The Merry Men Masquerade

1. Reason #12

Ronan Hastings thought in lists.

Depending on who you asked, this might be called a strategy, a shortcoming, a merit, or a crutch. Maybe even a coping mechanism. To Ronan, it was no different than a map or a compass: a tool to navigate the buzz in his mind and refine thoughts which, if left unattended, would well and rush and crash until they came overflowing from his ears. 

Most of his internal catalogs were short and long-lost, serving a fleeting purpose and then forgotten. Only one, six years in the making, had ever made it out of his mind and onto paper, and Ronan made a mental note now to log an addition in his journal once he made it home.

Reason #54 I can't stand the rich: their shoes are terrible for running.

The lawn stretched endlessly between the window he had just thrown himself through and the mossy wall that fortified the mansion (see Reason #52). Ronan was no stranger to running, and certainly no stranger to running away, but the pinprick stings of budding blisters had already taken root along his heels, and he dreaded what he would see when he kicked the leather bastards off.

Whiplash was the first over the wall, scaling the expanse of stone with ease and perching at the top with feline balance. A whip of her wrist, and the roll of rope in her hand unwound for Ronan to catch. If she struggled to hold his weight as he followed her up, her grimace was hidden in the shadow of her mask. Ronan knew better, anyway. She could handle him just fine.

Knuckle was a different story. Ronan took the rope and Whiplash wrapped steadying arms around his waist, but the two of them still nearly toppled off the narrow ledge as he hauled his weight up with one arm, two bulging sacks held over his shoulder with the other. His feet had hardly landed on the ridge when Whiplash dropped to the other side without so much as a thud, arms extended to catch each bag thrown her way. Ronan handed the rope off to Knuckle and prepped to follow her down, but before he could push off the wall, a self-important voice boomed from below.

"Stop where you are and put your hands in the air!"

Ronan did stop where he was, dangling from the wall by his palms. Ronan did not put his hands in the air. He valued the well-being of his ankles.

He pulled himself up onto his forearms with eyes peeled wide. Sure enough, racing across the moonlit grass was an unfortunately broad man in a red coat and haughty epaulets. One of Van Doren's guards.

Facing him at the base of the wall, just shy of escape, were Robin, Genie, and the rookie.

Knuckle reared on his perch like a wolf ready to pounce, but Ronan muttered, "Don't," behind closed teeth.

He nodded forward and down, directing Knuckle's gaze back to the guard, and the barrel of a rifle pointed at Robin's chest.

𓃥𓃥𓃥

In Ronan's defense, he normally had more time to plan an escape.

For the typical job, he got the chance to scan the location beforehand, taking note of every entrance and exit and determining what he could about the interior.

A disheartening series of inconveniences had turned this job distinctly atypical.

Upper-crust news didn't exactly travel in their circle; Robin hadn't learned of Tobias Van Doren's grand opening ball until that morning. What with the hour-long foot-travel time from the nearest passenger train to this godforsaken mansion, the prolonged disappearance of their horses, though unsurprising, made last-minute intel gathering an impossibility. Ronan felt the anxious thrill of the unknown now more than ever, perched on the sturdiest upper branch of a tall oak at dusk, gathering what he could about the Van Doren mansion from beyond the wall.