<span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff9999"><b>No one</b> notices a lone cat on the prowl, let alone one over forty miles outside of civilization, where a trip to the grocery store had to be a planned thing. Occasionally, there might be a hungry coyote skipping through the grass and oddly exposed from the surrounding line of trees, searching for a night time snack in the form of a rabbit or plump rat. Perhaps even a stray barn cat that pranced through the long grass in search of crickets to chase. It was in the still darkness of the night that the small black feline prowled closer to the lone house that lurked on the edges of Mt. Hood National Forest, a good drive away from Portland, but only so much in the boonies that you couldn't hear your neighbors scream or throw a rave. Crickets chirped, serenaded by the occasional croak of a frog, while the stars danced around the bloated face of the moon in the sky that provided only the barest illumination to those unfortunate beasts that lacked the vision to see in the darkness.<br/>
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<b>No one</b> questions a thief if there are no witnesses to the deed. In the silence of after hours, the cat did become a burglar that crept around the premise. It didn't take any magical acts for the dark silhouette to disable the security system, merely petty trickery learned from too many years acting out in the face of the law. Just as much as it took for the silent form to spit the torsion wrench and pick from her mouth where she had been carrying it from one form to the next. Five minutes of sweat popped in beads across her forehead as a starry-eyed gaze narrowed in concentration as she struggled to twist the tools in the back door's mechanisms. The satisfying click couldn't have come sooner. The figure stirred from her crouch and twisted the knob, easing it open with all the caution that came from the deeply paranoid.<br/>
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There was <b>no one</b> yet to wonder about the presence of the young woman in a residence that wasn't her own. What was even more curious was the fact that she entered the home without a stitch of clothing. Naked and pale as the moon in the sky, the woman known as Rory O'Mara stepped through the back door of a man's home whom she had not spoken to in years. Three years to be approximate. She found herself in a dark kitchen, sparsely decorated, uncluttered, and yet clean. From the little that she had scrounged up about him now, he lived alone and had no one of importance in his life. No one that he kept public. He also owned this house, choosing to live outside the fringes of actual society. Rory had an inkling as to why; the two of them shared a history that went deeper than their brief affair that had sprouted between the two those three years ago. It was the same thing that drove them (her, at least) away to begin with. Death had a way of scarring even the toughest of them all. The violence of the deaths the pair had witnessed as children even more so. She knew enough about psychology to be damaged by it, but was ignorant enough to not question it. And she was, by far, too stubborn to do anything about it but high tail it in the wrong direction when confronted with it.<br/>
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Why she tip-toed through the shadows now still bore questions. <b>No one</b> was there to stop her as she slunk past the kitchen, her curiosity leading her elsewhere. Past a leather sofa and matching chair that faced a wide, flat screen TV. Past a carefully placed set of pictures that lined a hallway wall. Past a pair of doors that she imagined a bathroom and a guest room to hide behind until she reached the farthest door at the end of the hall. It was here that her fingertips pressed against the door so that it swung open a fraction and she pressed her slender frame against the wall enough for her to be able to crane her neck and peer inside. An empty bed greeted her sights, the breath she held trapped inside her lungs released with an audible sigh. Her steps became bolder now as she pushed the door open full throttle and her feet led her to a dresser. She rummaged through three of them before she found a t-shirt in one, sliding it over her head to cover the goosebumps that had jumped out across pale flesh as soon as she had moved from the humid night into the air conditioning. The cover had less to do with modesty and more to do with the fact that she was cold. And she didn’t bother to cover the tracks, instead choosing to leave the drawer open as she turned on her bare heel and slid her hands underneath the russet fall of hair to free it from the collar of his shirt. The bottom of the garment scarcely slid down her thighs, even though the rest swallowed her up.<br/>
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She further took advantage of the fact that <b>no one </b>seemed to be home by continuing her journey through his bedroom. At first, it didn’t seem as if she had a purpose, and that her curiosity had simply snagged her up in order to send her on a round through his belongings. She reached into his bedside table, only to find various knick-knacks. Strangely, her hand also slide along the bottom of the table as well. Then she dropped to her belly on the carpeted floor to peer underneath the bed. Here she also lifted the comforter so that she could lift his mattress as well, starry-eyed gaze scanning for any signs of a bulge. Or anything else out of the ordinary. The closet was the thing that intimidated her the most, but it was also where she would be the most thorough. And also the most careful. She flicked the light on in the walk-in before her foraging began there.<br/>
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