The Fae World: Kalinia (post-apoc): Max: Being a Thief (part 2)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1

That was unfair, though, really, because it wasn’t their fault they hadn’t noticed. At the school they weren’t taught to notice things like that, even though they should have been. It was obviously that the people who were running it didn’t like anyone who asked too many or anyone who didn’t follow orders. Max had been sent to the safe house he was because he did ask too many questions that they weren’t willing to answer and it had got worse when Orla had joined him, which was why they had been seperated, even though everyone knew they worked so much better together than they did with anyone else. Now he was stuck working with thieves he didn’t know, didn’t trust, and didn’t respect. Shaking his head he left his room, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before he had to head off to one of the Houses with his new colleagues.

Of course they didn’t know him either. Max could remember the looks he was given when he walked through the front door, alone, because none of them wanted him. As far as they were concerned they would have been better off without him, no matter what scores he had. The leader of the house, who had taken the name Leander, made it very obvious that if Max stepped out of line he would be out of there quicker than he could apologise, not that he would apologise in the first place because whatever he’d done he would have done for a reason. Leander and Max were, probably, never going to get along, which was something that didn’t see to bother either of them too much. Max didn’t want to be there and Leander didn’t want to have him there.

“Ah, there you are,” Leander said, sounding displeased, but then that was normal. “We have an unusual job for you today, Max.”

Unusual probably meant another one where he was sent to the other world alone, in the hope that he’d come unstuck, but it hadn’t happened yet and he doubted it would happen in the future. He was one of the few thieves who actually knew what they were doing in that house. “What do you want me to do?”

“Normally this wouldn’t be a job for anyone in this safe house, but there have been a couple of issues that mean we need someone to take on a job at the White House alone.”

Max, at first, could only stare at Leander. “At the White House?”

Leander nodded, looking more worried than Max had ever seen him look before. “You can say no, Max.” It almost sounded as though Leander wanted Max go say no. “If this is something you don’t think you’re capable of then tell me.”

“I can do it, but a lone job at the White House… I didn’t think they existed.”

“Neither did I, but apparently they do, and they want you to do it.”

“Do you get the feeling they really want me to get this wrong?”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.