get through this damn exam and I can get some damn food. I’m starving in this stupid tower.” I pushed my way past Hayden and then asked, “Do you think Hagrid back there had any food that didn’t have parts of humans in it?” I joked.

I heard Hayden snort a short laugh and even heard Laura chuckle a little at the joke. If Amelia laughed I didn’t hear her.

I paused at the same fork that Hayden had stopped at and frowned, closing my eyes and trying to remember which side he’d chosen: The right. I thought for a moment longer, remembering which turns he’d taken and which ones led back to the beginning. There were two more places where the hall split into two. Each time Hayden had taken the right, which was why we had gone in a circle, you’d think he’d notice that we’d changed direction. Then again, Hayden didn’t have the photographic memory.

I turned to Hayden, Laura and Amelia and pointed to just Hayden and Laura, “You two take the left hall and keep going till you find a place where the hall splits, if it doesn’t split then it’ll be pretty easy to come back to this spot. Amelia? You’ll come with me down the right corridor again, we need to find out if the other two halls split again, and if they do, we need to figure out if they lead to an exit or not.”
There was a moment of silence, then Laura grabbed Hayden’s hand and began to pull him in the direction of the other hallway. Hayden had a stupid grin on his face and then turned to me to mouth the words “thank you” then continued to follow Laura. I rolled my eyes, but he didn’t see me.

“You comin’?” I asked Amelia when she watched Hayden and Laura leave.

“Oh, yeah, alright.” She shook her head and followed me when I continued walking without her.

I was concentrating as I walked, taking in every detail possible when I realized Amelia was rambling behind me, I half-turned to her, blinking in confusion as I tried to pick up on what she was saying.

“What?” I said finally, interrupting whatever she had been saying.

“I…umm…How well do you know Hayden?” She asked, apparently abandoning her other approach to the topic.

I scratched the back of my head, analyzing why she would ask me that question. My first conclusion was that she wanted to know more about me, but I decided quickly that she had more of an interest in Hayden. I turned forward again as I scowled, I didn’t really want her to get more friendly with Hayden, and besides I felt like I was under cover if I told her everything I knew about him. “Not much, I’ve only known him for a few days.” I replied reasonably.

“Oh.” Amelia sounded disappointed, so my second guess was right. She then asked, “Didn’t you two know each other before you came to Shadowstep Academy? I heard that you two knew each other before hand.”

I snorted, “Yeah, for about a night before he knocked me out and somehow got me back home.” …Wow, that sounded bad.

“Oh.” She said again, her tone becoming unreadable.

Alright, I admit it, I was being a little icy. But that was only because she really didn’t need to know anything about Hayden…then again neither did I…was I being irrational? Maybe a little unfair? No…no, of course not. Hayden liked Laura so I was keeping Amelia at bay, that was good right? Right. I like my logic, it makes sense.

I kicked my thoughts aside and tried to focus on what I was looking at, rather than decide whether or not I was trying to keep Hayden to myself--which I wasn’t, by the way, just to make that very clear.

The first fork in the hallway came to a dead end, and the second led back to the main hallway that we had started in. “Well that was a colossal waste of time.” I commented blatantly, trudging down the hall back the way we came.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Amelia wanted to know, she was gazing nervously at the walls like they might start attacking us if we passed them more than once.

“Yeah, I remember that stone,” I remarked sarcastically, pointing to a random part of the wall on my left side.

“Oh,” she said, sounding like she had believed me.

I turned my head to hide a smile, this girl was gullible!

Once we reached the hall where we had split up with Laura and Hayden, I leaned against the wall and tried to examine my necklace in the dim light. It was a futile effort, it was no longer glowing as it had the time before, and it didn’t seem like it intended to glow for a long while. Amelia shifted nervously again, and I looked up to see that she was staring at me. “What?” I asked, tucking my necklace into my pocket for safe keeping.

“What are we waiting for?” she asked, frowning when she tried to stand still and failed.

“For Hayden and Laura to come back, this was the agreed meeting spot, right?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

“Well, yeah, but what if the hall did split? Wouldn’t they just split up?” Amelia offered quietly.

I opened my mouth to say, “Hayden’s not that stupid,” but closed my mouth again, in fact I believed that in order to impress Laura, it was very probable that Hayden would be that stupid. “We should go look for them.” I grumbled, pushing myself away from the wall I had been leaning on.