The Thieves of Time

“Are they looking for us, or the hours?” I asked.

Mills glared at the wall and then sighed.  “Both.  I’m sure they’ve realized that having a Finder would be pretty handy.”

“Maybe they don’t know she’s the Finder,” Chaz offered.  “I mean, I’m pretty obvious, but Amy could be from any clan.”

“True.  If their information about time is coming from my cousins, they probably don’t know everything.”  Mills looked at me as he explained.  “Finders aren’t common, and most of the time they are confused the Ghosts of Lost because the two work closely together.”

“So, they’re actually looking for Chaz?” I guessed.

The two guys looked at each other, as if they were just realizing that possibility.  There was some initial confusion in their eyes as they tried to make the connection, but then the lights went on.  Mills’ eyes got wide and I think he was on the verge of swearing.

“We can’t let them get all of us,” Chaz finally said, quietly.  “Especially you two.”

“Us two?” Mills grumbled.  “It’s you they can’t get.  You’ve got twenty-two hours in you.  They don’t care about the whole day.  Just the most amount of hours.”

I bite my lip as I try to think of a plan.  “Well, since they don’t know what I am…”

“No!” both of the boys snapped.

“I didn’t even finish,” I protest.

“I’m not letting you be bait,” Chaz said sternly as he squeezed my hand.

“That leaves me,” Mills said.

I rolled my eyes a little.  “If I can’t do it than neither can you.”

Now that I think about it, we really shouldn’t have spent so much time with this argument.  Three teenagers didn’t stand a chance against the couch, but a band of thieves had a slightly easier time.  We had been ignoring the quiet commotion of battle in the background, until the couch made a weird squeal, like worn-out squeaky springs.

We froze.  The reminder that the thieves could be vicious was worse than being cornered by a sofa sleeper.  I’d rather take the couch than that knife wielding maniac.  But what were we supposed to do?  All three of us had gotten cornered by a couch and now we were trapped by the thieves.  We had no weapons except for sarcasm.  We lost.  Plain and simple.

Chaz grabbed me and practically threw me at Mills before the two of us even had a chance to react.  The look on Chaz’s face was pretty obvious to me, even though it was directed at Mills.  Chaz was trusting my safety to Mills, with the promise of retribution if anything happened to me.  And then Chaz bolted from our hiding spot and straight toward the thieves.

I tried to follow, but Mills held on tightly.  “Let go,” I hissed.

“Wait,” he growled back at me.

I looked him in the eyes and saw a ticked off look that could rival Chaz’s earlier promise of retribution.  There was no way Mills was going to abandon Chaz, and he could see the same determination in my eyes.  The idea of someone putting themselves in danger for you is more than a little unsettling when you care about the person.

The amount of communication that can happen in the silence of looks alone is always incredible.  When two people have a common goal strongly in mind they can start to read the words on the tip of the other person’s tongue.  While the thieves were yelling and dealing with a fighting Chaz, Mills and I silently planned.

We hated that it had to happen this way, but it was unfortunately the best plan.  It kept all of us from being captured, leaving two of us to plan a hodge-podge rescue operation.  Mills and I both hated to acknowledge it, but Chaz was the best one to get caught.  The thieves were focused on him, and once they had him, they left.

So we waited.  We waited until sounds of struggle disappeared.  We waited until voices grew distant through the hallways.  We waited until silence started to give us the chills.  And we still waited, until the silence was finally broken by the pitiful creak of a dying couch.