Rugged Lace

Chapter Twenty-Five

*All out to save our skin, what's there to win?*

Dirt cakes the old house. Roof caving in, sidewalk dirty, yet everywhere he steps is clean. Don would never allow himself to touch such disgusting things. As he lifts his tool box and sets out new shingles, he admires the set up.

Anyone watching would see a promising young man fixing up a cheap new house. Anyone smart would know better. Luckily for him, no one too smart lives anywhere near.

A perfect setup for a perfect heist.

When he was younger, he would play here with his grandparents. Tyler would play with him too, years before anything happened, that is. Back when she was still missing four teeth and she looked ugly, her hair always messed up and her completion awful. She never wore makeup then.

Back then, neither of them needed something this badly. She didn't need to run. He didn't need to chase. Back then, they were children, confident of all and nothing all at once.

Don doesn't give himself much time to dwell on it though. The past is the past, he thinks with a sigh. Besides, I have basically everything now.

Basically.

Andrew pulls up, looking nervous. His feet and hands are jittery. Don scoffs as he watches the boy walk up, knowing that he's probably caught up with a guilty conscience. He has every reason to. Boy couldn't even do a simple job properly.

"What do you want, rat?"

He waves a black and gray touch screen phone at him, one of the cheap ones that he knows only costs about thirty bucks and last through everything--even if you don't want it to. "Guess what I got?" he asks in a sing-song-like voice.

"What?" Don grunts, looking at Andrew's phone in distaste.

Andrew grins. "Her phone."

"Chicken shit," he snorts, going and playing with his nails. Not in the mood to listen to Andrew try and make up losing Tyler by pretending to have some dumb phone, he starts to go back inside the house. A hand grabs him by the shoulder.

"No, really. I jacked it off 'er when I fell into her."

"Give it here," Don commands. His hand immediately jerks out, waiting for the phone to be placed into his palm. It only takes a second for the metal to touch his skin. The moment it does he's walking into the house again, not even stopping to see if Andrew is following or not. Absentmindedly he scrolls through her phone. Like always, she was too stupid to put a lock on it. Don laughs to himself, opening the screen door and slamming it behind him.

Dimly he hears it open and close again, footsteps moving past him into the kitchen. There's no furniture yet, nothing really in the house. The phone is more interesting though, so he sits down in one of the four chairs he's managed to get inside. Screen gliding past as he chews on his lip, he tries to think of what he should look at firs. The temptation is exciting, little shoots of metal through his bones, chilling him sensually.

One click and he's into her contacts. Alise. Kitty. Mom/Dad. Jake <3. With a sly grin he chooses to text Alise, feeling another shiver run through him. Finally, finally things are going right. Just how he needs them to.

Alise! Dad's picking out a new house. They say Mom's going to be better soon so we're moving! Isn't it great? I'm checking it out right now with the owners. Come by soon so we can look at it together! :) Though not his usual style of texting, he knows it's hers.

Alise texts back instantly, REally? Great! B there soon!

Awesome! Thinking that the conversation will end there, Don starts to look at the other contacts again. One of them sounded familiar, like something he'd heard before...a name, somewhere he'd heard that name.