Chapter Four

"Come on" Brendon says while grabbing his tool box walking towards the window, he begins to climb down first me close behind.

As we get to the bottom he places his tool box on the ground, making sure I didn’t fall down the shaky ladder. Once I was safely off the ladder, he takes a heavy looking tool out.

"Stay behind me" He tells me looking at me for a second, I nod following him out the attic and down the creepy stairs, leading back out to the landing.

"We don't know how long these people are gonna be out for, just grab the chest and go" I hear a mans voice say on the flight of stairs under us, the sound of their feet getting closer to us with every second.

I grab hold of Brendon’s top fright making it's way through my body, he reassures me it's all gonna be okay as we come face to face with the two guys.

"What the fuck are you doing in our house?" Brendon asks looking at the two men, they went to speak but Brendon cuts them off "you have five seconds to leave or this pole is gonna come in contact with both of your thick skulls" he tells them talking in a way I've never heard him before, even I would be scared of him!

"I'm sorry mate, we don't want no troub-" one of the guys starts, but Brendon begins to count.

"Five......four....three..." he begins, which causes both men to run down the stairs and out the house, leaving the door open as they went.

"What do we do?" I ask still holding tightly into Brendon’s arm, outside you hear the noise of a car speeding away.

"Ring the others, tell them we need an urgent house meeting" he says before running down the stairs looking outside.

Around an hour later everyone gets home confused and some annoyed, Belle was shopping at the time so wasn't happy when we dragged her away. Cam was at his weekly book club thing, while Danny was at college and was actually glad he had an excuse to leave.

"So what's this whole house meeting about?" Belle asks sitting rather annoyed on a box "if it's not that urgent, I'm gonna head back out to shop" she continues, I knew once we told her that would all change.

"Well, you know that guy was in our back garden last night, him and his friend broke into our house while Paige and I were fixing the roof" Brendon starts to tell the story, immediately Belle's face changing from annoyed to worried.

"Did they take anything, is everyone okay?" She frantically asks a bunch of questions, looking at both of us.

"We're fine Belle, but we think this wasn't a spare of the moment thing, for the past two days I've been seeing the same car with those two people parked outside the house" I start to speak taking my turn, Belle asks why didn't I tell them, which I didn't actually know "I didn't want to worry you if it was nothing, but when we were upstairs I found an old chest with a new looking padlock on, before the guys saw us they were talking about just taking the chest" I say Brendon looking over at me, I didn't tell him any of this, so this was all news to him.

"They must be hiding something in there" Danny finally speaks standing up, I'm surprised he didn't talk sooner "we should open it and see what's inside" he tries to walk passed me but I take his arm.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, I mean whatever's in there they really want it back?" I ask trying to explain why is was a bad idea, but he shakes his head.

"Exactly! We need to know what's in there to know what kind of people we're dealing with, and it's in our house we have a right to look in it" he laughs running up the stairs, both Cam and Belle follow, leaving Brendon and I alone in the room.

He shrugs his shoulders both of us following them up, as they reach the door Danny makes his way straight in, while Cam and Belle are very cautious. Brendon shakes his head going first followed by me and the two behind us, once we reach the top Danny was stood there waiting for us.

"Where's the chest?" He asks me eagerly, I sigh walking over to the side to the attic knelling down at the chest once again.

"See the padlock looks new, it was added years after this place was deserted" I explain pulling the padlock so they could see, hoping I wasn't the only person that could see it.

"I've got some bolt cutters downstairs, give me a second" Brendon says walking back down the stairs, wait he's down for this too?!

"What if they're like huge drug dealers, this is where they keep their stash?" Danny asks from beside me, I shake my head looking at Cam who was intently looking at the writing on the chest.

"It wouldn't be anything they need regularly, or they wouldn't keep it in a house which is waiting to be sold" Belle says still standing behind us, Cam pulls a notebook out writing things down in silence.

"Maybe they thought this house would never get sold" I suggest as Brendon appears with the bolt cutters, Danny moves aside while he puts the cutters in place.

In seconds they bolt was on the floor, he smiles moving aside so I could open it. I look around nodding at everyone before opening the old chest, I nearly fell over when I saw what was inside. It was full to the brim with £20 notes, no one spoke for awhile, we were all just gobsmacked at the sight.

"I'm having no involvement in this, I was never here!" Cam was the first to speak, who gets up and walks out, I kind of wanted to do the same thing.

"This must be thousands, I could pay to go to uni with this!" Danny says happily, trying to take some out but I slap his hand away.

"Don't be stupid! We don't know where this has come from and it seems like those people want it back" I say looking at him like he was dumb, did he really think that would be the best idea?

"I'm with Danny on this, finders keepers" Belle says crossing her arms behind me, Danny says thanks trying to reach his hand in once more to take some but I stop him.

"Of course you'd say that, you get money handed to you with a click of your finger, well I'm sorry sweetheart but this money ain't yours" Brendon tells her also crossing his arms, I knew I had to step in before they get into a fight again.

"No one is having this money, we're all gonna go back downstairs and tomorrow we're calling the police to come and get this" I say closing the chest looking towards Brendon"do you have some kind of lock we could lock it back up with?" I ask him blocking Danny from touching the chest, he nods walking over to his toolbox which he left by the ladder from earlier.

He hands the lock to me, where I knell down locking the chest back up.

"Now everyone back downstairs, we're gonna pretend this never happened" I say looking mainly at Belle and Danny, Belle stomps away followed by a semi annoyed Danny.

"We'll sort it" Brendon smiles putting his arm around my shoulders both of us walking out, leaving the chest full of money.