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Feb. 4th, 2013
Mirica didn’t know what it was that caught her attention, but it was probably nothing more than the tiniest noise. Like her brother she heard things that no one else did and there had been a couple of times when that ability had saved both their lives. That time… She made her way down the stairs, slowly, with the knife she always had, just in case. When she thought about it later she realised she should have stayed in her room, which would have been much easier to defend, but she couldn’t go back then and change what she’d done. All she could do was deal with the problems her decision had caused her.
The first thing Mirica saw was the butler on the floor. She had a chance then to turn, run back upstairs and barricade herself in her room, but she allowed her worry to get the better of her. The butler was always the first person to get hurt. They’d lost two already and she didn’t want to lose a third, especially as she liked him. When she knelt down next to him she checked his pulse with her free hand, hoping that she would find one, and couldn’t stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief.
“I didn’t hurt him,” a male voice said from behind her, making her jump.
“What did you do?” Mirica asked, in an attempt to keep him talking so she could work out where he was.
“I put him to sleep.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s a new power, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it work, but I did.”
It was those words that caused the first tremor of fear. The only people who could gain new powers were the thieves and having a thief in her house was the last thing she wanted. Add to that the fact Mirica was alone apart from the sleeping butler and the conclusion she came to was one she should have avoided. That left her one option.
Waiting until he touched her was one of the hardest things Mirica had ever had to do. There had been other thieves, but she’d never had to deal with them alone, and she knew she’d only have one chance. Her powers weren’t useful in a battle most of the time, but she had some idea of what he was likely to do, which was more than she’d hoped for. Finally, after what felt like hours, he put his hand on her shoulder and that would have easily been enough for him to be able to take her powers. A part of her did wonder if her life would be a lot simpler if she didn’t have any powers, but almost everyone ended up dead when they had their power taken from them and being dead wasn’t on her list of things to do.
Unfortunately the knife missed him. He looked at Mirica and she could see him change his opinion of her, but that change made him grin at her. The words he was going to say next were ones she wished she could have stopped him from saying, because she knew what they meant.
“You’re a feisty one.” He raised an eyebrow. “How good are you with that knife?”
Mirica knew she wasn’t good enough to stop him, but that didn’t mean she was going to back down and let him have her powers. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” All she could do was keep him busy and hope that her brother turned up soon. “What’s your weapon of choice?”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.