“Are you in or are you out?” A muscular teenager sweats into his landline so hard it seems like he’s drowning on the other line. His voice is starting to become a little hysterical.
“No man you’re crazy,” a boy yells on the other end. His voice is deep, but fair so you know he’s in his teens.
“It will be a smooth bust. We’ll be in and out.” There was a long silence. Theo could feel his situation getting worse and the anger growing inside him burst. “Fine! I don’t need a punk like you anyway,” he screamed and with heavy hands he slammed his phone down. The teenager put both hands on his head and fell back on his bed, letting his legs dangle. Only one tear was aloud to come down before he pulled himself together.
“Theo, are you ok?” He was instantly snapped out of his rage and warmed by the sound of sweet voice, a familiar voice.
“Yeah I’m good.” He paused. “Hey, I’m going out with my friends tonight, ok.” The creaking of the dirty brown floor board let Theo know someone was coming. A woman with charcoal dark hair and light skin with a slight brown tint stood in the doorway. She grinned and sat on the bed with him.
“Ok, you have fun now. Remember to call your mother before you get home, alright.” She put both hands on his face and kissed Theo slightly on the nose. Theo glances at the scars on her hands and neck. “You look just like your father,” she whispered. Theo smiled, but he didn’t want to hear that or anything about his father.
Theo’s mother and father both fought in Vietnamese war, but only his mother survived and as soon as the war was over his mom was stationed in Hawaii and Theo was born. His father is dead and there family has lived in poverty ever since. Theo got mad just thinking about it. Theo backed away from his mom slowly and nodded as if to say goodbye. It was almost as if he was running away from her kindness so it wouldn’t rub off on him.
Theo got into a black BMW seemed to camouflage with night. He couldn’t help but regret he didn’t hug his mother, but it was too late so he pushed the thought out of his head. It was too late to turn back; he had already spent his college money on a gun. The boy had been planning this for months. He was going on the other side of Oahu to avoid capture, the house he was robbing was only used in the summer and there was no alarm system on it. Theo sat up straight and let his worries drip off of him, concentrating to the sharp curves of the road.
The drive was less than an hour and the city quickly turned into palm trees festooned by flowers. As he pulled up to an ancient small looking beach house, he eye balled the house he realized that it was way smaller than he anticipated. As he opened the car door he felt his heart fall into his feet, becoming an ankle weight that he couldn’t shake. As he became farther from the car he began to move faster as if being pulled by a magnet. When he made it to the door the birds screeched and squawked, begging Theo to go home, but all Theo could only say is, “it’s too late to turn back.”
Theo then pulled out a screw driver and hammer and easily opened the locked door like it was child’s play. As soon as he made it in he locked the door and breathed, he fingered the gun in his pocket. It was twelve o’clock at night right now or at least that is what was showing on the living room clock. His goal was to be out by four. He had four hours to get his stuff and go.
The Intruder was able to find the light switch very easily in the dark and when he could see he was extremely disappointed with what he saw. The house wasn’t rich. If anything it was extremely basic. The carpets were blotched with coffee stains. The house smelled weakly of soap and gasoline. There was almost no furniture and what furniture was there was either stained or missing parts. The dining table was chewed up and the table was standing on its last couple of legs and leaning on the wall. Nothing but pictures of beaches and mountains. There didn’t seem to be anything that that the intruder could sell.
Anger and relief both came to him at awkward times. Relief when he saw a roach struggle across the carpet and anger when he saw the refrigerator door open and containing beer and pudding cups. He took both out, closed the door, and sat on an old stool. Opening the beer and drinking he took long irritable sips until the bottle was over his head and he was facing the popcorn ceiling.
When he put the bottle down he saw faintly a bright dark haired little boy holding a faded sock monkey in the hallway. All Theo saw were eyes, frightened, but also judgmental eyes, as if he were deciding how to punish him. When the kid caught Theo’s eyes, he whimpered. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” 
Theo hunched over, trying not to threaten the boy. Theo tipped toed over to him and whispered, “Hey buddy. It’s ok, just go back to bed.”
Seeing how big Theo’s blue eyes were he could probably sense that something was wrong. Backing up slowly the kid wailed, “Nadia!”
It was all instinct from there on. The yelling and the fear got to him. Having the bottle in his hand didn’t help either. Not thinking about it, Theo broke the bottle over the boys head. The green fireworks of the glass glistened in the dim lights and the kid fell with the scattered green pieces.
The air in Theo’s lungs became thicker, as his head started to get warmer. It was buzzing with thoughts. What was he supposed to do? He assaulted a child. He stared at what he did. The kid was wearing iron man pajamas and couldn’t be more than seven or eight, just a kid. The boy’s eyes were still half way open and were still looking at him with fear, that was all that was left.  It occurred to Theo too late that the boy was calling for someone, but by then all Theo saw was his shadow growing a head and a long skinny stick before everything went dark.
Theo woke up with a shooting pain in his skull and a chilling over his whole body. Arms, legs and chest were so constricted he didn’t have feeling in his right thigh. “So you’re awake, Theo?” Slowly emerging from the corner of the room with Theo’s wallet was a skinny black girl with braids that went down to her butt and she looked about his age. Who he guessed was Nadia kept her distant and glared down at Theo. “You know you really hurt my brother, and I’m very protective of my brother.” Before Theo had time to speak Nadia’s foot found its way to his face. The teenager’s lip bled. “So what makes a guy like you do something like this?” He kept his head down. Theo wasn’t going to answer this ----. What was the point of her even knowing? Why didn’t she just call the cops and be done with it?
Theo just stayed quiet and denied Nadia eye contact. “I thought you wouldn’t talk, so I decided to get creative. Theo reluctantly looked up to see a bb gun under Nadia’s armpit. “Let me show you how it works.” Aiming at Theo, she fired and sent a wave of pain into his thigh, but this was different. The pain wouldn’t dull and the bullet seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his flesh. Anguish was plastered on his face. “I took the liberty of filling the gun with salt.”  It just kept sinking and a choked scream escaped his lips. “Let’s try this again. What brings you to break into a home and crack a bottle over a sevenyearold’s head?” He lunged forward, but once again realized that he was tied to a pole. Amused, Nadia cocked her head to the side enough for her braids to swing and smirked.
Theo grunted and wheezed out the words, “What does it matter? Why don’t you just call the cops?”
Nadia took a step back and looked up as if to ponder this. “I was raised to believe that justice is something that you must take. I was also raised to believe that the reason is just as important as the result. With that let me see if I can…..condition you.” Looking up at the clock Theo could tell it was one at night, and Nadia had already shot him five times in his legs. Contracting his body to deal with his pain was close to making him throw up. “We can do this all night if you want”
Finally Theo decided to play the sympathy card. “My father died in the military.”
“So is that it,” she snarled. “Ooh boo hoo. My dad died in the military too. That is a pathetic excuse.” Nadia met Theo’s eyes. “Your dad died while you were a baby. You don’t know him and you can’t miss someone you don’t know. Nice try. That’s not the reason.” Just like that a piece of salt was launched into his arm. “Since you won’t tell me I’ll take a wild guess as to why you did what you did.” She took in a deep breath and released. “Your mom can barely support you. You can’t go to college or maybe it’s because you feel like the nation owes you. Maybe you feel like because your dad died for his country, you and your mom should be taken care of. Well that’s life get over it.”
All the pain dulled and all his energy was focused on his rage. Theo was done with this, all of this. “How would you like to watch your mother struggle or work herself to the bone? How would you like to see your mom covered in bullet wounds and no one giving a ---- about it?” Before Theo knew it he was yelling.
For the first time in the two hours Theo saw a little bit of sympathy in Nadia’s eyes. “Last thing your father would’ve wanted is for you to become a criminal,” she whispered. Nadia pulled out a knife, put it on the floor, and slid toward Theo’s hands. “You have thirty minutes to go before I call the cops. Your wallet is on the table. Thank you for telling me, though I had to shoot you with salt,” she snickered, and just like that Nadia left with her bb gun.
Desperately, Theo slid the knife to his hands and left, leaving no trace of himself behind. He came home to a loving mother and tried to forget, but now that his head had cleared he couldn’t help, but wonder how she knew his father died while Theo was a baby. She couldn’t have exactly known, or maybe it was a guessed. She couldn’t have actually known him, that was impossible.

Epilogue
“You didn’t have to hurt him so badly,” an older voice on the other line of a telephone call says.
“He broke a bottle over my little brother’s head. Plus you out of all people, know that if I hadn’t have figured out that he was your son, I would’ve killed him or he would be in jail. Theo is really lucky.”
“Yea well, I hope he has learned from this,” Theo’s mom said worriedly.
“I would say, ‘anything for an old friend,’ but you know what I want. How did my father die, exactly?”
“Are you sure you want to know this?”
“Just tell me already,” Nadia yelled.
“Your father was killed by another officer for knowing too much. His name is General Rider.” She paused. “Revenge accomplishes nothing.”
“You have no right to say that. Goodbye,” and just like that they never spoke again. Now Theo’s mom will have to live with the fact that by saving her child, she might have d----- another.