"Please have pads..." Josey whispered under her breath as she tried to pick the lock. Usually she just forced her way in, but the police seemed to be tracking her movements, and there was no way she was going to give them any more evidence if they did catch her. An owl hooted, and the car in the driveway of the house she was trying to break into pulled away. She had been watching them for a while, with the smell of baking radiating throughout the neighbourhood, the family seemed quite excited at their football team's exploits this season, and them driving out to see the big game in the next state over was an opportunity that she rarely got. Two or three days would even be enough for her to have a bath, sleep in an actual bed, and steal a significant amount of food from their cupboards.
The lock clicked, and so did the small wire she was using to push up the pins in its tumbler.
"Shit." She whispered, and opened the door. What seemed like an average living room appeared before her, and she ducked inside and out of the sunlight. She wedged a small piece of paper over the bolt to stop it locking again and took off her faded backpack and dumped it on the sofa. After a good hour of hiding crouched in the bushes near the back fence it felt good to stand up straight. She scurried to the kitchen to her left and opened the fridge.
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Something creaked upstairs. Josie froze, trying to stifle her breathing. Was someone up there? Had one of them bowed out at the last moment due to sickness? Was it a neighbour taking advantage of the cable? Or another intruder, like her?
She shook slightly, and lowered the half eaten sandwich back onto the small plate she had also borrowed. Josie straightened her backpack on the couch next to her, ready to grab it and run. The seconds ticked by, and no more sounds came from up on the second level.
"Or it could just be the house settling." Josie said quietly. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to look around upstairs before she continued; she hid the sandwich out of the way next to the tv cabinet and put her bag back on.
When she reached the top of the stairs she could go left or right. Left to 2 doors or right to 3. She went left. The first room she discovered was the master bedroom, with a giant mattress covered in a thick quilt, no one was there; she nearly missed the ensuite bathroom with shower, toilet and basin, but it too was empty. The next room was a study/computer room, which was also empty.
To the right there was a bedroom, with decorations that suggested it belonged to a young man, 16 or 17. Then came another bathroom, this one with a bathtub as well as the previous. Next was what looked like a young woman's bedroom, with a light layer of dust, much of the closet was empty; perhaps she was away at college? Either way, it seemed that the house was empty to Josie.
What she hadn't seen, where she hadn't bothered to check; under the tiny gap from the bedframe to the floor, there were two pinpricks of gold.
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Josie passed her time foraging through the house. They must have taken all the baking stuff with them, but thankfully they did have pads, she was coming up to that time of the month and hadn't found any for at least twice that long. She washed out the rags that she had used and hung them to dry on the side of the laundry basin, noting that it was one of her possessions on a piece of paper, she didn't want to forget anything if she had to leave suddenly. She also pre-made a large amount of sandwiches, making sure to use up a whole loaf of bread; hopefully the family would think it a mistake in their stockpile of 3 different types.
At around 7 she stripped and washed her clothes while nude, she hung them to dry on the side of the basin also, and, with the curtains closed, dragged her exhausted body upstairs. She couldn't sleep in the parent's room, the mother might smell her odd odor, and she couldn't remove her memories of what happened last time she was on a father's side of the bed. Thankfully if the police did catch her, now that she was over 18, they wouldn't have to send her back, and if they didn't have to shift their asses they definitely wouldn't, they hadn't before. That only left the son and daughter's rooms. Josie was more worried about the son finding her smell than the mother, so she settled on the college girl's room. After a long shower, and an impromptu haircut, which had almost formed dreadlocks from being unwashed for so long, she lay down to sleep on the mattress, her backpack lain beside the bed.
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