While this story will have a great focus on the adorable Thorne and Cress, I am planning on having the other characters involved in one way or another. Enjoy and please review, for reviews give me inspiration! Thanks Lunatics!
Cress could remeber exactly how she felt the moment she had stepped foot onto Earth for the first time. She had just crashed down in her satellite- finally escaped from Sybil's watching eye.
Finally, free.
At first she had been shocked that she had survived the crash and sat still buckled into her seat blinking. But as soon as she had dared to emerge from the satellite and her bare feet had touched the ground, feeling the cool and thick mud as her feet sank into it both fascinated and slightly repelled her. All at once her senses were bombarded. The sensation of the heavy rain pelting down on her body and soaking through her thin dress made her feel like she would drown but she knew better from the vast amount of research she had done on Earth.
She stuck her tongue out as she had seen a girl in a net-drama do, tasting the water pouring down from the heavens. She laughed and spread her arms out, twirling around in unsuppressed glee.
Freedom.
Once she had gotten enough of the rain, finding that she was suddenly freezing, she had at first been at a loss for what to do. Her satellite was mostly destroyed, but she did manage to salvage a few essentials such as food and water from it. She had hunkered under a particularly large part of the wreckage, drying off with a blanket then trying to seal herself in its warmth until morning.
When the sun had risen and warmed her efficiently, she drank some water and ate some of the dried food. She then trekked in a random direction, hoping she would find civilization soon.
What she found was railroad tracks.
A woman with dark hair and tattered clothes had taken one look at Cress when the train stopped and grabbed her on board. From there, Cress had traveled with other stowaways, who had helped her stay on board the train without getting caught.
When they had asked where she was headed she simply replied with a small smile, "the city" because many net-dramas, movies, and tv shows occurred in "the city." She wanted to be surrounded by people, fun and relationships.
Nearly two months later, stuck in New York with no money and nothing to her name, Cress sat in the rain with completely different feelings than she had originally had about "the city". She huddled closer into her box, which was slowly but surely being destroyed by the down-pour, picking up the chipped cup she begged for spare change with and stared at her five measly bucks, which was actually more than she had expected to get since she did not have a cool talent or even a sign like the other beggars.
She was cold and hungry. Free, but miserable.
Of course, her original plan when she was still in the satellite had been to fly down to on a stolen ship to Africa where most of the other escapee Lunars were, but that plan had been totally destroyed.
She wished for the umpteenth time that she weren't a shell - that she could glamour someone into giving her a warm meal or a place to stay. Unfortunately, that thought made Cress feel even worse about herself. The fact that she wanted to manipulate someone made her feel sick.
But no one here would listen to her! Not that she had much courage to try too hard or assert herself, but no one wanted some girl with no resume in their business.
Practically starving, she mused on the thought that she could be feeling like a person with the Lunar sickness might feel as the same crazy thought that had been plaguing her for weeks came back. Cress could only think of one thing to do to get her out of this situation.
She would put her brilliant mind to good use and hack her way in to a good life. A new identity, fake records, and money.
Then she would never do wrong again.
When she had been hacking for Sybil, she had done it at one time with a sort of glee, then she had done it robotically as if it were second nature once she figured out that there would be no reward for it.
But now she was sweating and her heart was beating crazy-fast.
Somehow, this just seemed so wrong. And terrifying.
All she had to do was press ENTER and her new life would be complete. All of the preparations were done. She would not be the Lunar shell, Crescent. She would be the human with money, Rapunzel Rider.
She had snuck into a building where she knew the technology was top-notch hours after it had closed and only a few security guards were around she had managed to shut down the back gate's defenses with just a portscreen and connector cable she had stolen from a woman's purse. She had been scoping out this place for weeks and once she had infiltrated it, she had managed to turn off the cameras she needed to and avoid the security without much hassle by causing an alarm to go off in another room.
Once she had entered the computer lab, it had been easy to finish the preparations she had been able to make on the portscreen. All she needed to do was have the documents printed and the money transferred into an account.
Her finger shook as she raised it, preparing to drop it on that final key.
"Well, hello there."
"Eep!" Cress squeaked, her body tensing upon hearing the voice. She quickly exited out of the screen. She swallowed hard, then slowly turned to look over her shoulder.
Her eyes widened.
She had seen this face more times than she could remember from her satellite. Carswell Thorne. Millionaire Play-Boy.
She had known this was his facility, but she had never expected him to be here at this time of night. She definitely had not been expecting him to be in this very room.
Hands and knees shaking, she slowly stood from the chair, though she wasn't sure why. Thorne looked even stronger and handsome in real life than he did on the screen. Not to say that he was a heavyweight by any means, but he had a sort of lean-muscle to him that Cress knew she would never be able to outmatch.
Especially since she was just skin and bones and she would never be able to run away fast enough from a healthy man such as Thorne.
He raised his eyebrows and stared into her blue eyes, "wow, you're short."
Cress felt her face heat in embarrassment.
"I- I was just leaving," she tried to say casually, as if she were supposed to be there. Maybe Thorne would think she was just a worker who had stayed late. But at his frown, she remembered what she was wearing. The dress she had come out of the satellite in was torn enough to seem like a frayed t-shirt and the jeans she had gotten from a homeless shelter had holes and tears and was so faded that they could never count for a fashion statement. Her hair was ridiculously long, dirty and ungroomed, having never been cut by Sybil or herself and not washed recently.
Cress went from embarrassed to absolutely mortified. Thorne was impeccable in his tailored suit, combed hair and clean-shaven face.
He slowly starting to grin- a genuinely amused and intrigued grin that made Cress want to crawl back into her satellite's wreckage and never come out.
"I have got to hear this story," he said simply, reaching out a hand for her to take.
When she did not respond, he slowly took it- her grimy, dirty hand with dirt caked beneath her fingernails, and led her out of the room.
Once assured that she security threat and random camera-outages were not an issue and checked Cress for any weapons, the security team had begrudgingly let Cress walk out of the front door with Thorne, who seemed to find this whole predicament absolutely hilarious.
He had opened the door for her to his sleek black car personally, causing the driver to raise his eyebrows in question. He even slid in next to her and had the driver roll up the partition so that they could speak in private.
"I know you're probably thinking 'oh man, why am I getting into a vehicle with a complete stranger?' but I promise I won't hurt you," Thorne explained.
Exhausted and hungry, the thought hadn't even crossed Cress' mind. But she didn't let him know that. Instead, she just nodded.
Besides, somehow, it felt as if she already knew him. It was probably all the times she had seen him on television.
"So tell me, why exactly did you break into my building?" Thorne asked, looking into her eyes as if he could find the answers there.
Cress blushed and looked away, twirling a strand of hair around her finger again and again.
"I was trying to get money," she said in a small voice.
Thorne furrowed his eyebrows. "Explain in detail."
She swallowed and twirled, twirled, twirled. She explained as quickly as she could that she was a hacker and that she had been trying to get a new identity. She didn't tell him that she was a second away from succeeding. It was, of course, not mentioned that she was Lunar either. When he pried, she simply told him that her parents had abandoned her.
"Well, you've got to be a pretty smart girl if you had almost made yourself a new identity," Thorne said, rubbing his chin. "A girl as smart as you shouldn't be homeless."
"These things happen," Cress said quietly, sighing afterwards. Her stomach was in knots as they pulled up to a home bigger than any Cress had ever seen. When Thorne helped her out of the car, she found her knees shaking again.
They bounded up the steps, and Cress stepped into a whole new world as soon as he opened the door.
The plush carpet beneath her dirty sneakers made her gasp. She quickly bent down and pulled them off, afraid to get the pristine white carpet dirty. Thorne chuckled and continued on past the grand staircase while Cress marveled at the crystal chandelier, then the paintings before hurrying after him.
He led her into the kitchen, covered in marble, and patted the cushion of a stool by a breakfast counter. He hummed as she sat, going to the large refrigerator and pulling out container after container.
"My chef leaves food for me while I'm out," he explained, popping the lid on one of the containers then handing her a spoon and plate. "You can get whatever and however much you like."
Cress shoveled spoonfuls of rice, broccoli, beans and grilled chicken onto her plate and was almost about to dig in before Thorne grabbed the plate and popped it in the microwave. The wait was torture as the smell started to waft from the machine, but Cress managed to wait patiently even as her stomach growled audibly and her mouth began to salivate.
When the food was efficiently warm, Thorne sat the plate in front of her and she tried not to look like a complete savage while eating, but realized she was probably failing about halfway through.
Thorne looked tickled again, but managed not to laugh in her face. "I'm going to go draw you a bath," he said instead, scurrying out of the kitchen quickly.
She became full quicker than she expected, and finally took the time to think about her situation.
She still had no money.
She was in a mansion.
Scratch that, she was in Carswell Thorne's mansion.
And she was full.
Cress had no idea what to do. She didn't have much time to ponder on it further when Thorne came back into the kitchen in all his glory and shine.
"You can come bathe if you want," he said, picking up her empty plate and sitting it in the sink.
"Why are you helping me?" she blurted out suddenly, looking down at the shiny breakfast bar, folding her shredded dress in her hands.
Thorne grew quiet for a moment before sighing and rubbing a hand through his brown locks. He sighed and leaned against a countertop, one long led folding over the other. "I…don't really know exactly," he admitted, then grinned deviously, "probably because you're so cute."
Cress held back the urge to snort. "I'm not though."
"There's potential under all that dirty and grime," Thorne pointed out. "But really. I have a proposition for you. I just thought you'd like to eat and clean up first before I offered."
Cress looked up then. A mischievous twinkle was in Thorne's eyes, and she found herself both wanting to know and dreading this so-called proposition all at once. Still, he had been right earlier when he had mentioned he was a complete stranger. This proposition could be an offer to be her sex-slave for all she knew. She'd rather know now than to continue to use his resources and climb herself further into debt with him.
"I'd rather you tell me now," she admitted and was pleasantly surprised to find Thorne nodding afterwards.
"Sure," he said, moving from his leaning-position to standing to his full height and slowly nearing her in that sexy swagger he had. Cress swallowed nervously. "Crescent, right?"
She nodded.
"Crescent, I want you to be my maid."
Cress blinked in confusion. Once. Twice. Then her lip started quivering uncontrollably before she let out a fit of giggles. "I-I'm sorry!" she sputtered, leaning over to clutch her aching stomach. "I-It's just…I wasn't expecting anything like that!"
Thorne grinned and laughed too before shrugging. "I know, I know. But I'm serious! It could really work out for the both of us."
Cress finally calmed down enough to give him her full attention again, so he continued, "you could be my live-in maid. I've been looking for someone because I don't like maid services running in and out. I want someone I can trust and who can get to know me personally so that they can see to it that everything is how I like it. Oh, you're probably thirsty," he said as an afterthought, turning to the fridge and pulling out a pitcher of water.
As he gathered a glass he went on, "I would pay you for your service, of course. You could have off at five each evening and off the entire weekend like a normal job. I have a personal chef as I mentioned before, so you won't have to worry about cooking. Simply cleaning up afterwards to take some stress off of my chef would be enough. And of course cleaning every room in the house, but we can talk more about your duties when we draw up an official contract. So what do you think? You in?"
He had started to talk quickly in his explanation, a sort of excitement bubbling up from his chest that even Cress could notice. She stared at him with wide eyes, bit her lip, twirled her hair. "You…you would trust me as a live-in maid…even after I broke into your facility?"
Thorne shrugged. "It's not like you broke anything."
"B-but I was about to commit a federal crime!"
Throne shrugged again. "We've all done it. Or at least thought about it. Besides, I saw you struggling at the end. You didn't really want to do it," he replied, "everyone deserves a second chance, Crescent."
She slowly sipped at the water he had poured for her then sat it back down, trying to push away the tears that was building up in her eyes.
She had found a couple friendly people since she had landed on Earth. The woman who had helped her on the train, the people at the homeless shelter who had given her pants and shoes. A few kind souls who had given her spare change.
Yet this kindness…from a millionaire that she had wronged…made her feel as if her chest would cave in on itself.
"I'll do it," Cress said with a big of a strong voice as she could manage.
Thorne's smile was enough to make her heart stop. "Good decision," he replied. "Let's get you in that bath. You're filthy!"
After her bath, which was absolutely exquisite, Cress felt like a whole new person. She had stayed in the bathroom for over an hour, scrubbing her body until her skin was red, soaking, soaking, singing, giggling.
She wrapped herself in the white fluffy robe that Thorne had laid out for her. It was much too big for her, but somehow that made it even better. She padded to the room that Thorne had said would be hers for as long as she chose to live there. The room was more than twice the size her satellite had been.
The first thing she did was jump into the king sized bed. The light pink sheets smelled of powder. Then jumped out and opened the curtains to the large window and found that she had a balcony, but didn't go outside.
A rush of disbelief and panic flooded her before an even bigger rush of gratefulness took over.
Sybil either thought she was dead or did not care enough to come looking for her, a lonely shell on Earth.
She was not starving or homeless anymore.
She even lived with a hot millionaire.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, a sob wracking her body.
She could not remember ever being this happy. Not even she had hacked in to the castle in New Beijing for the first time.
Things couldn't possible get any better, she thought as she drifted into a deep, deep slumber.