Levi and I return to the street Catherine was stolen from me the next day. Despite my drooping eyes and my insides trying to climb out of my stomach, I'm ready to get her back.
"Alright, what's the plan? How are we going to get her back?" I ask. Levi's got to have come up with something good.
From out of a big black duffel bag he brought with him to work, Levi pulls out a giant net, the type used on fishing boats. "I'll be able to see the thief before they run past us. Once I see them, I'll signal you to lift the net and hopefully, the timing is good enough to where they can't react."
"Your best plan is a net?"
"It's the best I can think of with what we have. Unless you've thought of something better?" He sounds genuine, despite the sarcastic undertone the question implies.
And the truth is, I was trying to think of something the whole time I wasn't able to sleep. But every time I thought of the asshole who stole Catherine from me, all I could think of doing was gripping them in both hands, tearing their head from their body, and taking back what they stole from me. But nothing that'd make that possible came to mind.
"Just tell me where to stand," I say reluctantly.
Levi and I find a tucked-away narrow point behind two walls along the thief's path. I won't be able to tell when they're coming because of the Antique, so I'll have to rely on Levi's signal to know when to pull the net taut. Until then, bewildered students step over the lifeless rope slumped on the ground.
And we waited.
And waited.
"Ren…" Levi starts.
"They'll come."
"It's happened every day at the same time for a week. And the thief's an hour overdue."
"They'll come!" I did not sit here for an hour fighting back sleep for them to not come.
Levi lets go of the net and walks away from our choke point. The plan won't work without him...
"What are you doing?! Come back!" I yell after him.
"There's nothing we can do. We'll come back tomorrow."
"We're not getting anywhere if we quit right now!"
"You have to be patient."
Patient!? "I sat here for an hour, how is that not patience!?"
"Tomorrow we'll try again." He flips open the same flip phone Victoria dialed Ghislain with and the conversation is seemingly over.
Later I learned that day that the thief ended up going a different route, stealing from a whole new group of people and making Levi's plan useless.
How did they know about our plan?! Did they see us? Were we too conspicuous? But even if they saw us Levi would be able to see them too right? Did Levi blink at the wrong time and miss them? Is it his fault we didn't get her back today!?
No. I can't think like that. It's just, aggravating having to rely on someone else so heavily for something you want more than life itself... But I can't turn on the only person willing to help me.
So, another sleepless night accompanied by drinking what Victoria had just bought and another dazed wake-up call from her, and we're on the route the college's security team said the thief had run yesterday. And it doesn't matter, because it was the same as yesterday. The net never gets pulled, because Levi never gave the signal, because the thief never came. It's like he knows where we would be before we were there!
By the third day, I can feel the lack of sleep constricting my movements even more. Every night that hollow feeling swallows my soul, growing more ferocious the longer she's gone. I die every moment without her, and only come back to life from a flicker of hope.
I need to find her, but any chance we had to get her back fizzles as the days go by. She might've been sold by now, or maybe thrown away like a piece of garbage, and I'm helpless to stop it.
And another day passes with nothing.
The days are too long, the nights are so short. The sky feels muted, the lights singe my eyes, all the walking we're doing aggravates my hangover headaches, and Levi's daily attempts at uncharismatic motivational speeches aren't doing much to help.
I don't know how much more I can take. I can't give up, but I just don't know how long I can last. Will I search like this forever, trapped in this cycle until I eventually collapse from exhaustion.
At our daily visit to the campus security office after our third... No, fourth failed attempt, a shrill voice pierces the offices' walls and shocks me out of my daze.
"What are you even like, here for then!" A young blonde girl yells at the security guard stationed at the front desk as we walk through the doors. "I can't go to class like this!"
"Ma'am I assure you we're aware of the issue and have a pair of professionals currently trying to resolve it."
"Are your professionals brain-damaged?! Because it seems like every day I'm having my backpack looked through and my purses like, stolen! I've probably lost more money this week than you've made in your entire life!"
"Who the hell does she think she is," I say to Levi.
"Shhhh," He hushed. "This might be important."
"Have you tried going another way to your class?" The officer asks.
"Have you tried going another way, of course I have!" she mocks. "I've been going a different way every day but every time it's the same thing! Wherever I go the thief is!"
"You can file a report with my supervisor if you have any complaints."
"You can take your report and shove it up your ass!" Wow.
She turns around with the meanest scowl I've ever seen. Flashy hoop earrings hang from her earlobes, a diamond ring five times the size of the one I proposed to Catherine wraps around her right ring finger, and each of her nails are painted a pastel yellow. On the outside, she looks like a dainty, blond-haired, skinny girl with her pink skirt adorned with different gemstones around it and her face plastered with makeup. Every part of her sparkles a hole through my retinas, but inside her shining kaleidoscope, a boiling rage bubbles under her face.
As she stomps towards us to exit Levi steps in her path to stop her. "Excuse me." He greeted.
"What the hell do you want?" She hisses.
"I'm Levi Connolly from the U.S. Department of Curators and I just wanted to ask you a few questions."
"So you're the two professionals who can't do your jobs. Do you know how much money I've lost from this? They even stole my textbooks!"
"And that's just why we need to talk to you. What's your name?"
"Carly Moreau."
"You've been stolen from every day?
"Yeah."
"And you're followed whenever you change your route?"
"Are you deaf? I like, already said all of this!"
Levi looks at me with a soft, stony expression that tells me he's thinking the same as I am. She may be rude, but if this isn't a coincidence, she'll be the key to getting Catherine back.
Turning back to Carly, Levi says "We'll be able to get everything that was stolen from you back. But we'll need your help to do it."
"This sounds like the start of a scam."
"It isn't, I assure you," Levi promised. "You just need to trust us."
"That's exactly what a scammer would say by the way." She looks over to me and back to Levi. "But I guess I'm desperate."
"Can you meet us here at around six-thirty am? We'll need time to prepare if we want everything to go how we need it to."
"Whatever you say. Just know if you try to scam me, I'm like, a certified yellow belt and will break your head open." With that final threat, she passes us outside.
"She's an asshole isn't she?"
"She reminds me a lot of you in some ways," Levi comments.
I don't see the resemblance. But that doesn't matter, because right now all that matters is tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Carly will bait the thief in, Levi will come up with a sure-fire plan to catch them, and I'll finally be reunited with Catherine.
I just need tomorrow to come.