Page 109 of Icarus

With every step Icarus had taken at his father’s heels as a kid, Icarus could see his desire to tear this place apart. It was in the quaking of his hands and the set of his shoulders.

They took small things first, then bigger pieces, priceless pieces. They took from Mr. Black with daring and impunity, with vengefulness and spite and pettiness. But they always replaced their thefts with replicas, they always put in the work to restore the home to its original state, never damaged anything or left a hole where a piece should be.

Each time they returned here, Icarus’s grief lessened. It climbed down on a slow descent, safe and sound, until it landed on the shore and he became ready to walk away from this.

Angus’s grief seemed to crest each time, climbing higher and higher with no real end in sight.

It left him with this: a problem and a solution.

In a house full of lenses that had seen his face, Icarus had to bring this back. There was no other choice; he would force this to work for him. If he got caught tonight, at the very least he could point to this disc and claim he had come to return it. Even if he got caught with the torque, he could claim he had come to return that too.

If there had been weeks, months, years of surveillance, he would still be able to spin the story that the first time he came was to replace the figurine and the last time to replace the disc.

He was his father’s son; he was built in his shape. This was his tactical gear; these were his tools. They didn’t update what had been working, and it might be the one thing that could save Icarus’s skin.

Icarus’s hands felt sweaty in his gloves. The rushing of his blood was drowning out the noise from the TV.

It was time for him to be selfish. They were getting the fuck out of here.

He sent a thief’s prayer up to his god. Then stepped down from the carpet to granite.

Metamorphoses

The ground was cold and the chandelier from the living room cast a triangular shaft of light on the floor that Icarus had to slide around. He made it across the space and gently placed the disc back on its frame and froze.

He expected something: an alarm, a shout from behind, literally getting shot. But nothing. He held his breath, straining his ears for the sound of footsteps but it was quiet. The TV made an explosion sound, which startled him enough that he almost dropped to the ground, but it was followed by Mr. Black’s laughter. Safely far away.

Icarus leaned against the table, fighting down his terror-vertigo. Then, he turned around to recalibrate.

From where he was standing, Icarus could see the storage room door, the staircase where his bag was sitting, and the living room down the hall. If he stretched, he could glimpse a sliver of the white couch he had slept on during his and Helios’s vacation.

He couldn’t bring his gear into the storage room. The aisles were too close together. The chance that he might accidentally bump into something was high.

Icarus was also wary of leaving his gear on the stairs, but there was nowhere else to stash it at this point. It had to stay.

He gritted his teeth and slid across the floor to the storage room door. Icarus waited until there was a burst of laughter and put in the code, then waited for another and opened the door.

He left the door cracked when he slipped inside.

The warm dusty scent of this place was soothing and familiar. It was too risky to turn on the overhead light, so Icarus used his headlight instead. But the beam was small and round, so he couldn’t just sprint inside; he had to move carefully.

He picked through the shelves, heading toward the back until things began to look familiar. He spotted the small wooden statue first, before the torque across from it, and a thrum of fear went through him, so powerful that his lips felt numb.

There was no dust on the figurine. It had been moved by a naked hand; its base had been scraped across the dust circle Icarus had so painstakingly placed it back into.

Someone had moved it, had touched it, rubbed it clean. This didn’t feel like something Helios would do.

So. Mr. Black knew they had come here. Icarus couldn’t think beyond that. It was too dangerous to fall apart now.

Icarus’s knees wanted to buckle and dots were swimming before his eyes. He took a moment to lean against the shelf and catch his breath. He didn’t need to be careful about smudging dust in here anymore.

The laugh track from outside startled him and adrenaline jolted through him. Icarus stood up straight, shook his shoulders, rolled his neck, and shined his flashlight through to the other side.

The gold torque was untouched, still dusty and waiting for him. He rounded the first aisle and made his way toward the second. Icarus snatched the gold and shoved it messily inside his jacket breast pocket, like a common burglar.

There was a clatter outside and Icarus froze. It was too quiet. The television was off.

Icarus didn’t hesitate. He sprinted straight down the aisle on his toes and scuttled into the crack behind the open door, just in time to hear Mr. Black picking up the disc from its frame. He wasn’t graceful like a thief: his fingers bashed the edge and the frame scraped the wood.