Stealing Phoenix

by Joss Stirling

  Yves tugged me to a stop outside a coffee bar. ‘Phee, you seem really stirred up for someone who is supposed to have had a fun night out at a musical. I don’t think you’re supposed to take it so seriously. How about something to calm you down? Hot chocolate? Sky says it never fails with her.’

  I shook him off, suffocated by his fussing over me, telling me what to do. I did not want hot milk and to be tucked in when I could barely stop myself screaming and lobbing a brick through a window. Fortunately for Yves, there was no target in my view—no Seer or any of the Savants I’d met the night before, or I would’ve got us both arrested. ‘No thanks. I don’t want to be calmed down. I want …’ My breath was coming in painful, shallow bursts. ‘I want to be understood!’

  Yves held up both hands and took a step back, a lion tamer retreating from the swipe of a fractious wild cat. ‘OK, OK. Can I understand you somewhere less public?’

  ‘I don’t care what other people think.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I’d really like to get off the street.’

  We were attracting curious looks as night revellers caught on to the argument in progress—a one-sided debate where I was throwing all the anger and emotion against his even-tempered acceptance like the sea attacking a harbour wall. That made me feel worse, of course. Yves just stood there letting me splash and spray my fury all over him.

  I swore at him.

  He flinched but stood his ground. ‘Phee, please.’

  I threw an arm out towards him. ‘Why do you let me do that? I just swore at you and instead of giving it back like a normal person and telling me to stop being such a jerk, you stand there like … like Nelson Mandela.’

  He ran a hand through his hair, confused. ‘You…you want me to argue with you? I thought you wanted me to understand you.’

  Just at the moment he couldn’t do anything right. ‘That’s not understanding me. That’s tolerating me. Pitying me. I hate it.’

  ‘O-K. Um … look, let’s go and talk about this.’

  I squeezed my hands into fists, tempted to hit out but knowing I really wanted to punish myself.

  Yves’s phone rang. Giving me space, he took it out and answered. ‘Yeah, it’s over. It was … it was good. Thanks for the tickets.’ He glanced over at me. ‘I think she liked it, maybe. Uh-huh. He did? OK. Yeah, I’ve got the message. See you.’ He slipped the mobile back into his jacket pocket.

  I folded my arms, trying to tear myself out of my mood like someone detaching their feet from a puddle of sticky tar. ‘One of your brothers checking up on us?’ I asked coolly.

  ‘Er, yeah.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the coffee bar. ‘I need a drink. Come with me if you like.’

  He entered and joined the queue at the till, posture spiky and stressed. His new tactic worked and I felt obliged to follow him. Where else could I go?

  ‘What’ll you have?’ he asked.

  ‘Decaf something.’ I was wired enough as it was without adding a shot of caffeine to the bloodstream.

  He ordered two decaf lattes and suggested I go find a booth. I slid into one near the back of the shop, a dark corner where I could mope. God, I was horrible. He’d tried to give me a nice evening and I was messing it up going on a chaotic emotional stampede, flattening him in passing.

  The bench squeaked as he sat. He pushed the tall glass over to me, a peace offering.

  ‘Thanks.’ I ran my fingers up and down the warm surface.

  ‘I should warn you, Zed saw you running off. Vick phoned to tell me not to be a jackass.’

  ‘It wasn’t you.’ I couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I flew off the handle.’

  ‘The show’s not real, you know.’

  Whosh! My temper flared again at that spark. ‘Of course I know that! I’m not stupid!’

  ‘I wish we’d seen Phantom instead,’ he said plaintively.

  Turn it down, Phee, turn it down. ‘But even though it’s a fantasy, Wicked is true to experience—mine at least. Best intentions get screwed up.’ Then I leapt feet first into what was really bothering me. ‘You have to tell me, are you going to betray your family—the Savant Net? I can’t stand not knowing.’

  His hands flexed around his drink, fingertips going white. ‘You have to trust me.’

  He was still ducking a straight answer. ‘I can’t believe that you will—and so I’m wondering what’s going to happen the day after tomorrow. I won’t hurt them. You can’t take me back to that flat.’ I crumpled up a sachet of sugar spilling the brown sugar over the table. ‘You can’t do that to them—or to me.’

  ‘If you can’t trust me, at least trust my family to do what they do best.’

  I kicked the granules around with my index finger. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Look after each other—and us.’

  He still didn’t get it. ‘But that’s their soft spot. They don’t realize you’ve brought a snake into the nest. I don’t want to turn and bite them but that’s what’s gonna happen and you know it. You told the Seer you would keep your bargain but you can’t—you just can’t. I won’t let you betray them.’

  He took a gulp of his drink, controlling his knee-jerk response to my cutting and slashing at him. ‘You don’t really know, Phee, what I can do—what my family can do.’

  I took a deep breath, realizing that I had just been putting off the moment that I would have to leave him. If I truly loved him—and I now knew I did—I had to make the choice for him. ‘No, I don’t. But I know what these men can do if they get their hooks into you. You think you have a safety net—a loving family, your home in the States—but they are everywhere, your enemies. They will take everything away from you—strip each petal off the flower. You are walking into a trap.’

  ‘With my eyes open.’

  ‘Open—shut—it doesn’t matter.’ I slid to the end of the bench. ‘Look, I know you think you’ve got some clever way out of this, but you really haven’t. I’m primed to hurt your family and then go back—I’m the weapon the bad guys are using against you. You’ve had a go at deciding my future— without asking me, by the way, don’t think I didn’t notice.’ He looked a little shame-faced as he realized I had a point, which gave me space to make the rest of my speech. ‘I’ve been trying to ignore the obvious. Make all the plans you like but I can’t stay with you. Look at me—I’m a thief, Yves. I even like being one.’ I can see that this shocked him. He’d been persuading himself I was more a victim than a criminal.

  ‘But you never kept the stuff—you did it because you had to.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you go on telling yourself that, sweetcheeks. I’m not a good person. I like it because it’s the only damn thing I’m good at. In the bad column is everything else, including relationships.’ I felt something crack inside me. ‘Oh, what’s the point? It’s been … it’s been lovely meeting you. I’d better get going.’

  I was out of the door by the time he caught up with me.

  ‘Running again? I thought we’d been there, done that.’ His tone was clipped. Hurt.

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe my first reaction was the right one.’ I kept walking, heading up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. He was still following. Dodging through the crowds mingling by the fountains, I crossed the road by the National Gallery and turned into the Strand. I could hear him keeping step with my feet but he didn’t try to stop me.

  ‘Lady, want to see the menu?’ A waiter paid to hustle tourists into his restaurant got in my path.

  I hunched over. ‘No, thanks.’ And steamed on past. Yves continued to follow.

  When I reached the Strand, I tried to shake him by taking a random bus just as the doors began to close. He shoved his shoulders in the gap and got on behind.

  ‘Need a ticket, love?’ asked the driver, tapping his machine.

  ‘Yes, please.’ I hadn’t the foggiest idea where the bus was heading. ‘What’s your next stop?’

  He gave me a funny look. ‘Embankment.’

  ‘Yeah, that’ll do.’ I dug in my
pocket for some spare change.

  ‘No need. She has a travel card.’ Yves flashed the Underground tickets we’d bought earlier that included bus trips above ground.

  The driver decided not to ask why I was looking daggers at my helpful companion. He shook his head and pulled away from the kerb.

  I slumped down on a seat near the rear door. Yves sat in the row behind me.

  ‘This is stupid,’ I muttered to no one in particular.

  ‘Yeah, it is. Glad you realize that.’ Yves stroked my shoulder but I got up, putting myself out of reach. The bus swung round onto the Embankment and I rang the bell. The doors hissed open and I jumped out, Yves only a step behind. Nearly shouting with frustration, I took a suicidal dash across the busy road to reach the wall overlooking the Thames. The granite pillar of Cleopatra’s Needle beside me, Waterloo Station opposite, this was a busy stretch of the river, restaurant boats churning the dark waters, glass cabins holding dinners like transparent-skinned crocodiles swimming past with their last meal inside, revellers oblivious to the fact they’d been swallowed whole.

  I went to the very edge and hopped up onto the parapet.

  ‘Phee, what are you doing?’ Yves was alarmed. Finally, he had twigged I was serious.

  ‘I’m making a choice. If you don’t back off, I’m going over.’ I glanced over the edge: I had no intention of killing myself but I’d not enjoy a dip in the muddy water below. The point was to get him to leave me alone.

  ‘Get down from there!’

  ‘When you go.’

  Swearing softly, Yves looked away from me, then threw his hands up in the air. ‘OK, you win. I’ll go. Have a nice life.’With that he spun on his heels and stalked away towards the tube station, disappearing inside.

  My sudden victory shocked me. That was it? He was giving up so easily? It was what I wanted—of course it was—but he hadn’t tried very hard to persuade me to stay with him.

  Feeling stupid on the parapet, I jumped down and sat on the steps to the Needle, knees huddled against my chest.

  Why did winning feel so much like a defeat?

  Thunder rumbled over Tower Bridge. Storm clouds moved in and it began to rain. Not a gentle ladylike weeping but a great howl of tears from the sky, crying with no thought to what you look like, nose running, mouth open in an ‘O’ of misery. I knew how that felt. I was soaked in a matter of minutes, hoodie dripping at the sleeves, wringing wet at the shoulders, water working its way through to my T-shirt. I got up, squelching in my shoes. Wrapping my arms around myself, I shivered, eyes closed, brain too frozen to think what I should do next.

  Arms caught me and hugged me to a hot, wet chest. ‘How can you even think that I would walk away?’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Yves.’ The emptiness suddenly filled; protest became a shout of happiness.

  ‘I saw you sitting there—you really thought I’d gone. You didn’t even trust me enough to look twice, did you?’ He had got up a good head of steam, temper finally escaping. ‘And standing on the edge like that, threatening to throw yourself in—I can’t believe you said that to me!’

  ‘I’m …’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it. Every time you open that mouth of yours you say something dumb that gets me angry, so I’m gonna stop you the only way I know how.’ His lips swooped down on mine in a hot, forceful kiss, spiced with fury and frustration. Firecrackers exploded behind my closed eyes, sparkles in the pit of my stomach. I could feel the muscles of his chest bunching as he shifted to move me to a better angle, his fingers slipping under the damp material of my T-shirt to brush my waist. Responding to this new side to him, I shoved my hand under the tight belt around his jeans to touch the small of his back, palm resting against the strong notch at the base of his spine. His skin was so warm, so perfect.

  He raised his head to take a breath. ‘Don’t you dare say we don’t belong together,’ he warned. ‘We have this—and so much more. I’m not letting you throw it away.’

  Please don’t let me, my mind echoed. I pressed my ear to his chest, seeking out the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat.

  ‘I promised I’d handle this and you’ve got to let me keep my word. For once in your life, reach out and rely on someone,’ he whispered fiercely into my hair. ‘I’ve got the information the Seer wants already on a memory stick. We are going to that meeting the day after tomorrow together. Even if you run away now, we both have to be there, remember?’

  I nodded.

  ‘No one will get hurt if you just keep to my plan. That’s another promise.’

  ‘But they’ll take the information and use it to unravel your network of good guys.’

  ‘You’re thinking that the Savant Net doesn’t have its own defences. We’re not novices at this game, Phee. We’ve been up against these guys for a while now.’

  ‘But the Seer’s trying to make you into his sort. He’ll get you to unpick those protections.’

  He shrugged. ‘One of us walking on the dark side is not going to bring the Net down. It’s bigger than that.’

  ‘But you are the one I care about.’

  He shivered then rubbed his palm up and down the bare skin of my back, trying to distract me from the fact that he wasn’t going to give me a straight answer. ‘You’re soaked.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘Let’s go home.’

  I didn’t move. ‘No one will get hurt? How can you square that circle?’

  He tipped my face up to meet his eyes and wiped the rain from my cheeks. ‘Your soulfinder is a genius, didn’t Sky tell you? I can square circles in my sleep.’

  I sighed. He wasn’t going to reveal the plan to me—probably couldn’t—how he was going to reconcile betraying his family with what I knew about his character. He had a trick up his sleeve; I had to have faith that it would be clever enough to get us both out of this bind. Yet I couldn’t forget what his own dad had said: Yves’s decision to stick with me had turned him into a threat. Even geniuses could get things wrong—look at Einstein’s unfortunate choice of hairdresser. But what could I do? I was strapped in this car for the ride now. ‘OK.’

  He quirked an eyebrow. ‘OK what?’

  ‘Let’s go home.’ I pulled back to sneeze. ‘Quickly. I’m freezing.’

  He looked up the street into the stream of oncoming traffic then raised his arm.

  ‘Not another taxi!’ I groaned as one drew up at the kerb. ‘We’ve got tube tickets.’

  Yves held out the now sodden bits of cardboard. ‘We had tickets. And if you think I’m going on the Underground with you in wet clothes so all the drunks can leer at you, then you’ve another thing coming.’

  Oh. I crossed my arms. ‘Good point. Taxi’s a great idea.’

  Cold, shivering, but somehow purged by the stormy encounter on the Embankment, I huddled on the back seat, Yves’s arms looped around me so I could rest against his chest. I was finally beginning to believe that he would never let me go, even if that meant we both stumbled into darkness.

  The next morning, Karla and Sky insisted on taking me shopping for some clothes. My wet jeans needed a spin in the machine and neither of them had trousers that would fit me, both being a couple of inches shorter. I made do with a pair of trackies borrowed from Sky—not my finest fashion hour as they ended well above my ankles. On my suggestion, we set off for the new mall near St Paul’s, boys not allowed, to indulge in some serious retail therapy. Yves had given me a hundred pounds to spend, saying I could pay him back eventually but only through legal means. He hadn’t forgotten my admission that I enjoyed my craft and was evidently still set on reforming me. I fingered the pouch containing the crisp new notes in my shoulder bag, marvelling that I was holding so much and could spend it on myself.

  Diving into the shopping centre, we soon found a boutique we all liked. I scanned the cheaper racks of jeans, hoping to find something to fit. I would never have thought to ask but as soon as Yves’s mother saw I favoured a certain pair, she demanded to see more sizes in the �
�pants’ I’d picked out. This made Sky and me giggle—childish I know, but Sky knew exactly where I was coming from, having suffered in the States for her British English. The right size found in the stock room, Sky grabbed a blouse from a rack to keep me company in the changing room.

  I wriggled into the grey jeans then stepped out to look in the big mirror in the corridor. ‘What do you think?’

  Sky was admiring her blouse. ‘This was an impulse, but I think I might get it.’

  It suited her—a bright turquoise that made her eyes shine. ‘Go for it.’

  She surveyed my selection. ‘They look great. You’re really slim and they show your legs off.’

  I twisted round and read the tag. ‘You know, I’ve never bought a pair before.’

  Sky began unbuttoning the top. ‘Never had grey jeans? They are so useful—go with almost anything. I’ve some back home.’

  ‘No, I mean, never bought anything from a shop.’

  That stopped her in her tracks. ‘What, never?’

  ‘When you don’t have any of your own money and can freeze the staff so they don’t notice you walking out, what else can you do?’ I disappeared back into my cubicle and unbuttoned the jeans to tug them off. Through the gap in the curtain I could see Sky’s shocked expression in the mirror. ‘I could hardly go round naked.’

  ‘But …’ Sky shook her head.

  ‘Yeah, I know it isn’t fair on all the other customers. Shoplifters like me are the dregs. Logically, I know that it’s selfish, that everyone else pays, but it never feels like that. The rush is too addictive.’ I was truly shocking her now. Perhaps there was a thing as too much truthfulness when you are trying to make a friend.

  ‘I hope you never have to steal again. I’m sorry, Phee, but it sucks as a way of life.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s all I have.’

  ‘Had, you mean.’ Sky smiled. ‘I don’t think you’ll need to worry about money after this.’

  I stepped back into my borrowed trackies and came out with the jeans draped over my arm. ‘Of course I’ll worry about money. I’ve got nothing and I don’t intend to live off the Benedicts.’