It's 8:55 am. It's a cloudy Friday. A man is sitting on a bench in the park. He has a hat covering most of his face. He is scanning over a newspaper, but he is looking for someone, someone who was suppose to meet him in 5 minutes.
A women approaches the bench. She has a large hat on and she has a large shawl that drapes over he shoulder, she sits next to the man.
The man looks relieved, but neither of them speak for a while.
Finally the women speaks. "Aimery," she greets him.
The man nods.
"You requested my presence, we weren't to meet for another month, has something come up, is something wrong?" he asks.
"Someone has messed with the wrong women." She responded simply.
"Ma'm, I'm afraid I don't follow."
"We are compromised you idiot, we were so close." The women scolds.
"What?" He exclaimed, "we have been working on this for nearly 2 years!"
"I need you to finish what your part now." She says.
"What? You can't be serious! I need at least another year." He yells, he is now standing. "What happened, you said you could get the money."
"It's not the money you idiot! The girl was kidnapped!" The woman says while staying seated, and a calm look on her pale face.
"The girl?" He asked.
"Yes the girl, the genius experimentalist I told you about."
"Wait you are telling me that the main part of completing the plan is a girl?" Aimery demands.
"Yes, a 16 year old girl, she was kidnapped by some maniac, Carswell Thorne." She says.
Aimery stands in shock. "Crescent Moon is the experimentalist?"
"How... What? How do you know her?" The women asks is confusion.
"Thorne is my boss at the speakeasy," he said, "the girl is staying at our facility."
The women has a look of relief, "Perfect, this is good, all you have to do is get her back to me, I will finish her training and everything will go as planned and she never has to know there was a disturbance."
The man starts nodding his head.
The women stands up and starts walking away, her drapes following closely behind her.
"Wait!" Aimery shouts the the women.
The women turns around.
"Are you Sybil Mira?"
The women smiles, "took you long enough," and she walks off.
Aimery's POV
Aimery trudged through the dim lit halls of this forsaken warehouse.
He stopped outside the kitchen when he heard speaking, and because of his tendency and preference of knowing what other people didn't, he stood near the doorway to watch through the crease in the door, right between the jam and the wooden pane.
It seemed that it was the annoying, good looking lass, Iko; the scary ginger, Scarlet; and the ginger's scarier boyfriend, Wolf.
"So I saw Thorne and Cress leave together after things got antsy last night," said Iko while wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
"Yeah," Scarlet said while sipping something from a mug, "when Ze'ev and I went up to the roof for some private time; it was already occupied by them."
"The roof?" Yelped Iko "Cresswell!"
What the hell was Cresswell? Thought Aimery.
Scarlet nodded excitedly.
"Oh he really wanted to impress her then," Iko noted. "So were they up there all night, oh my gosh they were probably snuggling!"
"No, later they walked in on me and Wolf kissing in the closet up there." Scarlet said while changing ruby red.
"Really Scar? The closet?" Iko shook her head. "Well has anyone seen the love birds since?"
There was a collection of nos.
Then Thorne breezed right past Aimery to get into the kitchen, he didn't even stop to notice that Aimery was there lurking.
When he busted into the kitchen the occupants went quiet.
There was banging and clanking through the cabinets.
"So how was your night, Captain?" Iko asked.
Thorne flinched when the word Captain came out of her mouth.
"It was fine, I mean it was a amazing, well not that every night is..." Thorne drifted off and the clanking resumed.
"Woah, Thorne, what are you looking for?" Scarlet asked.
"Cornflakes," Thorne said simply.
"On the table." Wolf said, the first thing Aimery had heard him say.
"Oh, ok," Thorne said and the sound ceased.
"Thorne are you ok?" Iko asked Thorne, looking concerned.
Thorne's face twisted, looking pained.
"Yeah, Thorne," Scarlet said, "you don't look to good."
Thorne exploded, "I'm fine, alright!"
More silence.
"I just," Thorne hesitated, "I just need to get out of here."
"Thorne, what?" Scarlet asked, everyone looked confused as Thorne bursted out of the kitchen. Aimery didn't have time to move out of the way because of Thorne's unexpected exit, so he barged right into him.
Thorne didn't look good at all, he had bags under his eyes, his dress shirt was untucked from his slacks, his cuffs were unbuttoned and rolled up; and Aimery realizes that it was the same suit from the night before.
Thorne's tired blue eyes looked right into his own, and then Thorne scurried off. How peculiar, Thorne never left Aimery without telling him how much better he was, or at least throw a few insults.
Never mind that, since Thorne was heading towards the exit, that meant Crescent Moon was alone and he had some business to finish.
Aimery made his way up to the prisoner's new room. When Aimery finally reached it, he saw that the kid, Randy, he was hanging out next to the door. That kid was depressing, he just did whatever Thorne told him with no restraint, without any personal thoughts it seemed. Well that was what Aimery did, of sorts, but he could still give Thorne a hard time.
"Scram," Aimery said.
Randy ran off without question, practically a robot.
When Aimery opened the door, the girl spun around from the chair she was seated at. When she made eye contact with him, her chipper face dropped.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"Aimery." He said, and he saw her freckled face click in realization, not a surprise, she was here for three days, of course Thorne had already warned her about him.
"What are you doing here, Aimery?" She questioned.
Aimery let a smirk cross his face, "I'm here to take you home, darlin'"
Crescent's eyebrows knitted together, "and why can't Thorne do that himself?"
"Something about not getting your hopes up, but I don't know I couldn't quite understand him over the laughing." He said with a toothy grin.
She looked skeptical, huh Thorne must have really gained her trust and told her I was a lying scoundrel, not that he wasn't right about that.
He decided to take it a step further, seeing that the girl hadn't moved from her seated position; remembering the thing Scarlet had said earlier. "Something about the roof and how it just wasn't for him."
When Aimery saw the agonizing pain and disbelief on her face he knew he had gotten her, and that she had fallen for Thorne, typical.
Aimery motioned for her to follow him, she got up and complied wordlessly.
Mission accomplished.
Cress's POV
Cress felt like she had been in this state before.
Being that she was in a trunk of a car in the state of shock.
Was it all a lie? But it felt so real.
Was Thorne sending her back because he thought this was better for her, or him? He knew that she wasn't happy at Sybil's home, or maybe he couldn't stand the fact that he had kissed her.
She felt anger.
He had probably felt something for her too, he had felt something, and that was why he opened up to her, and why he had kissed her. Thorne probably couldn't even handle the thought of not being a strong individual.
Or maybe he was just a ladies man and he was just going to the next vulnerable, naive girl.
Either way he couldn't even do the dirty work himself.
What a coward.
Thorne's POV
It's Friday morning and Miss. Mira's deadline was tonight.
Thorne had a problem, he couldn't think about anything but Cress's smile, and her eyes, and her freckles, and that cute face she makes when she knows she's the smartest person in the room.
See the problem?
He had to get her out of his head, and no one better to talk him out of his bad decisions than his best friend, Kai.
Thorne walked down the sidewalk he had walked down thousands of times years before. He stopped before a mansion. The front doors were accompanied by tall marble columns and huge windows aligned the house up and down.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''
Three Years Before
Thorne ran up the sidewalk to Kai's home, and he pounded on the door.
Kai opened the door, and looked surprised to see his friend at such a late hour. "Thorne what? What have you done now?"
Thorne gave a dry laugh, "my old man's finally done with me," he said while rubbing the back of the head.
"Again?" Asked Kai, "do you need a place to stay tonight?"
"No, I'm done asking for forgiveness, I can't do so any more!" Thorne said while throwing his hands up.
"Thorne, you're so much better than this!"
"You're right Kai, I can do so much more than simple theft."
"Thorne, no! No more stealing, no more of this!"
"I'm sorry Kai, I've got plans, I can be successful."
"Then why did you come to me even if you knew you would ignore everything I said?" Asked Kai.
"I came to..." Thorne paused and looked down, "to say goodbye."
"What? Carswell you can't just leave!"
"Tell Cinder I said goodbye." Thorne said while walking away.
"Carswell!"
Thorne turned the corner and was gone.
''''''''''''''''''''''
Present Time
That was the last time Thorne had seen his best friend.
Thorne walked up to the grand door and rang the bell twice.
After a minute the door opened revealing an old friend.
Thorne smiled and then Kai punched him the face.
"Ok I deserved that," Thorne said while holding the left side of his face.
"What the hell Thorne!" Kai yelled.
"Yeah yeah, I know I have a lot of explaining to do and stuff but I need your help."
"You want me to help you?" Kai yelled, "after everything you did-"
"I think I'm in love!" Thorne blurted out.
Kai was silent and wide eyed for a minute then he finally motioned for Thorne to speak.
"Well maybe I'm not in love, but there is this girl, and I can't stop thinking about her, she's funny smart, and she is absolutely gorgeous. She makes me feel safe, but I can't be with her, in fact I can't I can't be with anyone, I have an industry to run! But her eyes are like endless pools of the fountain of youth, and she has this really contagious smile, and she makes me laugh every time I speak to her and I need the feelings to stop, I mean it's probably not love right? I'm just sad because I'm bankrupt and she's so innocent, so I just feel pity right?" Thorne spilled.
"And," Thorne continued, "She doesn't see me as a criminal, she asks me about things, and then she listens to me, when I speak to her I know she's listening. When she looks at me it feels like she doesn't see me as a criminal mastermind, when she looks at me I feel like I'm a guy who can dream."
Kai smiled, "she sounds like a nice girl."
"Plus I just met her and she probably does not feel the same, aces! I kidnaped her!"
"You did what?" Kai yelled as his mood changed back to anger.
Thorne looked down.
"Look, Carswell, you are my best friend. I don't know what you have done, but I know you, and I know you are a good guy, and I know you deserve a happy life. I know your life hasn't been ideal, but you have been given chances to make up for it. If I can't influence you to make things right, maybe you will make things right for this girl."
"You think?" Asked Thorne.
"I know, now get out of here."
Thorne nodded
"Please come back to visit when you make right, and bring this girl, she sounds great."
"Wait," Thorne said. "No this isn't right I came here to have you convince me to get away from her! No I can't do this. No I will always be the disappointment of a son and friend. You were suppose to convince me to get my destructive ass away from any girl."
"Thorne you deserve this." Kai said again.
"No Kai! I don't deserve anything! I don't love her, she's just a person, just a girl."
Thorne started to walk off.
"Thorne!" Kai yelled after him, "you can't just keep running away from you problem and for this matter your feelings!"
Thorne kept walking, and he didn't look back for the second time. But he knew that he was going to follow Kai's advice for the first time in his life.
When he reached the warehouse he ran through the long hallways up to her room.
He stood there trying to catch his breath, trying to build up the courage to burst into the room and confess his feelings.
Finally, before he could lose courage, he opened the door, while thinking it probably would have been more gentleman like to knock.
When the door was open he saw that the room was empty. After doing a more thorough sweep through the room he found a knocked out Randy on the ground with a large bruise on his head, but with further examination, he had a pulse.
It appeared that his maiden had escaped.
Aimery's POV
After Aimery had returned the girl, he decided to treat himself to some early drinking when an emergent meeting was called. Hmmm wonder what that was going to be about.
When he got to the conference room he was surprised to find a calm Thorne sitting at the head with his hands intertwined, while he looked over some files. Very different from the behavior from this morning.
Once everyone was gathered and seated Thorne cleared his throat and everything went silent, including Iko, surprisingly.
"I called this meeting because the captive," Thorne pauses, "Cress escaped."
There were a collection of gasps and, "what's?" Aimery had his own confusion as well.
"Why do you think she escaped?" Aimery asked for some clarification.
"Because Randy was found unconscious," Thorne said.
There was a second wave of gasps and more questions.
Aimery looked around to find Randy, when he found the young face, he was already staring right at Aimery.
Aimery narrowed his eyes, "so you got knocked out by Crescent, the prisoner?"
Still looking straight into Aimery's eyes he said, "yes, yes I did."
This guy was clearly up to something.
"Do you want us to go find her?" Asked Scarlet with sympathy in her eyes.
"No." Thorne stated.
"What are you going to do with the bankruptcy?" Asked Kinney.
He was obviously not up to the situation because Iko gave him an evil look.
"I don't know," Thorn sighed, "rob a bank or something,"
Thorne started to make his way to the exit of the room, "Iko and Scar, you guys are in charge."
Then Thorne left with his shoulders slumped and a grim face.
When Aimery looked back at Randy he was still staring at him.
Cress's POV
Aimery had dropped off Cress in front of Mistress Sybil's house, and she was surprised to see Mistress was standing on the porch.
Mistress gave her a large, fake smile and Cress was surprised see that Mistress appeared to be relieve of her return.
"You've been gone for so long." Mistress said while stroking Cress's short hair.
"It was only three days." Cress said with no emotion.
Sybil's smile wavered, "that's still a long time."
Cress was confused about Mistress's endearment, but she was not emotionally aware to question it, "not long enough." Cress mumbled.
Mistress's smile turned into a thin line, and she grasped Cress's wrist tightly, and dragged her old bedroom.
"Wash up." Mistress said and let go of her.
Cress went into the bathroom that was connected to her small room.
When she looked in the mirror she saw a different girl. A confident girl, a clever girl, as Thorne had said, and a betrayed girl.
She saw her short gold locks, they had grown flat versus the volumized bounce they had because of Iko's magic, last night.
Cress stared at herself as steady streams of tears started to run their course down her cheeks, and she let herself cry.
An hour later Cress sat on the mattress staring at the barred window that led outside. She sat in a black nightgown. Her short hair was already dry which was surprising, and a change.
There was a knock at the door, Cress turned around, and when Mistress entered the room, Cress stood.
Mistress had a stack of books and files and put them on the table.
Cress stood still like a soldier standing in a line, not moving a muscle.
"I expect these to be read, and understood by dawn." Then Mistress left and Cress heard the familiar click of the lock from the outside.
Cress took a look at the titles of the material Mistress had supplied her, they were all on the subject on the elements of the periodic table.
The first book she picked up was titles "Deadly Substances: Fluorine" she opened the front cover and began reading.
Special thanks to PennTheWriter and BrynnBookWorm339!