The intense foggy boredom that eventually set in with summer had been staved off, for a few weeks at least, with the mystery of the break-ins that had been happening in the neighborhood as of late. They were sitting in Will's room, Nico on the floor and Will cross-legged on top of his dresser, listening to Pierce the Veil when Nico voiced his theory to Will.

"It's definitely Brian," Nico said decidedly.

"Who?" Will asked, not looking up from his present occupation of attempting to balance his soda on his knee.

"Bianca's new boyfriend," Nico replied, the simple thought of that asshole making him want to both vomit and punch something. Maybe both at the same time.

"Ohhh." Will nodded knowingly. "You know, just because you're worried he'll hurt her doesn't mean he's a criminal."

"Yes, but ever since he started coming over, people have been complaining that their shit is missing."

"Wait, really?" Will put down his soda.

"Mhm," Nico said, triumphantly. "Remember when Mrs. Larsen - she's the one right across the street from you - ran out of her house screaming at 5am?"

"Yeah, good times. But what does that have to do with - was it Brandon or Brian?"

"Brian. And he had come over for dinner the night before."

"It could just be a coincidence?"

"And then he came over to get Bianca to go to the movies and that guy with the six cats down the block was complaining that somebody stole his diamond-encrusted cat collar," Nico persisted.

"Everyone on this street is fucking crazy," Will said. "But it could still be a coincidence?"

"A coincidence like that? I don't think so," Nico said. "Plus he's shady. Like, as a person, he seems shady."

"Your 'overprotective brother' is showing," Will said.

"Okay, but he is," Nico insisted. "And is it so wrong to want to protect my sister? He's a criminal, and it's my responsibility to make sure he doesn't hurt Bianca since she can't see his true colors for herself."

In fact, she'd laughed in his face when Nico had told Bianca his suspicions, which, in retrospect, probably wasn't the best decision on Nico's part.

"Oh my God, Nico," Bianca said, rolling her eyes. "Brian isn't stealing stuff from people's houses. He'd never do that."

"Okay, then explain why things started being stolen the night he came over for dinner." Nico followed Bianca into the kitchen to get a sandwich.

"Coincidence." Bianca seemed to be barely listening to him. Doesn't she care about her own fucking safety? he thought. Everyone knows coincidences like that don't happen.

.

So, for the next few weeks, they devoted themselves to finding concise evidence that would convince everyone of Brian's guilt. In all honesty, Nico was the one who was actually interested and Will was only helping because he was bored and because Nico was his friend.

"Does he even have a motive?" Will asked one day when they were monitoring Brian's van from Nico's bedroom window.

"Does he need one? Maybe he just wants money," Nico said, shrugging.

Much to Nico's annoyance, Brian drove Bianca to dinner, and in the grand total of five minutes he spent in the neighborhood, he didn't do anything illegal, or even the least bit shady. Nico held on to his belief that Brian was guilty, and no matter how many times Bianca laughed at him, and ignoring the lack of any real evidence, Nico refused to change his mind.

He was so desperate for some kind of reassurance that when the couple decided to walk to get frozen yogurt, Nico embraced the opportunity to look through Brian's van. Bianca's boyfriend drove one of those minivan-like vehicles that hippie college students always drive in cliché seventies movies, fully steroetypical with brightly painted sides, tinted windows, and political bumper stickers.

"This feels illegal and immoral," Will said, nervously looking down the street while Nico tried the driver's side front door, which was locked.

"Nobody's gonna see us. Besides," Nico replied, walking around to the back of the van. "It's for the greater good."

Nico pulled the handle on the back door, heard a click as the door opened, and found himself face-to-face with a girl about his age wearing black from head to toe.

"Who the fuck are you?" Nico staggered backwards into Will.

"Yeah, and why are you hiding in a van?" Will asked.

The girl slipped through the open door then closed and locked the van. Nico and Will stared at her.

"Do you have some water or something? I've been in there for hours," she said, smoothing her hair back from her forehead and making her way over to sit in the grass of Nico's front yard.

"At least tell us who you are before inviting yourself onto my lawn," Nico said accusingly. He exchanged a look with Will and considered calling the police.

Suddenly a thought occured to him. "Oh my God, did Brian kidnap you?"

"You sounded way too happy when you said that," Will said.

"Of course not," the girl said. "He doesn't even know I'm here. I'm his sister. My name's Zoe."

"Fuck," Nico replied. "He's not a kidnapper."

"Nico!" Will said indignantly.

They all stared at each other for a few seconds.

"So, water?" Zoe asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Um...okay?" Nico said, walking across the grass to his front door.

.

Will and Zoe sat down at the kitchen table while Nico grabbed a bottle of water and passed it to Zoe.

"Okay, so why were in your brother's van?" Will asked, thoroughly mistified.

"I wanted to steal shit," Zoe replied with a nonchalance that didn't really fit the situation.

"You're the theif?!?" Will exclaimed, while Nico said "fuck" again really loudly. Now how am I going to convince Bianca that Brian's shady and shouldn't be her boyfriend? he thought.

"Yep," Zoe said, twisting the top off her water and downing half the bottle in one go. "Don't call the police, though, please."

"I think we're kinda obligied to," Will said. "Also, Nico, do you even care that we figured out who's been stealing shit?"

"Since it's not Brian, not really," Nico replied.

"Brian?" Zoe snorted. "No way. He doesn't even drink."

Nico sighed. "Shit. But seriously, I think we do have to call the cops."

"Aw, please?" Zoe pleaded. "I'm gonna give everything back, I just got bored."

"So you committed a felony?" Will asked.

"Is breaking and entering a felony?" Nico wondered.

"Technically not," Zoe replied. "Neither is theft if it's under 500 dollars."

"Still..." Will said. "It's really immoral. Plus I think together they qualify as burglary and that is a felony."

"Shit," Zoe said. "Okay, how about I return everything I took and give you each ten bucks and we all forget this ever happened?"

"No!" Will said.

"Only because then we'd be committing a crime, too," Nico chimed in.

"I mean your best bet is to give back the stuff you took and apologize to people," Will said. "And hope they don't press charges."

Zoe sighed. "I guess. But you two have to come with me. Maybe it'll make people cut me some slack."

Nico looked at Will and shrugged. "Alright. I mean, I have nothing else to do today."

Will sighed. "You two are probably the most morally corrupt people I've ever met."
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and so enters the irrelevant but entertaining side characters. idk what this chapter is even about, i just started writing and...yeah.

also i lowkey wanna change this to first person oops. i think i might bc third person isn't really working for me. would first person bother anyone?

thanks for reading this random ass chapter. xo - lucy