R. A. Mayes Mayes

01: The Music Box

Syrus

The guards, although well trained, weren’t fast enough to stand against me. I used my stealth against their numbers. If one guard got away and alerted the others, it would ruin my whole heist.

I needed the money too much to let that happen.

I had a rough idea of what I was looking for. If worst came to worst, I could just take whatever was close to the description that Sinclair had given me, then we could sell all of it. It was a win-win.

I made it to the right room and began looking in the glass cabinets, searching for the golden music box. As I looked for the damned trinket, one thing kept rolling around in my mind; that Sinclair had trusted me to do this by myself.

I looked through the glass cabinets and spotted something that seemed to fit the description he gave me. Was that it? After a few seconds of looking at the item, just to make sure it was the right piece, I began picking the lock to the cabinet. I almost had it open when a voice cut through the echo of rain on the roof of the museum.

“Step away from the artefact.” Female. British?

“I can’t do that, sorry,” I said as I turned around to face her. She had piercing grey, almond-shaped eyes, bleached blonde hair with black regrowth tied into a ponytail, and piercings covering her ears.

“Is that so?” she asked. It was only then that I noticed the handgun being pointed at my skull. Probably should have seen that first…

“I need to make some money here-”

“By God…” The girl cut me off, obviously not keen on listening to my story. Rude. “What’s your name?” she asked me next.

“Syrus.” I answered. Why did she even want to know?

“Who sent you, Syrus?” she asked as she walked towards me, gun still pointed at my head. Her eyes darted to the music box before looking back at me. We were both here for the same object. That made things interesting.

“That’s not important…” I responded. She didn’t seem interested enough to push me for a genuine answer.

“Move.” She told me instead, but I shook my head. “Move, or I’ll make you.” I had to stop myself from laughing. She was small… there was no way she could take me down. Instead of doing what she wanted, I stood still, my hands reaching behind my back before I pulled my gun out and aimed at her, ready to shoot.

But she moved too fast for me to get a lock on her. She ducked underneath my arm, disarmed me, and knocked me to the ground in a matter of seconds. I didn’t have time to pull the trigger on her. Instead, she had me pinned to the ground, a knee on my chest, the other on my right arm while she held my left above my head. Her forearm was weighing down on my throat… but her face was hovering just slightly above mine.

Was I turned on?

“Why couldn’t you just move out of my way?” she was clearly bored. I smirked.

“If I had, we wouldn’t be like this now, would we?” I questioned. She rolled her eyes. But I felt I had a valid point.

“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.” She whispered as she stared into my eyes.

“Give it time…” as I spoke I realised the colour of her eyes was more silver than grey. Even the pure metal couldn’t do the colour justice.

“Confident there Casanova, I’m not sticking around you at all to be blessed with another opportunity to kill you.” She stated with a fake smile before she took her forearm away from my throat, put the safety back on the handgun and holstered it. “One wrong move and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.” She warned me, and funnily enough, I believed her.

“Fair enough,” I replied as she stood up and took another look at the music box I should be stealing. I kept still, not moving from where I lay on the floor as I watched her pick the lock to the cabinet. She looked down at me for a second before she sighed and looked back to the lock.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

“You said no wrong moves,” I answered as I sat up.

“I didn’t mean for you to not move at all.” She said as she shook her head. She finally picked the lock and grabbed the music box before using the sleeve of her denim jacket to clear her fingerprints from the glass of the cabinet, closing it quickly before she walked towards the exit.

“Where are you going?” I asked the British girl as I rushed to stand up. She turned to look back at me with a dumbfounded expression on her face.

“Well, I don’t know what you plan to do with the rest of your night, but I’m not staying here for a guard to find me, so I’m going to leave. It’s in your best interests that you do as well.” She told me, tucking the artefact into her jacket pocket. I was about to say something but stopped myself when I saw a guard in the doorway who the girl turned and walked right into.

She immediately punched the guard in the throat, and I watched as she twisted around the guard and somehow took the adult man down in a handful of seconds.

The girl didn’t take the time to move the guard, she instead took off down the hallway. I figured that the best chance I had of getting out without getting caught was to follow her… so I did. She could take down people efficiently and quietly, which is more than I could say for myself. She led both of us out with no trouble. The handful of guards we did meet weren’t able to stop her. She was about to run away into the night when I grabbed onto her wrist. Although she deserved it more than I did, I couldn’t let her go with the music box.

“Don’t you dare touch me.” she turned to look at me, a killer look in her pale grey eyes and her voice far too dark for a teenage girl.

“I need that music box,” I told her. She ignored the conveyed sense of urgency I felt. Maybe the icy rain soaking our clothes distracted her too much from my tone, or she just didn’t care.

“I’ve already taken you down tonight, and if you need me to do it again to prove a point, I would be more than glad to. This time I won’t take it easy.” She hissed through her teeth. And with that blatant threat on my life, I dropped her wrist and held my hands in the air.

“Fine, fine. Just, I need that music box. My sister and I-”

“Who sent you after this?” she asked as she pulled the music box from her pocket and held it in the air. I may hate Sinclair, but there was no way that I would snitch to someone as dangerous as this girl. “This music box belonged to the Romanoff family and it will go for thousands if not more at auction. It’s also something a conventional thief would look over, so I will ask you one last time before I resort to violence. Who sent you after this?” There was a moment of silence before I groaned in response.

“Vincent Sinclair, I hate the bastard.”

“You’re that kid’s brother, aren’t you?” she asked next. Did she know Sinclair?

“Are you talking about Ny?”

“If that’s the Dawson kid, then yes. I’ve met the girl once.” She ran a hand through her hair, seeming to realise something that I didn’t. “That asshole set this up, set us up to meet.” She whispered just loud enough that I could hear.

“What are you talking about?”

“Vincent Sinclair set us up to meet, and I am going to kill him.” She stated, throwing the artefact at me, which I luckily caught. There was a moment of silence as she observed me more carefully than before. I would kill to know what she was thinking about when she did so.

“If that’s the case, can I know what your name is?” I asked. I didn’t know what else to say and wanted to hear the answer.

“And why should I tell you that?” She questioned with one eyebrow raised.

“You know mine. It only seems fair,” I replied. I looked at the sky before I looked back into her eyes. I felt my reason was stable enough. “Plus, I think you’re kind of cute,” I added; as I spoke, she tucked a few of her loose hairs behind her ears. Judging from her eye roll, she didn’t seem to like that further comment. Why couldn’t I keep my bloody mouth shut?

“Caeli Porter, it’s not necessarily nice to meet you.” She said, which made me grimace.

“Worked with worse…” I trailed off, a blatant lie.

“Don’t get any ideas because you aren’t working with anything.” She stated as she walked the same direction I had to go to get back to the motel I was staying at. If Caeli knew Sinclair, we were probably staying in the same place.

“Too late, dear Caels,” I said as I followed her, nicknames usually helped people warm up to me.

“Call me ‘Caels’ again, and I will shoot you where the sun doesn’t shine.” Well, I was wrong. I caught up to her just as she finished her sentence, and we looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. She had a reasonably intense glare on her face, and it brought a smirk to mine. I knew exactly how to get on her nerves.

“A feisty one, then.”

02: The Pool

Caeli

“Sinclair!” I couldn’t hold in my anger. I couldn’t believe that this situation had even happened. The part I didn’t believe was that Vincent did this to me, that the man thought this had been a good idea, and by God, I was about to let him know it.

“Didn’t expect you back so soon…” the man trailed off as I walked through the door, and judging from his expression, he could definitely sense the anger that radiated from my body. I locked eyes with the older man for a moment before I walked back out to the hallway where Syrus was standing, grabbed his shoulder and dragged him in after me. “So, you two know each other now?”

“What the hell, Sinclair?” I did my best to keep my voice lowered. The other Dawson, Nylah as Syrus informed me on the way back, was sitting at the table in the room waiting for her brother to return. I didn’t want to yell in front of her, not when it had only been the second time we had seen each other’s faces.

“I thought you two should meet and-”

“You could’ve just introduced us,” I said, pushing Syrus further into the room before I let go of his jacket. “Because of this absolute moron, we almost got caught.” my eyes flicked to look at Nylah for a moment, but she didn’t seem offended by what I had said… she seemed entertained by it.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, Caeli-”

“Oh, it was,” Syrus responded, winking at his sister, who smiled back at him.

“Caeli, your speciality is getting out of sticky situations, something Syrus isn’t really capable of-”

“Hey!” Syrus cut off Sinclair. “That seems like it’s supposed to be an insult, so I am going to act offended by that comment.” Once again, for maybe the twentieth time this night alone, I rolled my eyes. It was like Syrus was trying to prove my point for me.

“Point is here, that I think you would make a great team. Syrus has a vast knowledge of history-”

“So do I,” I cut the man off.

“Caeli has superior fighting skills-”

“Won’t argue with that…” Syrus trailed off.

“Together, you would make a wonderful team. Just trust me.” Sinclair tried to argue, but I didn’t care what the man thought. Not this time, at least. I never thought he’d be able to do it, but he’d gone too far.

“Blindside me like that again, Sinclair, and we’ll have issues.” I finished the conversation and walked out of the room. I had to let off some steam and get some air. The audacity of that man.

I punched a wall in the dingy hotel we were staying in… I should have known that Vincent would try something like this. He had been trying to get me to make ‘human connections’, and I should have guessed this would happen the minute I found out Nylah had an older brother. Even if Vincent was trying to help me, it didn’t change the fact that what he did was wrong. It could have ended with one, or both, of us in jail.

I can live my life without control or direction from someone else.

I looked down the hallway before I walked away from the hole I left in the wall. There were no cameras, so the owners wouldn’t know it was me. Who expects a small teenage girl to punch a hole in the wall?

Even though the punch had helped relieve a bit of anger, I still had to cool my body down. I remember there being a dodgy-looking pool, and I found it reasonably quickly. It seemed clean enough, so I jumped in fully clothed. I’d worry about the chlorine in the material later.

The pool wasn’t deep. For me to stand with my head above the water, it had to be relatively shallow. The water was near freezing in the autumn weather, but it took the heat from my body and slowed my heart-beat until I felt normal again. Water was a difficult thing for me to get along with, as long as it was still and I could see the bottom I was okay with it, grateful for it, but the ocean… it was one of the few things I was afraid of.

“Need to cool off? Literally?” It was the older Dawson who spoke, having followed me to the pool.

“It’s the only way for me to calm down, to cool my body,” I said, although I was unsure why. He didn’t need an explanation, didn’t deserve one.

“And the hole in the wall was you too, I take it,” Syrus responded. I didn’t reply as he sat at the edge of the pool, pulling his pants up to let his feet and calves hang in the water. “I think Sinclair meant well-”

“I don’t care if he meant well. He knows my past and why I hate being manipulated, being set up, and not having control. He knew, and he still did it to me.” Why did I say that?

“What could have happened to you? It couldn’t have been that bad-”

“You don’t know what I have been through, and if you were smart, you would realise it’s none of your business. You aren’t helping anything right now.” I stated, looking at him with a glare so harsh it may have killed a part of his soul.

“Alright, I’m sorry. I don’t know you, I shouldn’t make assumptions.” He said, his hands up like he was being arrested. My hands ran over the surface of the water as I took my eyes away from him. I was calming down… slowly.

I ducked my head under the water to cool my face, I was only under for a second but by the time I surfaced Syrus was already in the pool.

“You couldn’t just give me my space, could you?” I asked once he resurfaced, his hair dripping water after he shook his head. I didn’t know if the movement was a response to my question or an attempt at drying his hair.

“The water felt nice, so I thought I should jump in with you.” He said, leading me to believe that he shook his head to get rid of the water. I sighed before I closed my eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Pretending you’re not here.”

“Well, that’s rude…” He trailed off, but my eyes remained closed. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“How so?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed. If I couldn’t see him, then he might not really exist.

“Well, we met with you pointing a gun to my face so… historically, not the right foot.” He said, and I opened my eyes at his words. I hated to admit it, but he had a point.

“I’m sorry about that, a force of habit when facing a competitor, I guess,” I said. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I forgive you, I mean, I tried to shoot you as well, so there is that.” He held his hand out towards me. “My name is Syrus Dawson. I’m the older brother to one annoying kid called Nylah. I work as a thief, treasure hunter, self-taught historian, and my favourite food is ice cream.” It confused me for a second until I realised he was trying for a fresh start. A sigh left my lips before I shook his hand in the water, still not thinking it was very conventional.

“My name is Caeli Porter. I am a mercenary, thief, treasure hunter and self-taught historian. My favourite food is also ice cream even though I’m lactose intolerant and shouldn’t eat it.” I introduced myself.

“Splendid to meet you,” Syrus said, trying to mimic my British accent.

“I think you’re pushing it a bit.”