I blinked at the man. Was he joking?

Raven's steely eyes bore into me. I already knew the answer to my question before I asked. No, he isn't joking.

Instead, I asked, "When did my time start?"

"At midnight," he replied. He glanced down at a black wristwatch. "It's one a.m. now."

"But couldn't you have..."

"Given you a full twenty-four hours? Yes, if you had woken up at midnight. But you didn't. This isn't your timetable, is ours. Now quit flapping your gums and let's get started with the briefing."

I gulped. I could feel myself breaking into a cold sweat.

"Cougar," the boss said. "Get the projector."

The body-builder from before stepped from behind me, carrying an enormous screen in one hand and a projector in the other. His muscles were barely even flexing from the strain.

I wonder what stuff he's on.

"Thank you. Parrot, untie his legs and hands."

A man with shaggy black hair approached me, a dagger in hand. I wanted to close my eyes, but my eyelids were paralyzed in fear. All my brain could think was, That's a knife. It looks sharp. I might die right now.

He grabbed my wrists with his long, nimble fingers and slipped the blade underneath the rope. In one swift motion, he pulled the knife upwards. He stopped the motion short of coming anywhere near me, but I could still see the blade zooming towards my face, its sharp edge slicing my skin. I shuddered, my eyes flying shut.

"Hold still," Parrot commanded. I froze, not wanting my movement to affect the trajectory of cutting the binds on my feet. The dagger sliced the ropes like butter.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I was unharmed.

Parrot must have sensed my discomfort, since he said, "You good?" I nodded slightly. He shrugged and hopped onto the edge of the desk.

The entire experience was honestly a huge win for me. I had such terrible aichmophobia that the sharpest knife that I kept in my home was plastic. Not the most renewable source for cutting food, but I hadn't been able to come up with something better.

By the time the whole ordeal was over, the boss had set up the projector with a slide show. I found it slightly humorous that we were going to watch a powerpoint presentation on the crime we were about to commit.

"Before we get started," the boss began, "I need to introduce you to the rest of your team. I'll only be telling you our alias.' If you want an alias different from Jordan, just let us know. We'll come up with a code name."

I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying that Jordan actually was an alias, since my real name was Claude.

"I'm known as The Raven," he continued. "I'm the brains of all of the jobs we pull. You report to me, and only to me. You do what I say, and only what I say."

The burly man with blond hair stepped forward next. He was so muscular, that his entire presence seemed to fill the room. "I'm Cougar, the muscleman of the group. I specialize in brute strength and weapons. And no, I'm not on steroids."

Well, at least one of my questions was answered.

"I'm Falcon," an African-American said next. "I'm the getaway driver."

A tall woman seemed to materialize from the shadows. I hadn't noticed her before since blended in with the darkness, dressed head to toe in black. Her chestnut brown hair was swept up in a neat bun, and her golden eyes glinted in the dim light.

"I'm Calico," she said smoothly. "The cat burglar."

She melted back into the shadows. I stared for a moment where she had just stood. Part of my brain thought that I had just seen a hologram pop up in the middle of the room. A shiver ran down my spine. Something about her appearing and vanishing made me uneasy. Yet another thing to be stored under my bed.

The man who had just removed the ropes from my hands scooted off the desk. "And then there's me. I'm the Parrot, or simply, Parrot." He stuck out his hand, offering a friendly smile. I eyed his hand, suspicious. Is this some sort of trick? Is he wearing brass knuckles or something? Is he going to break my hand with pure strength? This bunch hadn't exactly done much to earn my trust.

Sensing my trepidacion, Parrot rolled his eyes. "Come on, my hand doesn't bite. Only my teeth do that." He picked up hand and pressed down...hard. My bones felt like they were being crushed.

"Ah!" I said. I pulled back, rubbing my fingers.

"Aw, be a good sport," Parrot said.

Raven cleared his throat. "That's enough, Parrot. He doesn't appear to be as...conditioned as he used to be. We don't want any injuries to his fingers, especially considering his upcoming tasks."

Parrot flipped his shaggy, black hair out of his face. "Fine. Well anyways, I'm Parrot. I'm the distraction in the group. Anytime we're in danger of being discovered in our operations, bam! In I go. My specialties are acting, smooth talking, and, of course, distracting!"

I could definitely see the talking part. Smooth...I wasn't sure about that one. He was rather loud, not nearly as reserved as the others. He had even smiled at me. He might have been acting, I reminded myself.

The Raven gave a nod. "Good. Now that you've met the group, I think it's time to brief you on your first job."

He pointed a remote at the projector on the table. It whirred to life, streaming light onto the screen behind the desk. Pixels arranged on the screen in the form of a floor plan.

"This is known as the Mayhad Mansion, located in Oxford, North Carolina. Mr. John and Mrs. Henrietta Mayhad reside there. Your job is to break into the mansion and retrieve a very important box for us."

So basically they want me to steal stuff. What have I gotten myself into!

"Falcon is the driver and lookout A. He'll be watching in case anyone unwanted shows up at the house and will be ready to pick you up at a moment's notice. Parrot is lookout B. He will be stationed in the Mayhad's backyard. Calico will disarm any and all alarms as well as unlock doors and safes. Cougar will be back up." He paused a moment in his spiel.

"And what's my job?" I prompted.

"You're going to hack into the Mayhad's security system..."

"What?" I cried. I can't hack into anything! I've never done it before! But I did know how...

Hey! There are legitimate uses for that knowledge! First of all, they can help you figure out if your own device is being hacked into. Second, it actually assisted with learning how to program things. I wouldn't dream of using my knowledge for wrongdoing.

And yet look where I am now.

I snapped out of my thoughts. The slide of the screen had changed to an old, wooden box with a rusted latch on the front. "This is the box we're looking for. We're not entirely sure where it is kept, though. We may need you to search the whole house for it."

My eyes widened. "The whole house?"

"Yes, the whole house. I don't care what you do. You can ransack their whole home, tear up all of their furniture, burn their books, make a sandwich, whatever it takes."

"But that's, like, impossible!" I exclaimed. "Besides, if I'm just searching in a house, why do you need me for that? Can't you do it by yourselves?"

"As I said before, we need you to hack into the security system. You're going to watch the video footage of various rooms in the house until you see where it was put."

"Isn't that an invasion of privacy?"

"Dude, it's just a security cam," Parrot said. "It's not like we're reading his diary. How private can it be?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but was cut off by Raven.

"Here's the rundown of the timeline. From 1:20 to 3:10 a.m, you will travel to Oxford, North Carolina. The drive is a little less than two hours. Then, you must break into the house and hack into the security system. It is located in the control room on the third floor. From there, you will watch the video surveillance of all of the rooms in the house carefully. Once you spot the box, head to that room, get the box, and get out of there. You have one hour to accomplish all of this. Work quickly, work efficiently, and remember two things. First, you are not leaving that home without that box. Second, you can not, under any circumstances whatsoever, wake Mr. and Mrs. Mayhad. Understood?"

I nodded. What I understood best was the fact that a two hour car ride meant two hours of sleep.

"Good. Now get started. We haven't a moment to lose."