The Little Thief

-Joni-

“Listen up! We got a big gig tomorrow night!”

I perked up in my little tent and crawled out to see our leader, Kent, walking through our encampment in an abandoned parking garage with an excited expression on his face. Eager to hear more, I sat on my knees just outside my portable home to wait for the others to gather around.

“It’s a huge one,” Kent continued, pacing a little. “We’re joining forces with three other clans for this because it’s so big!”

I sat back as my interest and excitement already vanished, and worry took their place. I could already see the red flags, but I hoped I was wrong.

“Just wait until you hear this. It was Grant who came up with the plan. We’re going to live so comfortably for a long time after this!”

I peered around and saw both excited and doubtful expressions all around me. Then I spotted my best friend, Payton, who was already making his way to me from his tent. He raised his eyebrows at me when our eyes met. I let out a small sigh to let him know I didn’t like the sound of this plan at all. He rolled his eyes, agreeing with me, and came to sit down next to me on the concrete floor.

“We’re going to be so fucked…” he murmured.

“I know, right…” I mumbled back.

Big gigs meant big headlines, and our little clan was hated enough as it was. But I still held my hopes up. Maybe this was actually a good plan. Money had been so tight lately we could barely eat, after all.

“Everyone here? Good! Listen up!” Kent spoke and stopped in the middle of our tents and slowly turned around to see us all. “You know the mafia is weak right now, right?”

“Oh, no…” both Payton and I breathed out in disappointment.

“So! Tomorrow! We’re raiding The Clover Hill Village!” Kent declared, his arms spread like he expected loud applause.

He didn’t really get any.

“The Clover Hill Village?” asked Derek, one of Kent’s best friends who usually was up for anything our leader came up with.

“Yeah,” Kent said, disappointed with us because we didn’t share his enthusiasm. “Come on! That neighborhood has some serious money!”

“That neighborhood is mafia’s territory! It’s their leader’s home!” Derek argued back.

“It was their leader’s home! Michael Mercer is gone! The terrorists took him out!” Kent said angrily. “Besides, the mafia is just a bunch of old has-beens. Their era is over. But we are growing stronger. If we raid Clover Hill, we’ll show everyone just how strong our looter clans have become!”

Everyone peered at Derek, who gritted his teeth together and said nothing. Kent walked to him and kneeled in front of him.

“Maybe it’s our time to control this territory. The mafia’s glory days are long gone, and now their leader is half dead. Even True Order terrorists have noticed how weak they have become. That’s why they tried to kill him and almost succeeded in it,” Kent spoke, then turned to us. “You all know I’m right, right?”

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right…

“This city should be ours!” Kent continued, and hopped back up on his feet. “Together, our four clans are bigger and stronger than what is left of the old mafiosos. We could easily claim this territory. We could easily rule the underworld of Maryland!”

“But Mercer is not dead yet,” I said, and Kent turned to me.

“Let us alphas handle this, okay, love?” he told me with a smile and turned his back on me.

“And what about the army?” I asked, and he slowly turned back to me.

“Don’t worry about the army, baby,” he said, still smiling. “They fight terrorists. Are we terrorists? No. We are just simple little looters. They don’t care about us.”

Payton let out a quiet snort next to me. I let out a breath and chose to stay silent. For now. I decided to talk to him once we were alone because right now he was too high on his excitement to listen to reason.

“We really have nothing to worry about,” Kent spoke to us all. “We have a good, solid plan. We raid the village as one big group. We break into as many houses as we can, take whatever we can carry, and run. We’ll be in and out before the army gets their cars running, and we’ll be long gone before they arrive.”

“But the homeowners will have guns,” Derek kept trying to convince him to give up on this plan.

“So do we,” Kent said with a grin.

“No, we don’t,” Derek said in confusion.

It was clear Kent was growing frustrated with him. “We’re getting guns from Grant’s clan, all right? He’s been planning this attack ever since Mercer got himself shot. He has everything we need!”

Many of us peered at each other, trying to decide what to think of this plan. Kent gave us a moment, but his frustration was taking control over him.

“Come on! I thought you guys would be happy! We can get so much money out of this that we don’t have to worry about anything in months! Or would you rather keep stealing one wallet at a time and risk getting caught every time you try to steal bread so you can eat at least something, huh?”

With that, he was finally gaining attention. Even Derek stopped to consider his words.

“…How much money are we talking about?” Derek finally asked.

“Loads. They have jewelry and money and electronics and art and all the good stuff we can get our hands on! Grant knows people who will buy everything we steal! And the houses in the Clover Village are so easy to break into because they’re so tiny!” Kent said, getting his excitement back. “Trust me, guys. We should do this. It’s such an easy fucking gig! And we won’t be alone this time. There’s like a hundred of us. It’ll be fine.”

The others were really warming up to it now…

I glanced at Payton. His attitude had changed, and he was now staring at Kent like he was an amazing miracle. I elbowed him and frowned at him in a scolding manner when he looked at me. He quickly dropped his amazed expression and changed it to an unimpressed glare when he turned back to Kent.

I let out a silent sigh. I knew he was already sold, just like the rest of them. He liked money too much…

But I still had my worries. We’d be fine, sure. We were criminals, homeless thieves living under bridges and collapsing buildings. Even if we got caught by the army or cops, we’d probably avoid getting thrown into jail because the terrorists had bombed most of them to smithereens. There simply wasn’t enough room for us, and if there was… Well, we didn’t need to sleep under bridges while we served our time.

And the mafia… Kent was probably right. There weren’t many of them left, and those who were still around were getting old. They didn’t like us, anyway, so there was no reputation to take care of.

But those people in that Village… Many of them used to be just like us. Homeless and hopeless. They, too, had lost everything when the war against True Order terrorists broke loose two decades ago, and still continued. They’d just gotten their lives back in order, thanks to Governor Morgan and her attempts to erase homelessness in our state. That village was one of the many tiny-home societies she was building all over the state.

It felt wrong to attack those people… And I seriously doubted they had serious money like Kent claimed.

Our dear leader spent a moment longer hyping us up, then told Derek and his other two friends to follow him. I hesitated, but I ended up running after them when they headed to a small building that used to be a guard station, but which we’d turned into our little shelter from bad weather.

I caught up with them when they reached the door.

“Kent, wait…” I said, and he let out a sigh, but faced me, anyway.

“Yes?” he asked, while his friends entered the building.

“I don’t think we should do it,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked, clearly just to humor me.

“It’ll just piss people off. It’ll be all over the news. Our lives will become much harder in this city,” I said calmly.

“You’re saying that like our lives are somehow easy,” he noted.

“It could be worse,” I said, stepping closer to him.

“What did you eat today?” he asked.

“I… I found some apples this morning,” I said.

“Hmm. Apples,” he said. “You found them in a dumpster?”

“I… Yeah…” I mumbled.

He chuckled, then rested his hands on my hips and pulled me against him.

“After tomorrow’s gig, I’ll take you out to a restaurant,” he told me, and planted a kiss on my lips. “We’ll celebrate like movie stars!”

I chuckled a little and placed my arms around his shoulders. “It just feels wrong…”

“We have to do what we have to do,” Kent said. “They’ll get their money back through insurance.”

“I guess…” I mumbled. “But I’m still worried.”

“Hey,” he said gently, and hugged me tighter. “It’s my job as your alpha to worry about these things. You just look pretty and leave thinking to me, okay?”

“Okay…” I murmured, taking in his scent.

“Good. Now, go put on something nice for me and warm up the bed. I think I deserve a little treat for my hard work today,” he told me with a smirk and roughly squeezed my butt, then stepped back. “I’ll be right there with you once I’m done here.”

“O-okay,” I murmured, and watched him enter the building.

I guess there was no changing his mind, then… I wished everything would go just fine, but…

I really doubted it.

All the bad feelings I had about this gig were only growing worse the next night when I sat in a rusty old car, pinned between Payton and a friend of ours, Yvon. We were just about to arrive at the Clover Hill Village… Only a few more minutes, and the gates of the large neighborhood would appear in our view.

I’d tried to change people’s minds, but no one had really listened. All they could think of was the money. Money I still didn’t believe existed.

I looked out the dirty window to see where we were, but there were so many cars and motorbikes blocking my view that I couldn’t really see the houses behind them. It was too dark to see anything, anyway.

But seeing our entire convoy made me feel even worse. We were so going to end up in the news, and everyone would know it was us. We already had to face enough abuse as it was… No one wanted us looters around. And all that talk about stealing this territory from the mafia…?

I had the feeling we were forced to move out of this city after this…

I sighed. I really liked this city…

“Almost there!” Kent informed us with a mad laugh. “This is going to be so awesome! We’ll be rich!”

Rich…? Stealing some TVs?

“There it is!” shouted our driver, Henry, pointing into the distance.

I saw a large, arching gateway up ahead, and even though I couldn’t read the name on it, I knew it had to say Clover Hill. My heart dropped more, if it was even possible.

I should’ve stayed at home…

We had to stop long before we reached the gate. I let out a quiet, humorless chuckle when I realized our awesome plan already had failed a little. We couldn’t just get in and out like Grant said we would because only one car could fit through the gates at a time, and we had maybe forty or fifty vehicles with us. The residents closest to the gates had plenty of time to call the cops before we all were in, and they were definitely calling the cops already.

“Fuck! Come on! Move!” Henry shouted, and the idiot started honking at the car ahead of him in his frustration.

“Stop it, you idiot!” Kent shouted at him and pulled his hand away from the horn, but it was too late.

Our entire convoy decided to do the same.

“Shit! Leave the car! We continue on foot!” Kent shouted over the noise and hurried out.

I rolled my eyes as I waited for Yvon to get out of my way, then hurried after my alpha.

“Kent! They’re already calling the cops! We need to leave!” I shouted at him, but he rushed to me, grabbed my hand, and started pulling me with him to the gates.

“If we leave the cars here, they will block the cops and give us more time! We can’t just leave now!” he told me, then turned to yell at the others to leave their cars.

I sighed, but followed him, wondering what they had for breakfast in jail in the morning. I’d heard they served good food, so I had my hopes up.

Some of the cars did get past the gates and drove down deeper into the neighborhood. The rest of us hurried after them by foot, and once everyone was finally in, Kent’s mood came back up.

“Spread out!” he shouted and earned a lot of excited shouting and growling.

Kent himself kept walking down the street while the others spread out and started breaking down doors and windows. I felt horrible following him. Soon, I could hear panicked screams and shouting… and gunshots.

My omega woke up inside me. It was scared of the loud noises and the dangerous atmosphere. I tried to soothe it. I tried to tell it everything was all right, but it could feel my own distress. It begged me to leave this place… Even our alpha’s presence didn’t calm it this time.

“Keep going. Our target is just down this street,” Kent told me.

“Our target?” I repeated, and he pointed at a small, yellow house in the distance. “What’s so special about that house?”

“You’ll see,” he told me with a grin. “Grant, Shawn and Cecil have their own targets.”

The other clan leaders…?

I suddenly didn’t like this at all… The red flags were growing bigger, and my omega kept begging me to leave. Even that bundle of ancient instincts knew what we were doing was wrong.

I also noticed I didn’t know most of the people we were with. I’d seen some of them around, yes, but since they were from other clans, I didn’t really interact with any of them. I didn’t trust the other clans. We were all looters, yes, but looters only cared about their own clans.

I didn’t like this at all…

We reached the yellow house, and the others immediately started throwing rocks at the windows, trying to break them. More people joined our small group, and one of them had a baseball bat.

“Do you see anyone?” Kent asked as he tried to see through the windows into the dark house.

“No, I don’t think… Wait! There’s someone!”

I indeed saw movement in the house, and suddenly, a young man appeared next to the kitchen windows. He grabbed something from the table. When he looked at us, I saw fear on his face.

And a small baby in his arms.

My omega felt worse. It was in our instincts to protect children, after all, but this time, we were the bad guys.

“Kent…” I muttered, grabbing him by his arm. “There’s a baby in that house.”

“You saw it?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure,” I said, but at that moment, the guy with a baseball bat broke the window, and people started climbing in, shouting victoriously.

“Come!” Kent told me with a grin, and pulled me to the windows.

“We should leave,” I said, trying to stop him. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Come on! Don’t be a coward! There’s money in this house!” Kent said, and let go of me so he could climb through the window.

I heard the baby crying somewhere in the house. I suddenly felt sick… I glanced around and saw the destruction our clans were leaving behind. I heard people crying as the residents were pulled out of their houses. I heard gunshots and screams…

I felt really sick…

We were looters, yes, but we’d never done anything like this before…

“Joni! Come! Help me carry this stuff out!” Kent shouted at me.

I heard more windows breaking inside the house. I couldn’t hear the baby anymore. It worried my omega. Maybe we should go make sure they were all right? We could make sure no one would hurt the child.

So I climbed in, even though I should’ve left.

I stopped to look around in the small house. There were guys on my right making a lot of noise in a stairwell. It sounded like they were trying to break through a door in the basement. I heard the baby again… It was somewhere down there…

“Stop!” I shouted, and grabbed the closest guy. “You’re scaring the baby!”

But he pushed me hard on my chest, sending me on my ass on the floor.

“Mind your goddamn business, omega,” he hissed at me, and went to help his friends to break down the door.

I quickly got up and went to find Kent. He was in the living room, going through drawers and cabinets in his search for loot.

“Grab everything you can,” Kent told me.

“You have to tell them to leave that family alone!” I told him.

“Why?” he asked me. “Start grabbing things! The cops will be here any minute!”

“Why? They’re scaring the baby!” I shouted.

But a loud roar coming from the basement silenced us all for a brief second. My omega retreated a little in fear at that angry sound.

An alpha… The child’s sire was with them… Good.

And the child’s sire had a gun. I heard one single gunshot coming from downstairs, and our group came rushing out of the stairwell. I smiled at their panic. Served them right for trying to scare that baby…

“Come back, you pussies! That baby is worth thousands!” someone who had stayed in the stairwell shouted up at us.

“We’re not taking their baby! Just leave them alone!” I shouted at them.

“Hell no! That baby is worth twenty thousand dollars!” one of them replied to me.

“We are not stealing their baby!” I yelled in anger, then turned to Kent. “Tell him!”

Kent glanced at me, then at his new friends. “Grab everything you can, Joni.”

I stopped to stare at him. It all suddenly clicked. All those red flags…

The sire shot at our group again, but I didn’t even flinch. I was too numb and shocked to even register it.

“That baby is our target,” I whispered.

“Look. Grant knows people who will pay up to twenty grand per baby. We know there’s at least four or five babies in this neighborhood. That’s a shit ton of money!” Kent said.

My world shattered at that moment. My alpha could do such a thing…?

“You’d steal someone’s baby and sell it?” I asked in disbelief.

The basement door below us opened at that very moment, and the sire shot at our group again. The sound of his gun was so much louder I finally understood to get scared. I could feel the sire’s anger to where I stood.

“We need guns,” said Charlie, an alpha from our clan, and he hurried out of the house with the rest of our group right behind him.

“We need to leave,” I said to Kent, but he went back to going through the drawers. “Did you hear me?”

He snapped and marched to me with anger written all over his face. He grabbed my hand, pulled me to the cabinets and shoved me against them.

“Grab everything you can, for fuck’s sake!” he hissed at me.

“No! We need to–”

He slapped me across my face so hard I saw stars. I placed my hand on my throbbing cheek and turned back to him.

“Get to work, bitch!” he shouted at me.

I was suddenly scared of him. His eyes were completely mad as he glared at me. His anger was so strong my omega froze inside me. This was supposed to be our alpha… How could he hit us…?

“Move!” Kent hissed at me, and pushed me against the cabinets again.

I obeyed him out of fear. I opened the first two doors, but in my panic, I couldn’t actually focus on going through them. Kent was so angry I could feel it in my soul… The pain on my face was spreading, and I could taste blood in my mouth. And my side hurt too because he’d thrown me so hard against the furniture…

“Quickly! Quickly!” Kent growled at me.

But he’d forgotten we weren’t alone in the house…

“Stop right there!” someone angry growled behind us.

The sire! He’d come out of the basement!

We both sprung around to face the young alpha man, who kept his gun aimed at us. He was without a shirt, and had bandages over his stomach… And his anger was greater than Kent’s.

“Drop everything you have!” the baby’s sire demanded angrily.

“No! This shit is ours now!” Kent yelled back at him.

“That’s not how things work,” the sire said, stepping closer to us, pointing his gun at Kent’s head. “Drop it, or I will shoot you.”

Still… After what Kent just did to me… I couldn’t let him die… And the anger in this sire’s face told me he really was going to shoot him…

“No! Don’t hurt him!” I shouted and jumped between them.

How foolish of me… The sire took the safety off his gun without hesitation. His eyes were cold when he pointed the gun now at me. He didn’t care about me or my life. He had a family to protect, after all.

And Kent… I heard him drop everything he was holding…

And he escaped through the window, leaving me to face death alone.