Case 36: Courter in Yellow

The Best Part of being a Thief(26)

Dipper POV

I called him. He can't just drop something like that over text.

"Leo, this is serious, are you sure you actually have that information," I said the moment he picked up.

"I'm serious, I'm flying to you right now." He answered the call sounding slightly broken up. The flight is only about an hour, it is the easiest way to even access Gravity Falls, that or the bus. "I land in 30." he continued.

"Well you'll know where to find me, can you give me what you know now, I'll get a head start on it."

"No-" he broke up again. "Sorry but I don't want this over the phone. See you when I land."

I sighed if Leo was anything it was paranoid, he was someone who believed in conspiracy theories like government spies, like the CIA monitoring our brain waves. I've never asked but I wouldn't be surprised if he thought that the birds are spies.

"Ok fine just don't get your ass shot on your way in the building." I hissed, nothing had happened outside yet, the place was on lockdown but still. If he dies because he was helping me on my case I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

"Don't worry my ass s bulletproof." He hung up.

Great, now I gotta go find Wendy and Valentino to role out the welcome mat for someone else they don't know to step on their case.

Outside my office was mostly quiet, the buzz of frantic officers had died down, I could hear a few people coughing in the silence. Confused I scanned the floor again.

I watched heads hit desks and those walking around slump against nearby desks and walls.

A sharp sting in the back of my throat set off a coughing fit that forced me to balance myself on the banister, my body suddenly felt like lead, my hand slipped and I felt myself hit the ground but I couldn't stop it and had no strength to stand up with.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

My vision blurred and I could barely see the people one floor down all knocked to the floor. I can't tell if it was my eyes closing or the lights going out but it was the last thing before I lost consensus.

Bill POV

With everything going as planned I reached the front doors of the building uninterrupted, unlocked they opened without resistance. The ping of the elevator arriving on the first floor rang through empty halls. Soft wher of machinery the only sound in the whole building. Behind me, as I stepped into the lift I heard the footsteps of my people making their way inside with the same ease as I did, their laughter filling the vacant halls like battle cries. The soundproof doors of the elevator cut them off plunging me back into my thoughts.

Practically counting the floors, each soft ping at a time till reaching the one I want, the floor where he lay slumped and unconscious somewhere. My body vibrated with the knowledge I had a whole building's worth of police officers at my whim. But knowing that Dipper Pines was one of them was like a live wire touching my skin. When the door's finally opened on his floor, I was walking on air.

Here, being the hub of their little beehive, people lay prone around the whole floor, slumped at desks and against walls, those who had been walking when the gas affected them now lay at old bent angles.

The elevator shuts and leaves me to the floor by myself. My people as I stand here are going floor by floor reeking the place for anything they deem interesting enough to take. The best part of our lives has always been, if we want it we take it.

Something I want is here, and I am going to take it.

Stepping over and, admittedly on, people I made my way around the floor, Dipper had mentioned an office so I assume one of the glass rooms lining the second floor belong to him. Buzzing with the possibility that he could be one of the outlined bodies I could see on the floor above, my step quickened, I could hear the ends of my favorite yellow coat flick over the people under my feet.

A man lay at the bottom of the stairs with his neck bent in the wrong direction, but he wasn't Dipper so I stepped past him, his face already dissipating in my mind. The only man I could see was the brown-haired body pressed in an odd slumped sitting position against the glass handrailing. He was about halfway down the small hall and one of the only ones up here. I crossed the way to him in only a few seconds.

His head lay on the floor and his body was almost folded in half. I sang down on my heels desperate to get a closer look at his face. I haven't forgotten myself enough to think I could touch without gloves but the few seconds it does take to put them on felt like the longest I have ever had to wait through. If he thought of it and checked his clothes or his skin for fingerprints I won't let him find mine, not from today at least.

I lifted his head from to floor, adjusting his body so that he's leaned back against the glass.

"How gorgeous you are, I could just lock you up and keep you forever," I whispered running a thumb under his lip. "Don't worry I'll end this soon then you can come back to me." carefully I let go of him, making sure he didn't hit his head again. I stood at the sound of the elevator reaching this floor again, from here I could see the entirety of the floor and all the bodies bent over the desk and sprawled across floors. Pyronica and some of my men emerge from the opening elevator prowling like proud wolves stalking prey.

Pyronica laughed when she met my gaze, "To easy!" She cackled, she brought her heel down right between the shoulder blazes of a man laid out on the floor. Her laugh turns shrill contagious in the men digging in pockets and desks. Contagious for me as well, I looked back down to Pines at my feet, this close to being mine, and I laughed too.

Letting them have their fun I turn towards the series of rooms lining the wall. The room right across from me caught my eye, lucky me lucky me, The nameplate next to the open door said "SSA Dipper Pines". Score. 

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This has absolutely nothing to do with the book but I feel like sharing. 

I have been semi-obsessed with a YouTuber under the user Lazy Masquerade, and have been subscribed to watching his videos for a little over 4 years. His videos are creep stories that he voices and he's been on YouTube for a little over 6 years, I turn on his videos in the background as I do work, hell all of my books have almost religiously been written to the sound of Lazy describing horrible murders or impossibly terrifying encounters. Scrolling through his home page recently I found that I have watched every single video he has posted, and many of them I have watched/heard mutable times. 

Completely unneeded info for you guys, I just think it's cool I worked my way through his enter channel. ((If creep and gory content is up to your ally I highly highly recommend his content.))