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."