Darzy and Rossy chap. 2

     Rossy began to hack and cough violently as the wind-change blew the acrid smoke in their faces. Darzy remained unperturbed, thanks to her scarf, but the metallic scent still stung the inside of her nose like soda.
     “Gelidus fulvis,” he cursed. “You HAD to look up the most pungent flammable in the market, Darz.”
     “Would you rather I have used baby powder instead?” she snapped. “Not only would we be crispy, but we’d be crispy AND jailed.”
     “Don’t remind me,” Rossy wheezed, trying to filter the smell with his sleeved arm. After a pause, he said, “The coppers seem preoccupied with our little friend here.” He swept his hand through the yellow flames that licked the walls, though they were cold to the touch. The air around them, though, was hot (though bearable) and malodorous as paint.
     “Stop loitering with the fire, Ross,” Darzy reprimanded her partner. “The vault is this way.”
     “I’m coming.”
     Without waiting for Ross to catch up, she proceeded into the ginger-and-golden blaze, a burlap sack in both fists. Soon the two came across a metal door, imbedded into a bare, unsightly brick wall. It was approximately five ½ feet in diameter, likewise in height. Attached to the right side, an electronic code-pad glimmered in the fire, along with a red fish-eye alarm sitting next to it. The lights of the fire made it appear as if it was already going off.
     Carefully, as she did not wish to make a mistake, Darzy punched in the code they had fished from the bank system just that morning. The door did not move, and the alarm stayed dark.
     “Hmm…” she said, thinking, placing her hands on her hips.
     “What’s wrong?” Ross, who had just caught up, asked his partner. He stared at the code-pad in rapt attention, similar to Darz’s expression.
     “Wait!” he exclaimed. He reached for the code-pad as if he meant to grab it, but instead he began feeling all along its edge and its surface, even going so far as to check between the pads. Soon he found his mark.
     Stuffing a hand into his pocket, he very carefully plucked out a tiny glob of white clay. He picked off a small bit, stuffing the rest back into his pants, and began rolling it in his palms rapidly. Soon it was nearly a hair-thin string, and he quickly began threading it through some invisible thing.
     “A whisper lock!” Darzy exclaimed. “Ross, I owe you big time.”
     “It was nothing,” he said, twisting the now-hardened string of clay. The door hissed and swung open, revealing a seemingly endless hall of steal drawers, gleaming in the light above. “Though I wouldn’t mind a bit of compensation for my labor.”
     Darzy punched her cohort in the arm playfully.

     It was cool in the bank vault, because of the fact that it was heat-resilient. Soon, both their burlap sacks were full to the limit. Rossy had resorted to stuffing dollar bills into his pockets, though Darzy was eager to get out without the bank before the firefighters realized that their hoses weren’t smothering the fire.
     “Let’s go,” she said to him. He nodded his shadowed head.
     As if on cue, a voice bellowed from behind Darz’s back. “Drop the money! Hands where I can see them!” Rossy, who was facing their opponent, obliged, though not without hesitation, and raised his hands behind his head. However, Darzy remained where she was, turning to face the voice’s source.
     “Ah, Officer Howard!” she said cheerily, smiling broadly under her scarf, as if they had been friends for years. “It seems you survived our little encounter at the lab last week. It’s a shame, really…”
     “Quit the small-talk,” Miguel Howard growled. His fingers clenched his gun, which was pointed at her face. “Put your hands in the air, Darzy Manston.”
     “No, I don’t think I will.” She said it as if she were suggesting that, if they were planning to go to the store, they visit the park instead.
     Miguel glared at Darzy intently, frustrated at the fact that she didn’t even appear to be trying to escape. Suddenly, his gaze flickered towards Rossy, who was glowering at him with unfeasible intensity. Suddenly, his hand shifted a bit, just an inch. Though, with that small movement, a small glimmer of light caught his eyes, making a black-and-pink afterimage.
     Before he could reply, Rossy flung a four-bladed card at the police officers with a flick of his hand. He didn’t even move an inch.
     The spinning razor-sharp edges failed to cause the seven policemen that had gathered at the entrance of the vault any harm, though it managed to make a thin gash along Miguel’s temple, yet keep going and slash at the clothes of three others.
     As an instinct, the middle-aged officer twisted around to see what had hit him, a big mistake. Fast as a jungle-cat, Darzy leaped at Miguel and pinned him down, struggling to get a knife through his flesh while he held her back by the wrist. Both their left-and-right arms clasped around their opposing shoulders to trap the other, or in Miguel’s case, to prevent Darzy from killing him.
     Meanwhile, Ross charged at another officer—a slick-haired, white-faced man—and jumped high over his head, grabbing his shoulders en route. In a midair somersault, he sent the cop head-over-heels, and into his comrades, driving them into a flurry of disorder for a mere second. Nevertheless, it was enough time for Rossy to charge through the blockade of bodies and into the cold fire outside. A moment later, Darzy released her captive on an aerial descent across the vault hall.

     The sky was a navy-blue shade, the last of the sun just barely highlighting the horizon. The two crooks were in their hideout, an ancient mansion that sat on the end of Castle Boulevard. The town left it alone, on the request of the inheritors when the original owners passed, an no one had reason to believe that two of the most dangerous felons in England were taking refuge within it.
     However, half of the entire mansion was uninhabitable, due to the abundance of insects and broken wood or glass. As for the sufficient places, Darzy and Rossy cleaned and made to suit their living style: to hide their hoards of money.
     “We got a total of 56 thousand, two hundred and ten pounds,” Rossy stated, twisting a rubber band over a £100 stack of _____. “There was also a two pence coin with them, but I think that was in my pocket already.”
     “Either way,” Darzy said. “That was a great heist. A couple more like that and we’ll be able to retire.”
     “Not that I plan to,” Rossy replied, and the two broke into laughter.
     Now dry, Darz’s hair was red and spiky. Rossy’s suit was more striking now that it wasn’t clinging to his skin like a wet towel. His had replaced card to the band of his grey derby.
     Suddenly, Rossy froze. “Do you hear that?” His partner made no noise as she listened intently around her. All was silent for a second, but then an indecipherable sound of voices met their ears; then, the sound of sneakers on old wood.
     One second later, a boy of maybe 14 stepped warily into the mansion, scanning the ground as if he feared the boogieman might get him.
     Wasting no time, Ross snatched his M4 Bullet Charger—a small handgun—and had two bullets within the adolescent’s shoulders.
     “What a waste,” he sighed, sitting up out of his blue suede chair. He quickly disposed of the body in the back of the mansion. He returned later to help hide the money among the floorboards. Afterwards, Darzy said, “We will have to take longer measures to prevent the injury of more kids.”
     “I don’t know about you,” Ross replied. “But I don’t mind ridding Nottingham of a few snot-nosed brats.”