by C. L. Stone
“Mom wants you to go home,” Marie said after Kota closed the front door. “She’s been asking for you for a couple of hours now.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I took a guess,” she said.
I was fuming inside, angry at myself for being so reckless. She must have seen me from the house. “Does mom know I was here?”
Marie shrugged. That didn’t mean she didn’t know. It was her way of saying she wasn’t going to tell me. This was bad. If Marie had gotten into trouble with something, she could have used her knowledge of where I was to try to get herself out of a punishment. It often worked.
We got back to the house and entered through the side garage door. As soon as we were standing in the living room, I heard my mom’s voice ringing through the house.
“Sang! Come here now!” The anger and power radiated through her tone and it felt like the house was shaking around me. It was all I needed to hear. She knew everything.
Marie filed off past me and headed toward the stairs. She was getting out of the way. I was going to face this part alone.
♥
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The Academy – First Days
The Academy
The Scarab Beetle Series
Thief
♠
Book One
♠
Written by C. L. Stone
Published by
Arcato Publishing
Copyright © 2014 C. L. Stone
http://clstonebooks.com
Published by Arcato Publishing
http://www.arcatopublishing.com
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1481814915
ISBN-13: 978-1481814911
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
For that group that found me when I was lost
For feeding candy canes to lions
For believing in a complete stranger
For showing a young girl how to trust
For the very first Academy members
I AM A THIEF
Men are brilliantly stupid.
For one thing, guys carry the most cash with them anywhere. Didn’t anyone ever tell them cash was dead?
I nestled myself in one of the side branches of Citadel Mall. I picked my way through a Claire’s but the lights were too bright reflecting off the sparkling plastic and crystals of the teeny bopper jewelry and handbags. I ducked into a shoe store where the lighting was dimmer and the window wasn’t as obstructed. Waiting was the hardest part.
My favorite place to find dumb guys with lots of cash was the mall. Always fairly crowded on a weekend; I could count on at least a couple of twenties for every wallet I temporarily borrowed.
I never kept all of it. Forty to sixty dollars at the most. Not enough to bother reporting to the cops. I didn’t mess with credit cards, or bother with selling ID cards. That’s the kind of crazy stuff that gets you sent to prison. I always left the wallets and the rest of the leftovers tucked away in the food court and on benches where management would see it and find the owner. That way, the people wouldn’t have to get new ID, which is a huge hassle.
And they never suspected a thing. All they saw when I accidentally bumped into them was batting eyelashes and as much cleavage as I could muster the absurdity to expose without dry heaving.
It was even better if one of them had a girlfriend on his arm, because the girl would smack the tar out of him, causing an even better distraction with his head turned the other way. Too bad the next place they walked into where she gave him the doe-eyes to buy her yet-another-pair-of-shoes, he’d be out of a wallet, and she’d be on to the next boy toy.
If I could easily distract a guy when he had a decent girl hanging off his arm, he probably deserved to get his wallet picked and the girl was better off. Loyalty was a big deal to me.
This Saturday had, so far, been a bit of a letdown. Only two hits for me, and I only got forty between them. I handled the cash inside my pocket. The money felt like it was burning between my fingers, partially from the guilt. I wanted to release it, but I’d worked hard for it, and didn’t want to let it go.
Forty dollars wouldn’t be enough to cover the rent for next week, let alone food. I only had about an hour or two left before...
A target came into view, walking around the corner. He was alone, and wore a dark red jacket. It was kind of early in the fall for it, but I wasn’t going to start complaining; no wallet bulge in his pants pockets and jacket picking was easy. Easier still when he shoved his hands in his jean pockets, and the jacket bulged out on the sides, making my job even easier.
I waited, watching from inside the shoe store, pretending to study pairs of spiky slut shoes. When he stopped and hovered in front of the cookie shop, I figured it was as good a time as any.
I left the shoe store, taking the long way around the corridor, keeping to the middle potted plants, benches and other mall shin-splitters between us. I looped around casually, moving toward the cookie stand.
My Doc Martin boots and jeans were casual enough to blend in and be forgettable later. I tugged the hem of my white tank top lower down my body, exposing just a slip of the gray material of the bra underneath; I’d give him a bonus for being an easy target.
I steadied my pace, trying to give him room and without staring; a skill I’d perfected. I aimed for the right pocket, which was hanging slightly lower than the other, hopefully the sign of a full wallet. If I was wrong, there wasn’t much chance I’d get the other one without attracting notice. Dipping into an empty pocket is a lost target.
I stalled as he bought his cookie, watching to make sure I’d been right about the pocket with the wallet. Sure enough, his hand reached in and pulled it out to pay the teenager behind the counter. I stopped and bent over to tie my boot, another stalling tactic, following him by watching out of the corner of my eye to where he stood off between two stores, digging the cookie out of the bag and stuffing it into his mouth. He was at least a couple of heads taller than I was. Not a problem, but I preferred people more my height, which made picking more natural. He had a wide jawbone and deep-set eyes. He was looking curiously around, as if trying to pick out which direction he wanted to go next.
He caught my eye briefly on his glance around and I froze. I’d learned early on if I looked at the face, it became harder to make the move.
This was a real person. I was a thief.
I usually picked a scruffier type that didn’t look like a nice person. With the jacket, however, he was too easy a target to miss, and I was out of time to pick another.
I spotted the closest trash bin and waited him out.
It didn’t take the guy long to finish his cookie. He aimed for the trash bin I’d picked out.
I started walking, pretending to decide not to buy a cookie. From my pocket, I dug out a crumpled piece of paper to throw away.
The next few moments slowed for me, as it did every time. My heart thundered. I questioned again for the millionth time why I did this.
I prayed I wouldn’t get caught and that if I did, this guy wasn’t the type who would beat me to a pulp.
With every step I took closer, I thought about changing my mind and running away. This was wrong. I was a criminal. Every wallet I took added up into some kind of unseen karma debt, and one day I’d strike out big time.
Except my brother and I wouldn’t have a roof over our heads if I gave up now.
One more. I promised myself this would be the last. I’d find a good job soon. We just needed to scrape by this week.
I focused on the jacket.
I aimed, and increased my pace to match his stride.
Bump.
My left hand brushed against his jacket at the heavy pocket.
My right hand released the trash, tossing it away. I caught the s
trap of my tank top that slid down my shoulder. Practiced moves I’d done dozens of times.
Big brown eyes flashed, focusing on my face. Instead of lowering to my breasts, they remained, studying.
That alone caught me off guard. Targets never did that. Not holding my gaze for so long, as if he was disinterested in the body and instead wanted to see the person. See me.
At least his eyes were up instead of down at waist level. It was enough. My hand was already in his pocket, curled around the leather wallet, lifting. All I had to do was blush and apologize, tuck the wallet under my arm and out of sight and turn...
"Hey! You! Girl!"
The shout was so desperate, so commanding, my whole body started to quake and I stopped. My target and I broke our locked gazes and sought out the voice.
It came from across the corridor at the pretzel shop. A guy behind the counter wearing a folded paper hat and blue and white print apron stared us both down.
And pointed right at me.
"Come here," he shouted, in a tone that had my knees jolting into motion. The power was undeniable.
But I was clutching a wallet that didn't belong to me. Rattled now, I realized too late that I had hesitated. I returned my focus again on the target, meeting cool, brown eyes. Eyes that lowered down to my hand that was holding his wallet between us.
I popped my mouth into an innocent ‘o’ shape. "You dropped this,” I said in a quiet voice, holding up the wallet toward him.
My target frowned. He tugged the wallet from my hand and shoved it back into his pocket, zipping it up. I turned away quickly. My mind whirled, trying to figure out the closest exit. I needed to get out of there before he put two and two together and...
"Girl!" The guy shouted again from behind the counter. He whistled, a sharp, high pitch, snapped his fingers and pointed again. "You. The pretty one with the brown hair."
I scoffed, turning around and spotting the guy focused on me again. He was drawing so much attention that I wouldn't be able to make another target here for hours, if not for days. I glared at him, and closed the distance to his pretzel stand. Maybe if I ate his stupid sample pretzels, he’d stop drawing attention to me.
"What?" I seethed.
When I finally met his gaze, my body froze.
Two different colored eyes blinked back at me. That made me think perhaps I was dreaming. One blue and one green. That didn’t seem possible.
His soft brown hair was a little longer on top, brushed to one side at the crown, and cut close around the nape of his neck. The style reminded me of a rock star I’d had a crush on a couple of years ago. He had broad shoulders under the blue T-shirt he wore beneath the apron, and a black cord around his neck with a silver-encased sand dollar. His left wrist was covered in tiny bracelets made out of braided thread and some were plastic like you’d get out of a quarter machine. He wasn’t as tall as my target, maybe just a head taller than I was. It was hard to tell, since he was behind the counter. It seemed as if the floor dipped a little on that side.
His lips curled up in a brash smile. "What's your name?" he asked. His voice, when he wasn't shouting, actually had an amused tone, like he was incredibly curious and needed to know.
My jaw’s hinge didn’t seem to want to work to close the gap of my mouth hanging open. Was he serious? "Pardon?"
He planted his palms on the counter, leaning over it. "I was asking your name. You know, the thing on your driver’s license."
"I know what you mean," I said quickly. "Why do you care?"
"Do you want a job?"
I huffed indignantly. He called out to me from across the mall to ask if I wanted to work for him at a food stand? He appeared to be my age, about eighteen at least. Maybe a little older. It was hard to imagine him as a manager. "No thank you," I said. Not that I didn't need one, but the way he was asking me was too odd to comprehend. Plus, I didn't like the way he was looking at me. I simply didn’t believe he was being genuine. He’d call some random girl over to his food stand and hire her? And, he’d called me pretty...
I started to walk off but he called out, "Wait!" It was that commanding tone again and I found myself pausing to obey. "Just tell me your name."
I grunted and turned to meet his mismatched eyes. "Bambi."
He cocked his head at me. "That's not your real name."
My lips parted, my heart pounding. "How would you know?"
"You're not a very good liar."
It was usually one of my better talents. The only other person who could tell was my brother. I turned away from him, too rattled to talk any more.
"Wait," he said.
I ignored it this time, my ears filled with the sound of my pounding heart and masking his tone. I wasn’t sure what disturbed me more: the fact that he knew I lied so quickly or that I was impressed he could.
Before I could get past the window of the next store over, I tilted my head casually to check behind me. I caught him jumping the pretzel stand’s counter. He tore away the hat and the apron, dropping them to the ground and started after me.
I leapt into a half jog so as to not look like I was running away, but simply trying to get somewhere. I started to turn back to see if pretzel boy was still chasing me when I crashed into what felt like a brick wall and started to stumble. I caught myself on the wall to stop from falling.
A pair of deep-set eyes stared down at me. My target with the red jacket. His serious face focused on mine, recognition setting in.
I pushed myself off of him. In full panic mode, I dashed down a corridor to the left. This time when I looked back, I had two pursuers. They jogged together after me. Their feet moved in unison, something I’d only seen in movies about the army. They knew each other? It was too much for it to be a coincidence.
I cut my way between two women walking babies in strollers together. One of the best things about being a girl is to be able to weave around and through areas and be excused, even if it was rude. Guys can’t get away with that, not in South Carolina. Any other guy passing by would chase them, which I was kind of hoping would happen.
Unfortunately, they didn’t take that risk, and were stuck lolling behind the strollers, which was almost as good.
I took a turn down another corridor, finding a wide courtyard with a center fountain. I spotted a guy by himself on his cell phone, standing in the corner. He had short cropped, sun-kissed blond hair. Tall, maybe even taller than my target, wearing a black T-shirt with a Zelda Triforce logo from the video game. Nerdling.
I stepped up next to him and wove an arm around his, which was hard to do, because now that I stood next to him, I realized he really was towering over me. “Sorry. Can I borrow you for a second?"
The guy choked on whatever he was about to say into the phone and fixed his eyes on me. They were a very nice cerulean blue. His face was a touch unshaven, almost unnoticeable with his blond hair. His skin had a gorgeous tan as if he’d spent a lot of time outside. "What ... uh ... Can I help you?" he asked.
The smile sliced right through me, catching me off guard with the sincerity. His voice was strong and appealing, with a hint of amusement. “Yes,” I said when I pulled myself together. “Could you pretend I’m your girlfriend for a minute?”
The skin at the crest of his high cheekbones tinted. “Any particular reason?”
“An ex-boyfriend and his buddy just spotted me. I wanted to get away before they try to corner me, or at least dissuade him from coming over. He’s not a good guy.”
“Oh?” he asked, tapping at his cell phone and dropping it into his pocket. “He’s not a big guy, I hope.”
I liked him. He was quick and willing to play along. If I hadn’t been in panic mode, I would have kissed him. “Can we just go into a shop and pretend to make out or something?”
“Sure,” he said with a hint at a smile, like he didn’t believe I really meant the making out part. He pointed at the closest store. “How about that one?”
“Perfect,” I rattled off, without act
ually looking at where he had pointed. We just needed to get going.
I followed him inside a Love Culture store. I couldn’t spot anyone tailing us, which was good, but I wanted to make sure. If they were still trying to find me, I wanted to be out of view for a bit. I’d backtrack and find an exit when I was sure they had passed us by.
I clung to the nerdling’s bicep, surprised to feel a bulge of muscle. He had a fit body underneath his T-shirt and corduroy slacks. I noted the confident way he carried himself into the store, and how eager to please he seemed to be.
Nerdlings weren’t usually my type. They were usually “yes men”—you could tell them to jump off a cliff and they’d do it and beg for another order just to make you happy. Some girls liked that, but I hated it.
But I tried not to presume based on looks, or fashion choices.
He headed toward the back, and picked a spot behind one of the clearance racks. He nudged me beside him, so we were both hidden from the front of the store. “How’s this?” he asked, a blond eyebrow going up.
I nodded, and then stopped short when I realized we were in a section of bras and ladies’ underwear.
He followed my gaze and studied the displays. His cheeks tinted again. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just ... didn’t mean ...”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly. I wanted to make him comfortable since he was being such a good sport about the situation. “I hadn’t noticed either.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Bambi,” I said, going with my initial lie. I wasn’t sure why I did it. I was just sure I wouldn’t see him again. A shame, but really, it was for the best. I wasn’t his type, or anyone’s type, for that matter.
“I’m Corey,” he said, oblivious to the fact that I’d just lied. That brought back some confidence. I wasn’t that horrible at lying.
He held out a hand, and looked expectantly at me.
I took it quickly, shaking it and hoping he didn’t notice me rattling from leftover panic. “Sorry to inconvenience you.”
“Not a problem. I wasn’t in a hurry.” He tilted his head, focusing on my face. “Did you try telling him to back off?”
