by C. L. Stone
I took the box from him and he shut the door.
Pretzel boy started down the road. I used the side mirror to glance back at Dr. Roberts, who remained on the sidewalk. He looked after the truck for a moment and then turned away, walking the opposite direction.
Traffic was slow since we were still downtown and pedestrians dominated the streets in this particular neighborhood. When pretzel boy stopped, he looked curiously at my lap. “What did he get you?”
I undid the ribbon and opened the box.
It was filled with chocolate covered truffles, the same kind I’d tasted at the candy store.
THE TYPE OF GROUP THAT REQUIRES A THIEF
I’d put the box of candy on the floor, folded my arms around my stomach, and sat back in the seat, glaring out the window. My heart raced. I was nervous, worried about making the biggest mistake and was on my way to prison.
“Relax, Bambi,” pretzel boy said. “You’re not in trouble.”
“Sure feels like it.”
He grinned, and reached to fiddle with the air conditioner. “Cold? Warm?”
“No.”
“Change it if you are,” he said. He sat back, one hand on the wheel, the other raking through his hair to pull locks away from his eyes. He wound his way through downtown, heading back toward I-26. “Glad we found you. I had a hunch you wouldn’t try the mall again, but had to leave a guy there just in case. We’re going to go pick him up, and then meet the others.”
“He knew my name,” I said. “Dr. Roberts did. Do you?”
“Yup,” he said. “Kayli Winchester. Eighteen. Born and raised here in the tri-county, mostly in North Charleston, but the last few years hovering between Goose Creek and West Ashley. Your school record’s a mile long, too. I didn’t know they let kids graduate when they skipped so many classes.”
I closed my eyes tightly and pressed my fingers to my temples. “Why are you stalking me? Who are you?”
He steered with his left hand, and held out his right in offering. “Marc.”
I stared at his hand.
“I don’t bite, sweetie.”
I slipped my hand into his, and he easily enveloped it. He squeezed mine gently, shook it once and pulled his back.
I stopped playing coy and stared at his face, especially at the eyes. “Is that your real name?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I squinted at him. His hair was rich brown and soft-looking and his skin had a nice tan. And the dark brows complemented his two-toned eyes. He wore a deep blue collared shirt, unbuttoned to reveal the white ribbed tank shirt underneath. His fine-sculpted chest was more defined as the tank shirt was snug. Around his neck was a black cord, and hanging from it was a sand dollar encased in silver.
I glanced away, not liking where my thoughts were going staring at his body. Even his face was incredible, with a day’s worth of unshaven gruffness and high cheekbones. “Do you really want me to work at your pretzel stand that badly?”
He broke out into laughter, twisting his hands at the wheel and leaning forward. “No, no, I don’t work there. They make a pretty good pretzel dog though.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Followed you home last night and talked to the manager at the hotel. He’s not a really nice guy but for a hundred bucks, he was willing to tell me a few things.”
“Is that why he was anxious to get us to move out? You spooked him?”
“He’s not going to kick you out. You’re a solid gold star compared to his other tenants. Which reminds me, why are you living there, anyway?”
“Oh so there’s stuff about me you don’t know?” I shoved my arms over my chest and sat back. “Well, at least I get to keep some secrets.”
“Come on, Bambi. Don’t be like that. I’m trying to do you a favor here.”
“Stop calling me that. And why?”
He stared hard out the windshield and his hands tightened on the wheel. “You just don’t seem like the type that really wants to steal. I saw how you hesitated. You really didn’t want to. That wasn’t greed on your face. That was desperation.”
“Why does that matter to you? You don’t know me.”
He twisted his lips, staring off at the cars in front of us. “Do you want a shot or not? I won’t force you into this.”
“Is that why you practically had me kidnapped?”
“I just want you to hear us out before you make a decision. Unless you really like being a thief or in jail. Because that’s where you were headed.”
I mumbled a little, not wanting to admit he was right and not wanting to pretend to be in denial about it. Every time I stole, I was spinning the barrel of the gun one more time in a twisted bit of fate, hoping the bullet never caught up with me. Now it had, I supposed. What kind of police force was this though? He still appeared my age, so he couldn’t have been a detective or something similar.
“I’m taking a chance on you.” He turned his head, meeting my gaze. There was an edge. A wild, unforgiving stare, daring me where I was sitting. Like his command, it rocked me breathless. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there’s no chance in hell you’ll stop stealing.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. He didn’t know me. I didn’t want to admit to anything. “I didn’t ask for a chance.”
“None of us do. But you don’t throw away one when you get it.”
I stared off out the front windshield. I didn’t mind having a chance, I just wasn’t so sure I wanted one from him.
I sensed a movement and turned my face to see what he was doing. He poked at the bruise on my chin. I winced, covering it, and smacked his curious finger away.
His eyes narrowed on me. He slowed the truck, pulling off to the side of the road. My heart roared into a panic. Traffic sped onward to our left as he stopped in the grass. What was he doing? We were on the interstate!
He turned fully to me. His hands clenched into fists. “What happened to you? You didn’t have that yesterday.”
I kept my hand cupped around my chin. He could tell? Did the makeup wear off? And why did he care?
“Who touched you?” his voice was full of the command he’d had the day before. How did he do that? “Is it that brother of yours? Was it Wil?”
“No,” I snapped at him. “Don’t worry about it.”
“That manager said there were complaints about a fight and yelling every night. Does that dad of yours beat you?”
“Not if I can help it,” I said, and realized too late what I was admitting. “Don’t give me any crap about it. Once you hold him down long enough, he gives up the fight and falls asleep. And it’s none of your business .”
He stretched out, popping my hand to get me to drop it. He caught my chin. His eyes begged me to allow him to do what he needed. I grasped at his forearm, not pushing away, just holding it in warning as if to say I would.
Time slowed. My breathing slowed. My heart thumped hard against my eardrums, and my mouth was dry. He leaned forward, the silver sand dollar dangled from his neck.
He cupped his hand at my jawline. Rough skin of his thumb traced over the bruise. He massaged slowly as if doing so could erase what he was seeing. He tilted my head, gazing at it from a different angle.
His mismatched eyes never left my face.
“You’ve got a scar,” he said. He traced over a spot on the underside of my chin. It was an old one, at least a couple of years. “Did he do that, too?”
“No,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes at me, studying. He frowned. “Liar.”
I yanked my face from his grasp, shoving his arm away. I hated that he was right. I couldn’t answer him, and glared at the dashboard like I wanted to glare at him, only I couldn’t. Those eyes made me feel too weak. I pinched hard at my thigh, trying to tell myself to calm down. This was way too close. Been down that path one too many times, too. When someone discovered too much about me it always ended in disaster.
“Can we go?” I asked.
The silence lingered. I
sensed his stare. He hovered like he wanted to move closer but wasn’t sure. He’d already started probing, asking the questions most of my old boyfriends never dared, but I always worried they would eventually. If I thought they were catching on to who I really was, the life I had, I usually ended it. No one could understand me.
Now here was Marc, who already knew the details of my life I tried to keep in the shadows. He didn’t seem angry. He wanted to know more. I had no idea how to respond. This was the worst place I’d ever been and even that didn’t scare him. I didn’t know what to do with that. My first instinct was to bail; run home and avoid him. Only I couldn’t now.
Or could I? I supposed if I really wanted to, I could have opened the door, walked out, run off, disappeared forever.
What stopped me? Outside of knowing I’d possibly never see Wil again, and even that may have been a good thing, for all the trouble that I was in.
Marc grunted and leaned back in the driver’s seat. “I know you don’t know me, and you don’t have a reason to trust me, but I swear if you give me a chance, you’ll never have to see that old man or that hotel room again.” He jerked the gear shift and pounded on the gas, racing to get back onto the road.
Why did my heart have to surge at that promise, even as I didn’t believe a word of it?
We rode in silence, which I almost hated as much as him talking. Marc pulled up to the curb at the mall. I stared at the glass swinging doors nervously, knowing that if what they said was true, I was probably safest never showing up at a mall again. Even being outside the doors made my spine tingle, itching to run. I didn’t want the cops to see me and arrest me. I sunk into the seat.
Marc wedged his cell phone out of his back pocket, punched in a text message and planted the phone on the console between us. “He’ll be here in a second.”
“Who?”
“Raven.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“His last name is Ravenstahl. Everyone calls him Raven.”
“What’s his first name?”
Marc smiled, and his eyes lit up. “He’d kill me if I told you.”
I gazed out the front window as we waited. I started watching people coming and going from the mall. It’d been a while since I’d visited the place when I wasn’t having to rush to find a target. I watched kids with their parents, teenage boys rushing to get inside, a group of girls giggling as they shadowed the boys and whispered to each other.
When I was stealing, I avoided contact with everyone. Attention was the last thing a thief really wants. Now that I wasn’t targeting anyone, the people seemed so oblivious to me. I spotted purses exposed and bulging pockets in places I could pull from without having to touch someone at all. Easy marks, but they were the wrong marks. Women. Kids. I wanted to chase them down and tell them to do better. Don’t let someone worse than me steal your wallet. You’ll never get it back.
A palm dropped on the back of my head, nudging. “What are you doing? Spacing out?”
“Shut up.” I tried to karate chop him in the arm, but he dodged and then swooped in and popped me on the head.
“Too slow,” he said, with a teasing grin on his face. I grunted, hating that he was being cute. It made it difficult to stick to my initial plan to not like him.
He glanced around my head. I turned in reaction but slowly, worried he was going to distract me and pop me on the head again.
My side door opened, and a face leaned in, gazing at the both of us. He had thick brown hair, cropped short, but left a little long in the front near his face so he had a little bit sticking up. Brown eyes, a couple of days’ worth of unshaven growth around his strong chin. His black tank top revealed heavily tattooed arms, one covered in tribal marks and the other an ongoing art depiction of roses, one of a knife and barbed wire, and a few more things blended in I couldn’t see yet because it twisted to the other side of his bicep. He had two earring studs in his left lobe, and a lip ring.
He took one glance at me and smiled big.
“In the back, Raven,” Marc said.
“Scoot over, little thief. It’s tight in the back.” His deep voice had a gruff tone, like he talked a lot. He had an accent. It almost sounded Russian.
Marc sighed and lifted the middle console. I harrumphed but slid over. I tried glaring at the dashboard, not wanting to be noticed, but despite my being irritated, Raven was pretty hot. The black tank shirt was tight to his body, and he wore dark blue jeans and boots.
Did the secret police somehow just happen to recruit the best looking guys? I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but I kind of didn’t mind this. What really drove me crazy was they knew more about me than I did of them.
Marc pulled out of the lot. Raven stabbed his seatbelt into place and then planted an arm around my shoulders, holding onto the side of Marc’s headrest.
“So this is our thief?” Raven asked. “I expected someone ...”
I turned my head, meeting his dark eyes and dared him to say blond or with bigger boobs ... or that he expected me to be a boy.
He smirked, his lip ring protruding. “Uglier,” he said, thickening the accent.
“I could show you ugly if you’d like,” I said.
Raven huffed once. “With that face? I doubt it.”
I didn’t have a comeback for that, but my insides were squirming. “Where are we going now?” I asked.
“We’ll go meet up with the guys,” Marc said. He picked up his cell phone, and started poking at the screen. “Let me wait to talk about it there so I’m not repeating myself.”
“You need to call the boss and wake him up,” Raven said. He nudged his side into mine, leaning a little into me, more than he needed. “He wanted in on this.”
“Who’s the boss?” I asked. “You mean that old man?”
“Dr. Roberts,” Marc said, still poking a text message while he was driving. He didn’t seem to struggle with handling both, but it still made me nervous.
“Do you mean Dr. Roberts? He’s your boss?”
“No,” Marc said.
“Is it the tall guy?”
“Huh?”
“The guy who wore the red jacket yesterday?”
He poked at his phone more. “Nuh uh.”
I glanced at him and then the road. I wasn’t sure he was paying attention to me or the road. He was following another car way closer than I was comfortable with. Since he was still playing with his phone, I snagged it from his hands.
Marc grunted. “Give it back, Bambi.”
“Stop calling me that. And I’ll text for you. Keep your eyes on the road.” I glanced at the screen. “Who’s Jenny?”
Marc scowled at me. “Ex-girlfriend.”
Jenny: I want to talk to you.
Marc: I don’t want to talk.
Jenny: I just need to know.
“A clinger, huh?” I asked.
Raven laughed next to me. “All American girls are like that. Even a few of the boys.”
“How would you know?” Marc asked.
Raven lifted his arm, reaching across my shoulders and leaning into me to ruffle his fingers through Marc’s hair. “Come on, pretty boy. Give the girl the boot already.”
Marc waved Raven off. “Stop it.”
“You’ve got to cut this off,” I said. “Clingers stay for as long as you talk to them.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” Marc said. “She’s a sweet girl, but she’s a pain in the ass. Calling all the time to see where I’m at. She’s always claiming someone’s hurting her and she needs to be saved. She’s kind of crazy.”
“Is that your type? Sweet and crazy?” I asked.
Marc pulled a face but didn’t respond.
I could sympathize with him. I once dated a guy who tried to cut himself to get me to come over. Those types start out really sweet, but end up being psycho when you try to get rid of them. “Here,” I said. I typed in a response and sent it.
Marc frowned. “What did you do?” He snagged th
e phone out of my hand, checking the message.
“I just told her you’re out on a date.”
“What? I told her I was at work.”
“A date will make her mad.”
“I don’t want her mad.”
“Mad is good,” I said. “If you want a girl to go away, you’ve got to piss her off.”
Marc stopped at a red light and turned his head to me. “Is that how you treat people? You must be a fucking barrel of peaches to your boyfriend.”
“Yup. I tell him where to go and he goes,” I fibbed. Ha. Boyfriend.
Marc squinted at me. “Holy shit. You’re single.”
“Aw,” Raven said. He planted a palm on my head and massaged my scalp. “Little thief, don’t worry about it. I’ve got you now.”
I reached out, popping him on the chest with a loose fist. “Stop touching me.”
He hooted, laughed and dropped his hand from my head and rubbed at the spot where I’d hit him. “I like it. Feisty.”
“Back off, Raven,” Marc said.
“You make the claim or she’s fair game.”
I waved off Raven and pointed to Marc’s phone. "Why don't you just tell her you didn't like her."
He sighed. "It's not that easy. I feel horrible. I mean she felt so strong about it that I was wondering why I didn't feel anything at all. I thought something was wrong with me. She's pretty and she's sweet. Isn't there supposed to be a spark or wiggly feelings or something?"
"You were waiting on wiggly sparks?"
He brushed a palm across his face. "Forget it. Why am I telling you all this? I don't even know you." He shook his head. "Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter now."
“She may be mad for now, but she may try to weasel back. If she comes back, you'll have to be mean. You can't backtrack or she'll keep doing this."
He sighed heavily enough that his broad shoulders lifted and fell. "I don't know if I can do that to a girl."
"You do a pretty good job making me mad. What’s the difference?"
He made a face. "I think you barely qualify as a girl."
I harrumphed.
He waved his hand in front of himself. "I don't mean it in a bad way. Don't take things so seriously."
"We'll see if you feel the same way when I start calling you Mary instead of Marc."