WHAT THE HELL can I steal?
For the past hour, I’d pondered and explored the giant warehouse. I’d picked up tools and contemplated hiding them in my underwearless dress. I’d lost track of my task and stood for long minutes, entranced by a worker sanding a long length of timber or shadowing another carrying paint cans.
Some even offered me to join them at their station and peer over their shoulder while they performed their expert tasks. One wielded a heat gun with utmost precision. Another carried a clipboard, inspecting flaws where I only saw perfection.
I almost forgot about Elder and his request as I sank deeper into the world of yacht building.
Being surrounded by people was a new challenge for me. Being ignored by most of them was a welcome change. I was just another face in a sea of artists tasked with bringing life to something made of wood and steel.
They didn’t care if I stopped to stare. They didn’t shout if I picked up a chisel or screwdriver. To them, I wasn’t important—their job was—and I was free to wander, touch, and watch.
The freedom in that was liberating. To brush shoulders with a man as he carried blueprints with a pencil between his teeth and not cringe at being touched. To return a distracted smile from a man hanging in a harness to nail a panel into place and not fear making eye contact.
I was part of them while still singular, and eventually, the novelty became the norm and I returned to my pickpocketing task. The only problem was, I had no elastic to hold things secret or bras to cradle things that didn’t belong.
I had my loose dress, my hair, and my hands. Not exactly great stealing attire.
Not for the first time, I glanced at the closed door where Elder and Selix had disappeared. Windows on either side were barricaded by blinds, drawn to keep the meeting hidden.
I was tempted to sit on one of the large canvas piles and just watch the controlled mayhem around me rather than try to steal. But whenever I drifted toward the idea of refusing Elder’s request, the guilt that followed made me continue my search.
He’d tried to give me a yacht.
That yacht.
I shook my head in awe at the behemoth in front of me.
Why?
Didn’t he know how uncomfortable that made me? Not because of the extra debt I would incur, but the fact I’d never owned something so expensive before? It almost felt as if he thought he could buy back my self-confidence and somehow delete the past two years.
As if a million-dollar gift would fix me.
It won’t.
He was fixing me just by giving me a life. Taking me to work with him. Letting me travel with him. Those gifts were priceless and so much better treasured than a boat I didn’t know how to steer, had no crew to manage, and no income to afford the fuel and upkeep.
It was a stupid idea.
Stupid or not, he tried to be generous and kind and asked you to do something in return.
I’d wasted enough time.
My footsteps fell with deeper purpose as I skirted the main hub of workmen and inspected tables with scrapers and drills and hammers. There were many things I could take, but nothing was small enough to scurry away.
And besides…if I steal a tool, isn’t that stealing from Elder?
He was the boss here. He would’ve financed the equipment and supplies. It didn’t make sense to steal something he already owned.
Was it a trick? Had he already come to that conclusion and wanted to see what I would do?
You’re over-thinking this.
I agreed with that logic but only because I didn’t want to steal. I didn’t like the thought of taking something without permission, to covet what wasn’t mine because that was exactly what happened to me.
So where does that leave you?
God, if I knew.
Doomed if I did and doomed if I didn’t. Either way, I owed him, and I had to do what he said.
I spun in place, trying to spot something quickly to get it over with.
The large clock hanging above the office showed I’d dallied for ninety minutes and still didn’t have a trinket to give Elder.
Doesn’t matter. He said I had two hours—
The door where Elder had vanished into suddenly swung open, revealing a long table and people gathering up papers before standing. Elder stomped forward, stepping into the warehouse, surveying his empire.
The meeting had finished early.
I’d run out of time.
His intelligent gaze tracked over his staff, searching, searching…
He found me.
I froze as he pinned me in place with just a stare, his chin aloof and kingly.
I sucked in a breath, but it lodged in my throat.
He didn’t look any different–still dressed in a dark grey t-shirt and expensive faded denim jeans from before. It didn’t matter he wasn’t wearing a suit and tie. It didn’t matter he was just a man. He had a certain sorcery about him that put him above the rest. No one else could come across so brutish but fair, so merciless but forgiving. He was strict with me but stricter with himself. And it wasn’t his wardrobe that conjured those traits. It was him. His entire mentality and carriage.
He smiled with smugness and a tinge of relief as if he’d suspected I’d stay but was still surprised to see me.
Had this been yet another test? Leaving me on my own? Waiting to see if I fled or remained? It hadn’t even occurred to me to walk out the warehouse and vanish.
Perhaps it should have.
Maybe I should’ve focused more on finding a telephone and calling the police than I had on finding something to steal?
What’s become of my priorities?
But then again, what would I tell the police?
That I currently lived with the man, who only two days ago, forced himself on me? That that same man helped sew my tongue back together and kill the master who’d abused me?
I’d be thrown in an asylum and Elder into a cell.
People would say I was screwed up. That my fragility had given way to irrationality. Elder would be tried for kidnapping and rape while I fruitlessly explained it was neither.
No. I couldn’t leave yet, and he couldn’t be taken from me.
Not yet.
My heart nudged in warning as Elder placed one black shoe in front of the other, coming to claim me.
I didn’t know what he’d planned next or where we were going, but I did know I needed to complete his task—not for him but for me. I needed to prove I could do this on my own. I didn’t need him near me all the time. I was strong enough to do what he requested.
Darting toward a nearby workstation and the multiple tools scattered on the table, I lost sight of Elder as I scurried around the back of the partially built yacht.
A name whispered on my mind for the elegant sea craft. Something that could fly. Something that was strong enough to endure tidal waves and rain needles.
Don’t you dare.