The Art of Survival

Chapter 2

Dinah POV

After we had lunch we still had some time to spare before Mani arrived. My tummy was filled with chicken alfredo and I stood on the balcony of our hotel room, to get some fresh air and looked down at the other hotel residents that were lounging by the pool..

Lauren was inside still eating, because she's slow like that. I swear she's great at multitasking but when it comes to eating she can't be distracted by doing anything else.

I walked back inside and started flipping through the Dash Convention brochure. The first page let me know that the convention would start at 8pm with some social/dinner and that lined up perfectly with the time Normani would back to pick us up.

We weren't here for some stupid clothing convention. In the grand scheme of things clothing lines were the last of our worries. When things in the economy got so bad that we both got laid off it was nearly a breaking point for us. Lauren and I found comfort confiding in one another about the pressures of wanting to be that help that our families really needed at the time.

So we started stealing. It was more of a "take from the rich, give to the poor" idea. And we were the poor! Our loved ones were suffering mad we couldn't sit by and let that happen while we were living in California, with all these cities that were the homes of so many celebrities on their high horses. So we started with little things.

Pick-pocketing in crowded places was pretty easy. It was easy to tell the person's status by the neighborhoods we would do it in. It gave us this indescribable rush. To just keep a nonchalant face as if I didn't just swiped your withdrawal envelope from the bank out of your back left pocket.

Things were okay at that point but we were just barely taking ends meet. Which couldn't slide for long because our families needed us. Well mine just needed my money but thats another story entirely..

Lauren is a computer genius so she would do her hacker thing and get into the systems of of money from the accounts of rich hot shots to the accounts of random middle class workers so there was little suspicion. And when they would try to update their firewall, as banks often do, Lauren would quickly transfer the money to a fake account that she made for us and we were home free.

We kept just enough money for ourselves to keep ourselves living comfortably. We were great from a financial standpoint but I know that the constant traveling often made Lauren home sick. So that's why we're in Miami right now.

When I sat on the bed next to Lauren I noticed that she was doing that thing where she was immersed in her thoughts again. I waved my hand back and forth in front of her face until I got her attention.

"Babe? Babe! Yo Lauren?"

"Hmm?", she looked up and my eyes with a cute quizzical look on her face.

"I have an idea.", I proposed with a smirk as I smoothed stray hairs out of her face.

Lauren looked at me suspiciously, trying to figure me out. "What..?" She questioned slowly, making her eyebrows go up as well and I just kissed her nose.

"Let's go on a job Lo, wouldn't that be fun? Then maybe we can give the money to Normani for helping us out today." I let my hand fall down to neck rubbing slow circles across her skin and Lauren closes her eyes at the contact, a smile comes across her face and she lets out a soft giggle.

"Yeah we can do that," she says and opens her eyes "Mani would really appreciate that. I've been keeping track of her account. It's been looking pretty low.", she stated and pressed her lips together with concern.

I nod my head "Yeah, it would be nice to help out family," and Lauren smiles.

"Let's take a walk around the hotel, see who's leaving and what rooms we can enter."