:::

"Damn! I'm giving you a boost but you're not going anywhere. Shit!" Adam March stood in a back alley in the middle of the night, his teeth grit as he pushed his sister up towards a window. The plan was for June to open the window, climb through, and then let him in. The plan was not going as easily as either of them had hoped. "What are you—are you trying to step on my shoulder?"

"Shut the fuck up! Jesus when I did this with Zach he was way quieter than your loud ass!" She argued back, her voice a hushed whisper as she attempted to use his shoulder to help herself up. When she had broken into Hardy's office with Zach she had done it alone, but that was not something Adam needed to know, he just needed to know he was doing a bad job.

"Oh so Zach was an accomplice to your felony arson...he's been denying it for months." June attempted to kick him in the face, the boy pushing her foot out of his face and grabbing her by the legs, using all of his strength to push her into the window. The window was small and rather high up, June sliding through it and into the bathroom. She hit the floor with a thud, groaning as she rubbed a spot on her back where she had hit the sink on the way down. She pushed herself up slowly, looking back at the sink to make sure she didn't break it before pulling the door open. She hurried to the back door, pulling it open and looking at her brother with a wide smile. "Why are you so excited about breaking and entering?"

"Because I'm excited about what's inside here. Now come on slow ass." June said, pulling her brother inside by the front of his shirt. She closed the door behind him,  tiptoeing down the hallway just in case  someone was in there for some unknown reason. It was an older building, built more like an office space than a store. She stepped on a board and it freaked, the girl cringing as she sent a look back at her brother. The second she made eye contact with him she punched him, the idiot wearing a ski mask over his face.  "You're an idiot."

"They could have cameras. Now you're going to jail and I'm not." He shoved her by the shoulder, the girl bumping into the wall and turning around as quickly as possible to get in his face.

"Jesus when did you become such a pussy?" She asked, pushing the office door open and waiting to go inside. His finger lifted in front on their faces and he furrowed his eyebrows,  not that she could see it.

"Okay that was rude." He said, the girl rolling her eyes as she pushed the door open the rest of the way. They both went inside and he closed the door behind him as quietly as possible, the girl already trying to find what the key in her pocket could possibly go to.

"We're looking for a safe or something, needs to be opened by a key. Check behind pictures and stuff...you never know where it could be hiding in these places." Adam nodded at her instructions, his eyes scouring the walls of the office. It looked a lot like their dads office, the bookshelf, the globe, the glossy wooden desk and the maps used for decoration on the walls. Whoever's office this was...they were a fan of decorating.

"This place kind of gives me the creeps." Adam said, looking through the book on the shelf. June was looking behind picture frames and wall fixtures, her head not turning to her brother as she spit some knowledge.

"It's an old building...built in the 1920s or some shit like that. Apparently it's rumored some mob guy owned it in the 20s—nobody knows though." Adam was looking at her with a confused and disparaged look, his face scrunched up as he turned back to the bookshelf.

"Why do you know that?"

"I do my research." It was true. After June had found the  key and the coordinates that led directly to the shop, she had done a deep dive down the rabbit hole of finding out what the connection to this building was. However she hadn't been able to find the name of the actual current owner, not until she found out Erika Harris' parents owned the place. Still she had found building ledgers that dated all the way back to the early 1920s, leading her to some interesting articles about the prohibition.

"So there's like a 95% chance it's haunted." Adam said in a hushed whisper, pulling a painting up to see if he could see behind it. There was nothing there, the not dropping the painting and looking to her for her answer.

"Probably, yeah." She pulled back from where she was looking, her hands going to her hips as she looked at her brother. He continued searching and complaining while she took a step back, looking for something in the room that might clue her into where this thing might be. She felt discouraged as she looked at her masked brother, her eyes closing briefly as she tried to map out what she knew about the place.  When she opened her eyes she trailed across the walls, hoping it would help and it took her about 5 tries before she did notice something weird. "Hey dumbass, pull that sconce."

"First off fuck you that was rude. Second, what the hell is a sconce?" He said, holding a stack of what looked like CDS in his hand. She groaned, crossing the office and reaching for the light fixture, her fingers enclosing around the brass. She rolled her eyes at him as she pulled on it, the clue to the sconce being something important being the fact that it was the only one in the room.  It was almost too obvious. She pulled on it as Adam gestured aimlessly towards it, realizing what a sconce was.  "What do you think when you pull it some magic door—"

When she pulled  the sconce there was a ridiculously loud thumping noise from under the desk, both of them turning to look toward the wooden table. June walked towards the desk, a puzzled and determined look on her face as Adam was left speechless, his lips parting but nothing coming out.  She rounded the desk and looked straight down, the boy letting out a huff of air and putting his hands on his hips.

"There's a magic secret door there isn't there?" He said in a defeated tone, June giving a nod as she reached under the desk. She slowly lifted the heavy wooden panel, her eyes glistening as she saw what looked to be stairs. She beckoned him over, the boy shining his flashlight on the hole and both of them gasping. It was in fact stairs...and quite a few of them.

"Let me see that." June pulled the flashlight from his hand, pushing the desk back and opening the door all the way. She looked back at Adam for only a second before she started down the stairs, goosebumps rising on her skin as the air turned cold. There was a thump behind her and she looked back fast, Adam holding his elbow and giving her a look. The ski mask had been discarded and she was now able to see his terrified face, her head turning back to the front to watch the stairs.

"Is this what you and the Pogues do on—"

"Sh! Shut up." At the end of the stair case was a short hallway and then a door, the silence between the two of them being so thick that they could almost hear the sound of their own blood rushing. June reached for the doorknob and attempted to turn it, but just as she expected... it was locked. Her breath stopped when she realized why the key looked so old, it was because it was...because this place was a speakeasy in the prohibition, and this key had been to this door. Her fingers trembled as she pulled the key from her pocket, Adam watching in some kind of mix of fear, curiosity, and amazement. Her heart pounded as she pushed the key into the keyhole, a click sounding when she turned it. The door actively unlocked and she tried the doorknob again, not sure what would be on the other side.

She pushed the door open and was met with something she did not expect at all. It was like a miniature library of sorts, the room clearly having been changed in recent years. It resembled an unfinished basement, a pool table and tv set up in a corner. They walked inside and she scoured the room with her eyes, her brown settling on a framed picture on the wall. It was a map.

"Holy shit." She said, crossing the room and going towards the frame.

"Holy shit over the fact that we found a fucking secret man cave." Adam said, pushing a pool ball across the table. It clicked into the pocket just as she removed the frame from the wall, her eyes glowing with excitement as she immediately realized it was what she was looking for. The answer to Hardy's quest and a real map to a missing treasure from over a hundred years ago. The thought of Hardy made her wanna be sick so she quickly pushed it away, turning back excitedly to her brother.

"Hand me—hand me the replacement." She said, pulling the back of the frame off. She gripped the old and fragile paper in her hands, Adam sifting through the bag and grabbing their replacement map from it. She handed him the map with a warning look, putting to a replacement in and closing the frame back up. It looked nothing like the actual map, but she wasn't sure how often anyone really came down here, judging by the dust that covered the bookshelf. Adam slipped the real one into a plastic bag as she hung the frame back on the wall, the girl swallowing hard as she turned back. He put the bag back into the backpack and zipped it, June rushing past him and towards the stairs. She locked the door back and they hurried out, silent as he pushed the desk back where it was and they looked over everything to make sure nothing was out of place. It wasn't long before they were back outside, hurrying down the alleyway and back towards the car.

"Did we actually just pull that off?!" Adam asked, his eyes wide when they closed the car doors. She stared at her lap for a moment and then looked at him with an excitable smile, also feeling a bit of disbelief at how well that had gone.

"Oh my god. We got the map!"

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Next chapter is gonna be long as hell and  I'm SO excited to write it you don't even know.

Let me know how you're feeling.