Taking a deep breath, Kim steadied herself on the rooftop, waiting patiently for the Edmonds family to leave for church. So many questions were running through her mind. Should I be doing this, she thought to herself.
Kim Kristen was just a nineteen-year-old teenager who derived joy from looking for trouble and bullying others. Her cunning and trickish ways gave her a name in the whole of FairVille City. She was just a local scoundrel who had too much fun exploiting and deceiving others. She was an orphan and lived with her grandmother in an old shabby house down the water fall. Her grandmother, who had taken her in, and trained her after the death of her parents, was now very well into her age and as such could not do some certain things. Poor Kim had to result in being a tout to survive. It was the only way to survive, she convinced herself.
Over the years, she had exploited and deceived so many unfortunate people, trickishly gaining one thing or the other from whosoever she came across. For Kim, she did it for the fun of it. Just a way to survive while having fun in the process. However, one faithful day, she messed with the wrong set of people and things stopped being funny for Kim Kristen.
It was three days ago, Kim was walking down a dark alley close to the city's bridge. Desperate for some money to feed herself and her grandmother. She kept on moving to and fro, waiting for an innocent victim to fall into her trap. Luckily for her, three young men passed by at that instant, all dressed in black hoodies.
" Yes boss, we've got the money, we're on our way" she heard the tall one say to someone on the phone.
" Is that boss?" The shortest one among them asked.
" Yes, he said we should hurry up. The deal is closing tonight" the tall young man answered.
Now was her chance, she thought to herself. Kim came out of her hiding place and started walking towards them. Pretending she was crying and looking downwards, she aimed for the tall one and bumped into him with such force that they both landed on the floor. Within that short time, she had managed to sneakily take whatever he had on him in his pocket.
"Oh I'm so sorry" Kim quickly apologized with teary eyes.
"Are you sure you're alright?" The tall young man asked her, seeing that she had obviously been crying.
Kim, being the best actress she could be, displayed the best innocent face she could put up. She cunningly left the area as quickly as she could before the young man discovered his money was missing.
A little over thirty minutes, the three young men realized that they had been scammed. The young man who bumped into her swore to catch her by all means. Kim had unknowingly disrupted their plans by taking along with her a huge sum of money the three young men had just stolen. Unknown to her, those three young men were also scoundrels. High-class robbery-men. They went for the big catch. And they had just come back from a hunt. Stealing a priceless jewel and trading it for a huge sum of money which they were supposed to deliver to their boss in less than an hour.
"Dude! You just got scammed by a girl", the shortest of the three said teasingly.
"What do we do now? Boss, we definitely not like this," the quiet one who hardly ever spoke said.
" Ace, you go back to the boss, and buy us some time while Roxy and I look for the girl." Talle, the tall young man and seemingly the leader of the trio, said to the shortest of them.
They quickly went their separate ways. Ace, the short one, goes back to cover up for them while Roxy and Talle search the whole of the neighborhood for her. They were experienced criminals, so soon enough they had a lead on her whereabouts. Using their expertise, they had managed to meet someone who had helped them track her down to her location.
"Are you ready to storm the castle" Talle said to Roxxy with vengeance brimming in his eyes as they made their way to the location they got on her.
"Always ready" Roxy answered as they walked fiercely like two men going into a battleground.
In the next fifteen minutes, they had got to the place only to find an old woman there, which was Kim's grandmother. They quickly tied her up to a chair and held her hostage as they waited for Kim to come back.
"Grandma! I'm home and I brought a lot of goodies", Kim chimed, as she opened the door to enter inside.
On seeing the two young men dressed in black hoodies who she had earlier scammed, she dropped whatever she was holding and began pleading with them.
"Please don't hurt her, she's all I got".
"Where is the money, or I'll snap her neck" Talle asked forcefully.
" It's here, take it" she said, giving the cash back to them.
Roxy took the money and quickly counted it, only to discover it wasn't complete.
"Are you joking with us? "He spat.
" I'm sorry, I used some of it to buy some food" she said shamefully.
"Please don't hurt my grandma, I'll do anything", Kim continued pleading.
" The complete cash or she dies" Talle answered in a matter of fact tone.
"Alright, just give me some time to get the money. I'll be back soon."
" You have ten minutes."
Kim quickly rushed out of there completely clueless and confused about what to do. She had no other option but to do what she was good at. It was the only way she could save her grandmother, she thought. And that was why she stood on the rooftop about to steal from the Edmonds family. Quickly and stealthily she maneuvered her way into their house after they had all gone to church and took all the money she could find.
She made her way back to her house and gave the two young men all the money she had just stolen, and it was more than the initial amount. The two men smiled at each other, pushed the grandmother to the floor and quickly left to deliver the money to their boss. Kim rushed to her grandmother and hugged her deeply. She couldn't imagine losing her grandmother. She was all she got as an orphan. Kim had learned her lesson the hard way.
