• Kylie Michaels’s foot tapped a steady rhythm on the carpeted floor of her parent’s Acadia. She sighed as her thirteen year old brother, Nick, beside her yelled out in triumph, punching his fist into the air. In his other hand was a dark blue Nintendo DS, he had obviously beaten that level he was ranting about for the better part of the last week or so. It was some kind of a role-playing game, and Kylie could care less about it.

    She tossed her light brown hair over her shoulder, and then, as an after thought, bent over to flip her hair over her head. Using the hair tie that was looped around her left wrist, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Nick was looking at her strangely. Understanding the stare, she mouthed “not yet” at him. His face fell and she reassuringly patted his shoulder.

    “What are you two doing back there?” their mother, Janine, asked. “You’ve done everything in the past to not get along, and during the last six months you’ve been thick as thieves. What happened?”

    “Nothin’ Mom,” Nick replied, trying his hardest not to laugh at his mother’s choice of words.

    Kylie just grinned at Janine through the rearview mirror. “We’ve just realized that we’re the only sibs that we got. That’s all.”

    Janine just stared at the two of them for a moment longer, not truly believing their excuse. Shaking her head, she obviously decided that accepting it would be better than arguing with them. She was honestly happy that her family was getting along so far during the thirteen hour drive back home from visiting the grandparents in Florida.

    Nick and Kylie glanced at each other for a moment once their mother had looked back at the road. Pulling out his cell phone, Nick quickly pushed a six buttons and pressed “Send”.

    Knowing what her brother was doing, Kylie had her phone out as well. She flipped it open almost as soon as it started to vibrate. She shook her head when she saw the message:When??

    I dont know…..he just said while we were in Savannah.

    Nick scowled as he took in the meaning of what she wrote. We r in savanah, y not now? Kylie hated it when people abbreviated everything they put in a text.

    He said to wait. That means wait Nick.She had to shake her head at her brother, he was as impatient as always. Some things never change, which was the exact opposite of her life.

    Suddenly her phone buzzed again. Kylie had been watching Nick, and he didn’t send anything. Anticipation thrummed through her veins as she looked down and saw the number. She blinked when she saw it because she didn’t know it. The message looked pretty long.

    285-7748

    Hello Kylie, you are probably wondering about when I was going to contact you. And I have, as promised. Your mission as of now: leave your mother at the next red light. You will get more instructions later. P.S. Bring Nicholas.

    She stared at the message for a moment in shock. Questions whirled through her head as she handed her phone to Nick. How did he know that she was in a car? That she was with her mother? Was he watching her?

    Slowly she felt the Acadia begin to stop. They were at a stop light. Crap! Nick tossed the phone to her, and she caught it without thinking. They both turned toward the doors. When the car was at a complete stop, they unlocked the doors, unbuckled their seatbelts while opening the doors at the same instance, and threw themselves out of the vehicle as if shot from the barrel of a gun.

    “Bye, Mom!” Nick called as the sound of two doors slamming shut was heard. He ran around the back of the car to catch up with his sister who was quickly weaving through the other parked cars and was soon on the other side of the street. When he caught up to her, she looked at him for a moment and said, “We have to move. Mom isn’t going to just drive on….She’ll park in a gas station or something and hunt us down.”

    “Yeah, I know.” He repositioned the straps on the back pack that he had brought with him. “So, where do we go?”

    Kylie smiled for a moment. “I managed to grab Mom’s purse about an hour ago without her noticing. I took her debit card out, I already know the code for it.”

    “So? What does that have to do with anything?”

    “Wanna go see a movie or something. Dark theater, easy to hide?”

    Nick’s face broke out into a huge grin. “Man, I’m so lucky!”

    “Why?” Kylie started to walk on, realizing that they had stood there for a little while too long.

    “Most guys have bitchy older sisters. I probably have the only awesome one!”

    --

    “Hmm…they actually did it.” A girl who was no older than Kylie muttered. The girl had been following the other kids ever since they had come around the corner. She was walking about a hundred yards from the siblings. They wouldn’t notice her, unless they were the ones that he was talking about. Suddenly, the younger boy glanced behind him and saw her. After nudging his sister, he dropped down to tie his shoe, and she could barely tell that he was muttering under his breath to the girl called Kylie.

    Pretending not to be bothered by this, the girl kept walking toward them. Soon the boy stood up slowly, still eyeing her. Kylie was now on the alert, she could see from Kylie’s stance. The two of them turned around and started to walk in the same direction as the girl. They were obviously discussing some thing because the boy nodded.

    Suddenly, the siblings quickly crossed the street. Only slightly caught off guard, the girl followed easily. Almost immediately after they had gotten to the other side, the two of them broke off into a run and dashed into an alleyway between an old apartment building and a bar. The girl sped up to a trot, following them.

    And couldn’t find them anywhere. It was as if they had disappeared. The girl closed her eyes, wondering what they might have done. Struck by an idea she looked up and saw a fire escape. She barely saw a jean clad leg vanish into an open window.

    They had passed.

    The girl reached into her pocket, and pulled out a cell. Pressing for speed dial, she placed the phone to her ear. Almost as soon as if started to ring, it was answered.

    “Yes?” he asked, his voice deep.

    “You were right, Cloud, they might be able to get through the tasks.”

    “They evaded you Tabby?”

    “It’s almost as if you called them ahead and told them what to do….Wait, you didn’t do that did you?” she smiled into the phone, and knew he was smiling as well.

    “Ah, I wish I could say that I did to help your wounded pride, but I didn’t. They did it themselves.”

    “Well, I must say I’m impressed.”

    “So am I.” the click that signaled that the call was over was heard. Tabby shook her head in dismay at his lack of manners as she pocketed her phone. She couldn’t help but wonder if these two were going to be a part of Cloud’s team.

    She couldn’t help but hope so.

    --

    Nick and Kylie stood in the apartment that they had broken into. The window was easy, just a simple lock that a well placed jiggle unlocked. It was a pretty plain place, just off white colors everywhere.

    “Who was that girl tailing us?” Nick asked as they both moved silently across the room.

    “I think it was a test, we haven’t done anything wrong.” Kylie paused, someone was in the bathroom. Judging by the steam coming out from under the door, whoever was in there was taking a shower. Her eyes fell on a cup of coffee on the table. Painted flowers adorned the top of the cup and when she put her hand on it, Kylie felt the cup was cold. “Nick, we have to hurry. There’s a woman in the shower over there. She’s probably almost done.”

    He hurried to the door and opened it. Kylie quickly moved through the door, and Nick shut it behind her. They were half way down the hall when he stopped. He put a hand on his shoulder and cussed under his breath.

    “What?” Kylie was worried.

    “My back pack, I left it back there!” he turned and ran to the door that he had closed not a minute earlier. “I have to get it out.” He tried turning the door knob, but it was locked.

    “Move.” Kneeling down, she pulled out a bobby pin that she kept in place on her jean pocket. She squinted at the knob for a second and pushed the pin inside, about thirty seconds passed before they heard a loud click. Nick tried the door knob again, it opened without difficulty.

    “I’ll be quick,” he said before ducking inside. His backpack was right where he left it, against the wall under the window. Grabbing it, he froze when he heard a door open behind him. Slowly he turned around, hoping that Kylie had just wanted to check in on him, but of course that wasn’t it.

    A woman stood in the doorway of the bathroom. Thankfully she had a cream towel wrapped around her. She was staring at Nick with a look of terror. He stood up, shouldering the back pack. Seeing him move must have re-animated her, for she began screaming. “Thief! Thief! Thief!”

    Nick dashed out of the room, and he was surprised when he didn’t see Kylie waiting for him. Still running down the hallway, he saw her. She was holding a door open for him. It was to the stair well. As soon as he was through the door, Kylie followed.

    Ten minutes later, as they were walking calmly down the street, looking as if nothing odd had happened to them, Nick asked his sister a question that was burning though his mind. “How’d you know?”

    Kylie blinked, “How’d I know what?”

    “That she was woman, you didn’t see her, how could you have known? And you also knew that she was almost done.”

    “Oh, that. Well the room was plain right? So that probably meant someone in business. I saw a coffee cup with flowers on it, which meant a woman. Steam was coming from the bathroom, so a shower. The cup was cool, that would take place over about ten to twenty minutes. And women in business rarely take hugely long showers on the weekdays.” She shrugged. “So I took an educated guess.”

    Nick just gaped at her. “And you caught all that in like the five seconds we were there. Wow.”

    “It’s not that…” she was cut off as she felt her phone vibrate. Quickly she pulled it out. As she flipped it open, it buzzed again. There were two, she opened the first one.

    455-1904

    Young lady, you call me this instance! How dare you run out of the car with Nick! When I find you…     she just deleted the rest; she didn’t want to read it. She knew what it would say anyways. How she should set a good example for Nick, and that she was grounded until the moon blew up.

    The second text was what she had wanted.

    285-7748

    Good job. Don’t worry, the girl that was following you was doing so under my orders; we had to make sure you could ditch tails. You and Nicholas passed with flying colors.

    Your new assignment: In the local Marriott Hotel, you should know the one I am talking about, there is a young woman in the room 613. You are to relieve her of a small diamond bracelet that is in small jewelry box on her dresser. There is only one, you cannot make a mistake.

    Nicholas, on the other hand, is to hack into the hotel’s mainframe and reserve a room, 355 to be precise, to an elderly couple named Camilla and William Paulson. When you are both done with your tasks, go to room 355, yes the one that Nicholas reserved to the Paulsons. If you have done well with your tasks on time, I will be waiting for you.

    If not, there will be a letter, explaining what to do next.

    Kylie blinked. There it was. The first big job that he had ever asked her to do.

    Nick whistled next to her; he had been reading it over her shoulder. “He doesn’t ask for much does he?”

    She snapped her phone shut, and replaced it in her pocket. Walking at a brisk pace, she started toward where she knew the hotel was. Nick came up behind her.

    “Hey, Nick, is your laptop in your backpack?”

    “Yeah, I thought it would be useful.”

    “Good, now hurry up. We have a job to do.”