Chosen Thief

by Scarlett Dawn

  I got the wind knocked out of me as Dell barreled one of his shoulders into my gut, lifting me over his shoulder and ordering, “Time to go, people!”

  I dangled, not putting up a fight; I couldn’t because he still wasn’t safe. Jasper threw a golden protection around the four of us as they raced with me to the jet. The other guards were now racing past us to whoever was coming, just as the sound of guns began firing. I stared at the bouncing ground, hands on Dell’s hips to stop the inevitable bruises to my stomach, but not worrying, knowing Jasper’s magic was strong enough to keep any wayward bullets from penetrating his golden protection.

  Dell went up the jet’s stairs first, holding me tight, and as soon as Bruno and Jasper were inside, I was set on my socked feet. I flipped my hair out of my face, instantly scanning the interior of the jet, and saw the object of my worries sitting slumped on a chair, duct tape over his mouth and out cold. “He’s alive?”

  “Of course,” Bossman growled, sitting directly next to him and reading a magazine as if there wasn’t a gun-fight going down outside the jet. “I always hold up my end of the promise, unlike someone who continues to run off in fits of tantrum.” He turned his dark eyes to Jasper. “Should we wait on the others?”

  Jasper’s eyes glowed golden, head cocking oddly as he stared up at nothing. “No, they’ll be dead shortly.” He blinked, shaking his head, his eyes returning to normal golden. “Very shortly. Whoever’s out there is crazy powerful and the distraction won’t last long.”

  “Let’s go,” Bossman murmured absently, resuming reading. “Caro, come sit by me.”

  Dell blurred to the pilot’s compartment, Bruno lifted the stairs, and Jasper bent, glowing golden while placing his hands on the jet floor, proving he was coating the plane with protection when the windows suddenly glowed golden. I moved to the Bossman, sitting opposite him, my eyes on the one man I really cared for — the only person I had known as true family — as I buckled in, watching his pulse beat steadily at his throat as Dell piloted the plane safely into the air and to the next leap in my hellish life.

  Chapter Three

  Three years later

  There was something to be said about death row.

  When you have an episode the likes of which you have never experienced before on the pain scale, they really treated you right, making sure you stayed healthy and hale…just so they can kill you themselves at a later date.

  Resting in my lone room lined with silver walls, just returned from my three-day stint in the infirmary, I still couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened. One minute, I was sleeping peacefully, and the next, I was in agonizing pain. My Core, which holds a Mystical’s power, just felt like it had exploded with…too much. That was the only way I could explain it to the physicians as I bellowed in agony, right before they dosed me heavily with a sedative. They kept that up for a few days as they monitored me in the infirmary with a few armed Mysticals surrounding me. And not one of them had a reason for what had happened, further confusing me.

  Staring at the silver ceiling, I gave up trying to figure it out, still feeling too full inside as I rubbed at my chest. I mentally made another tally mark on the ceiling for another day spent here. It had been close to nine months now, my ‘extermination’ date soon to come. I had grown accustomed to the fact I would soon die, but I still needed to write a letter to the only family I had, Sin, to jot down my final thoughts and words. Oddly, the thought of fully exposing myself on paper and baring any lingering secrets I harbored was more terrifying than the reality of the lethal injection of silver I would be enduring. I knew but also hated that my thoughts needed to be voiced.

  Tilting my head, I stared at the notepad and pencil that had been left for me while I had been in the infirmary by one of the jailers on the bitty table in the room, each of jailers knowing my days with the living were coming to a close.

  I blinked, sighed, and turned my attention back to the ceiling.

  Nope, I didn’t want to go there, so I wouldn’t…not yet.

  I closed my eyes, zoning out.

  “Up at the door, Jules.” A butch fire Elemental, one of my regular jailers, woke me, banging on my silver-lined door. Unsure how long I had been catnapping, I rubbed my eyes, yawning, still hating the fact these people knew my real damn last name. She pounded again, only her eyes and bits of her hair showing through the tiny window. “You’ve got a visitor.”

  My head snapped up, hope blooming in the void I had become. “Who is it?” Sin hadn’t come to see me the entire time I was here. No one had, in fact, since I had no real friends other than him. Although I understood completely on his part, it didn’t mean I couldn’t hope for one last glimpse of him.

  “Isolde Fairbanks.” Another bang. “Now, get over here or I’m leaving, and you won’t be able to see her.”

  I blinked slowly, keeping any expression from showing as I moved to the door. I knew no one by the name of Fairbanks, but I knew the first name. Isolde was the alias Sin and I gave any trusted individual, a code word in a sense, when we couldn’t connect directly with each other.

  Plain and simple, it meant: shit was about to hit the fan.

  Any hesitation I had fled as silver cuffs were slid through a slot; adding insult to injury, they were making me put them on myself if I wanted to leave the room. I was scheduled to die soon, so why not take a chance at freedom if Sin was coming for me? If I got away, then I would be free, and if I got caught trying to escape all they could do was put me back on death row. And any actions Sin had put into place I couldn’t stop now, since I didn’t know what the fuck they were, so I was going to roll with the punches and hope for the best.

  Teeth grinding, I didn’t fumble with the handcuffs, knowing it wasn’t going to be any better if I put them on slowly, which would draw out the burning sensation to the pads on my fingers. Even putting the cuffs over the long-sleeved inmate uniform, which consisted of a jumpsuit in bright neon yellow, still stole my breath, an icy burn instantly encasing my powers inside my Core, freezing my chest even as blows of fire licked across my skin. I used my body and the wall to finish clasping the second cuff. “Done.”

  “Show,” she barked, so I lifted my hands to the window, the action hard as hell, arms feeling as if they were made of lead. “Step back three paces from the door.”

  I did as told. I hardly ever left my tiny room in a conscious state, so this was a newish experience. Usually it was only the best of solitary confinement for me, giving isolation and insanity a whole new meaning.

  “Open two-ninety,” she barked loudly down the hall, and I heard my door click before she swung it open, eyeing me closely, appearing satisfied with the cuffs. “Move out.” Trying not to wince with the movement, I strode out of my cell, seeing a Mage jailer waiting at the end of the hallway, her hand glowing as she unlocked the spelled caged door there, opening it wide. The butch fire Elemental shoved my back, making me stumble as sweat began to bead on my skin from the silver cuffs. “Move your ass.”

  So I moved my ass, walking at a clip that didn’t make me keel over from the cuffs. The Mage joined us on our journey, the silent type as she led the group with me between them. Walking through a maze of spelled or silvered hallways, the only other cells I saw in this section of the building were the other solitary confinement ones, not any of the public inmates’ cells, which I didn’t mind because I did hear the jailers talking when they brought me, and the others in isolation, meals. Apparently, the public inmates were a bit rowdy, which probably would have kept me sane during my spells of nothingness when I stared at the ceiling of my room, but in a way, I appreciated the quiet, learning the meaning of self-evaluation.

  And what I had learned wasn’t sweet, or even apologetic for the things I had done in my twenty-three years on this earth. No, what I had figured out about myself was that under the sweet, delicate facade my appearance afforded me I was a hardcore bitch. My reason and logic was somewhat twisted, but it all fit perfectly to the woman I had become sin
ce my Awakening three years ago. Life, experiences, and honed survival skills had made me the woman I was today.

  “Wait,” fire Elemental stated behind me, and I almost rammed into the Mage when she stopped instantly, glancing back. “We’ve been asked to hold.”

  The Mage showed no expression as she stated, “Stand against the wall.”

  I turned, placing my back against the wall, which luckily wasn’t spelled or silvered, this section of the building definitely more administrative. The fire Elemental spoke into her small earpiece, someone on the other end transmitting directions. I watched as the fire Elemental’s red eyebrows rose almost to her identically red hairline. She glanced at me then pressed a button on her earpiece. “Please repeat.” She went silent, listening, then glanced at the Mage and cleared her throat, telling her, “We’re to stay here until further notice while they move the inmates to the north section.” A slow blink. “She has another visitor. We’ll be taking her to visitation room five instead.”

  “Who?” I asked instantly.

  The fire Elemental’s face went pitiless, her lips not moving to answer.

  I shook my head, not feeling good about this. “I want to see Isolde first.”

  “It’s not up for discussion, so shut it.” The fire Elemental tapped the stun gun on her hip, which was directly next to her much more deadly gun. “Or I can help you with that.”

  Lips thinning, I peered away from her, knowing I would be no good to Sin if I was tasered while in silver cuffs. And so the wait commenced while I burned from the cuffs with sizzling and icy flames inside and out, my breathing beginning to shallow with the length of time we stood in the slim hallway. I blinked hard, tilting my head, and wiped the side of my face on my shoulder’s rough material, the sweat long past beading on my forehead and now running into my eyes, stinging them.

  The fire Elemental blinked, and pressed her earpiece. “Command?” She pressed again. “Command, do you copy?” She glanced at the Mage. “My com’s down.”

  “There you are,” an air Elemental jailer called loudly from down the hallway, her long strides eating the distance between us, heels clicking on the tile. “We had a transformer blow, and the coms are all down.” She waved her fisted hands wildly. “This place is fucking falling apart left and right! What the hell are they doing with the cuts they made to our pay? Wiping their asses with hundred-dollar bills?”

  I blinked, my eyes smarting badly, but I didn’t miss — not sure how anyone could — when the air Elemental opened her hands and darts flew from her stationary palms with a magical wind, her eyes flashing brown. The fire Elemental and Mage were almost fast enough on the uptake, but almost wasn’t good enough. They had stood too long gawking at her crazy tirade to notice her hair wasn’t fashioned in the uniform bun every jailer wore, and she had plastered on enough make-up to make a Broadway performer proud. Her gold stilettos did nothing for the staid jailer outfit she wore that was so obviously not hers, a few inches too short at the wrists and ankles. As the fire Elemental and Mage jerked when the darts pierced their throats, eyes instantly closing and bodies already falling, the air Elemental starting doing a little jig, bopping her hips about, her hands in the air, as she sang, “They bit the dust.” Bump, bump, bump went her hips. “They bit the dust.”

  Ah, another fine intellectual Sin had seduced. “You must be Isolde?”

  “That would be me,” she stated with a huge smile, holding one of her hands out to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Caroline.”

  I stared. “You do realize I’m cuffed in silver?” Maybe it was all the hairspray she used — those fumes were definitely not safe for anyone, much less someone with the I.Q. of a…well, I wouldn’t be truly mean since she had knocked the jailers out fairly quickly.

  “Oh, Sin said that would probably be the case.” She lowered her hand, instantly bending to the fallen jailers. “Which one has the key?”

  I firmly decided she was a stripper, since she was bending at the waist, her legs utterly straight in her six-inch heels even though her fingers were already digging through the Mage’s pockets. “The other one.” I sighed because sometimes Sin was so predictable.

  “I found it!” she exclaimed happily, practically shouting to the world I was escaping as she held the key up proudly. “Do you need help with it?”

  My left eye twitched. “That would be nice.”

  As she yelped a few times, her fingers brushing the silver as she assisted me, I asked, “Where’s Sin?”

  Chewing on her lip as she carefully attempted again, she managed to release one side of the cuffs. “The kitchen. I’ll show you the way in a second.”

  I grabbed the key from her, unlocking the remaining cuff myself, rotating my wrists and sighing in relief when I could breathe fully. My Core flared to life, instantly cooling my body down. “First, take your shoes off.”

  “Why?” Even I had to admit she had a pretty pout.

  “Because we’re running.” I pointed at the cameras. “Guards will be all over us soon.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, no,” she spoke conspiratorially, “My Sin-man took care of the cameras.”

  I dropped the cuffs on the fire Elemental’s face. “Regardless of what your Sin-man did, take off your damn shoes. They’re like a whistle blowing, Shoot me! Shoot me!” She huffed a moment but did as told, only making her, like, a foot taller than me instead of a foot and a half. I opened my arms wide as she gripped her shoes in her hands like I was going to steal them from her. “Lead the way, fair lady.”

  She grinned, giggling, and good Lord, bouncing way too much under her top, the buttons about to burst. “Sin said you’re sweet.”

  My lips trembled at Sin’s blatant fib, but I nodded, and I followed as she began racing down the hallway, her long legs coming in handy since I was kind of in a hurry.

  I stared at Isolde where she lay on the ground, unconscious from the dart Sin had shot her with as soon as we had entered a nondescript door to the back room of the kitchen. “You sure know how to pick them, Sin.”

  “Just an asset whose value has come to an end.” He strode forward, shoulder-length, straight, neon green hair blowing in a breeze he came at me so fast, before engulfing me in a warm embrace. “How are you, love?”

  I held him tight, snuggling against his familiar chest. “Hoping to get the hell out of here.”

  He kissed my head a few times then pulled me away to hold me by the face, studying me. “You look pale.”

  “Get me to the sunshine.”

  His lips curled. “I plan to.” He grabbed my hand, pulling me through the sterile kitchen. “Something’s happening here. They’re moving everyone to one end of the building, which doesn’t help my plan any, but it’s got the staff out of here at least.” He jerked what appeared to be a random black bag from a hook where the other staff had hung their bags to change into their flame retardant clothing. “Get changed. We need to hurry since things have altered.”

  As he opened another door, peeking through it to keep watch, I unzipped the bag and couldn’t help but grin, seeing my own leather pants, and shirt and jacket inside, along with enough firepower to give me goosebumps. “I love you, Sin.”

  “I love you, too.” His green eyes, a striking match to his hair, flicked to me then back out the cracked door. “Now, hurry.”

  I did, quickly changing from the scratchy jumpsuit to my soft-as-silk clothing, sighing when I saw my boots at the bottom of the bag. I quickly put them on and laced them up before beginning to holster weapons, periodically handing a few to Sin — the ones that I knew were his favorites. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  Sinful grin on his face, his namesake, he opened the door wide for me. “Yes, let’s.”

  After racing through the eerily deserted hallways, it was abnormally easy escaping to the side entrance where Sin said our transportation awaited past the gates. And that was where things got tricky. While the inside of the building had been deserted, the outside grounds were not. So this was whe
re we pulled out our weapons under the blinding sun I hadn’t seen in nine months, and started shooting.

  We aimed, with silent agreement, to only incapacitate, not kill, since these poor fools hadn’t done anything wrong except be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We used regular bullets, not silver, so the harm wouldn’t be too lasting. It was a kind mercy on our parts. Ducking and rolling as I reloaded, I shouted over the returning gunfire, “Tell me this wasn’t your original plan!”

  Sin’s arms were fully extended, two guns in hand as he fired repeatedly with perfect placement, hair blowing in his face, and he still managed to give me an irritated glance. “No, it was not. I’m improvising.”

  “Hell of an improvisation,” I muttered, hitting two of the guards in the tower to my right, their own bullets hitting the earth mere inches from my stomach. I jumped up and raced for the fence closest to us, seeing a parking lot where a few individuals were staring, some screaming, while others were just gawking. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

  “I’m with you,” Sin muttered, racing right alongside me, both of us firing at will. “Hang on to your cookies.”

  “What?” I shouted, jumping to flat out deck a guard in his jaw as he rushed us.

  Sin’s eyes flashed as he used the butt of his gun on a guard’s temple before jerking me against him. “Just hang on.” I felt his power flare around me, and I grinned when the earth raised under us so suddenly I threw an arm around him as he created a steep, muddy hill below us. None of the guards was able to even crawl up; they were attempting to when they lost their balance, their weapons dropping when they tried to steady themselves.

  I chuckled, pointing with my gun. “Look at that one.”

  We paused for a moment, watching as a water Elemental began rolling down the hill. “Well, that’s enough of that.” Sin released me. “As you said so poetically…let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

  We raced forward, the hill flat on top and continually moving with us like a wave as we neared the top of the twenty-foot-high fencing. We shot a few more guards who had the dumb luck to find a weapon lying about to try to take us down, but we easily stepped over the barbed wire at the top, again a hill rising on the other side to freedom. Sin lowered us enough to jump safely to the sidewalk close by and we turned, firing at the guards again through the fencing before turning and racing toward the crowd, knowing the guards wouldn’t shoot with so many innocents nearby.