The Closer You Look

Hello to all of those people who are returning to my page, and an even bigger hello to those who are new! If you are familiar to my fiction page you will know that I have never written anything for Now You See Me before, but I seem to have developed an obsession. This is my first time writing anything for this franchise before, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. As always, thanks for clicking and leave a review to tell me your thoughts if you feel obliged to!

The five people in the living room of a Roman terraced house could not believe how fast time had flown. It had been an entire year since their finale show on the Thames, and eventually they had chosen to hide out in Rome. Unlike the others, Dylan and Lula have never needed to be in hiding before, so running to different locations across the globe to evade the authorities was something new for them. Since they had left London on the previous new years' eve, they had had hideouts in Berlin, Cairo, Melbourne and Johannesburg. It had been a hard year for the Four Horsemen, as well as Dylan. They lasted in their hideout in Berlin for under two weeks. Due to the international arrest warrant and the spectacular magic that they had performed, their faces were well known around the globe; so as soon as someone asked Jack and Lula for a photo one morning they had to leave because they knew it wasn't safe. They had managed to flee Germany and get to Cairo thanks to the fake passports and identity documents they had obtained before their finale show in London. Eventually they found themselves back in the United Kingdom on the anniversary of last years' show. They all sat around the television as the newswoman spoke of the hunt for the Four Horsemen, a year after their escape. There were a few negatives to the news that the news networks provided to the public as well as social media, the largest one being that once somebody mentions the word Horsemen on any social media platform the authorities can use it to track their location.

Since their last show in London, they had yet to do another. Every time an opportunity for a show arises, Dylan decides its unsafe and ensures that the Eye pulls them out of the show. Each of the Horsemen were itching to perform magic again. Of course, they were all doing magic in their own time, but it was different to performing in front of an audience, and each of them missed it. Even though each of them missed their old lives, they were still happy with the lives they had now. The Horsemen had grown closer as a family, with Merritt becoming the unconventional father figure for the group. They would have game nights, and argue over something as mundane as who won at a game of Monopoly, but it didn't change the fact that they were still in hiding. There were huge things that the Horsemen couldn't do because of this, and it did have a large impact on the group. Jack had proposed to Lula ten months after they had gone into hiding, but they couldn't do anything about it until the Horsemen somehow found a way to clear their names. Jack and Lula getting married could bring up red flags and put the whole group in danger, but the newly engaged couple were happy to wait until they found a way to clear their names. The other issue they had was their lack of privacy. The reason why they hadn't gone back to the United States was because they were too well known, so they hid in other locations across the globe.

Each of them was eager to get back to work, so when the Eye contacted Dylan about an upcoming show, each of the Horsemen were excited that they were coming out of hiding again.

"Okay. So, we have a series of shows dotted around the globe. Our aim? To reveal the fraud that Mr Dominic Smallwood is. Dominic Smallwood is a lawyer that specialises in testaments and family law. He has been rinsing grieving people for years. Each time someone would hire him to take care of their affairs after they die, the family does not even get a look at the money. The worst part? They don't even realise it's happening. He's using the fact that a regular person would trust him because he's the lawyer that their passed loved one chose, but Smallwood is taking the money from the clients' accounts before the will is read." Dylan explained to the group as they sat around their dining room table, discussing the plan.

"Right. So how exactly do we take him down? He's a family lawyer, he isn't exactly going to be holding an event for a crowd of people?" Atlas questioned.

"Actually, that's where you're wrong. As soon as the Eye became aware of Smallwood's actions, they arranged for him to be involved in a family affairs conference at the weekend. Large crowd too, almost five thousand people. Smallwood thinks that he was selected to do a talk on his work, to promote his brand. This is going to be like the OCTA conference, where Owen Case was outed." Dylan continued, "Obviously now that everyone knows that Jack is alive he'd going to be up on stage with the rest of you guys. Like every show we do we need to ensure that the authorities and the FBI cannot get near us, and of course we will need an escape route..." Dylan opened his mouth to continue, but he was interrupted by Merritt.

"And we need somewhere to hide out until the next show. Do you know where the shows are going to be?" he asked Dylan, who sighed before answering Merritt's question.

"There will be twelve shows, one after the other over the space of six weeks. The first one is in Washington where the convention is being held, then Geneva, Paris, London, Moscow, Queenstown New Zealand, Sydney, Brazil, New Orleans, LA, Vegas and then New York for the finale show."

"Right. And how does the Eye expect us to get to twelve different locations without being caught or arrested?" Lula questioned, showing a lack of faith in the Eye.

"They'll get us where we need to go. We have a number of days between each show so that will give us time to get to each location and work on each show."

"So why do they want us to out this man over the course of twelve shows? It doesn't make any sense." Atlas quizzed. The rest of the Horsemen agreed, it didn't make sense for them to have twelve shows all to out one person.

"We aren't using all twelve shows, just the first one. The Eye thought the rest of the shows were a good way to welcome the Horsemen back to the world after a whole year of being in hiding." Dylan explained, a slight smirk on his face.

"Well the Eye is right. Twelve shows is one hell of a way to welcome us back to civilisation. In fact, I think I'm going to celebrate with a drink." Merritt stood from his chair, walking into the lounge to get a drink from his liquor stash, returning thirty seconds later with a glass half-full of what looked like whisky.

"Well, it looks like we have our work cut out for us. Let's get to work planning these shows." Atlas' expression was suddenly serious, although the entire team could see his excitement at the fact that they were finally performing again.