You guys are awesome! Your reviews make my day so keep them coming :) In a few hours I will finish my last exam and be done with school for the summer. Which means lots of time for writing in between shifts at my menial retail job. You asked for Mac and Siena and you got it! Plus a whole lot more drama. Don't forget to talk to me in the reviews. Enjoy!
Natalie pushed the door open with her foot while balancing the Chinese take out in one arm and her bag in the other. After Mac had dropped a bombshell on them the crew had gone into shock, wandering off to their separate corners to think. Natalie had taken charge and ordered Cake to pull up everything she could find on Teller and Hale Industries while she went out to get food. There was no way any of them were sleeping tonight and Chinese food might not fix everything, but it was her best shot at pretending this was just another normal heist planning session.
Natalie knew what she would find in the room. Mac would be collapsed in on himself in his corner chair, silent as death and still as stone. Dmitri would be pacing down the hall, or at least hobbling on his injured leg. Siena will have disappeared to the highest place she could find. Natalie made a mental note to check the hotel roof. And then there was James. James would be at the window, starring out at nothing in particular as his mind explored every possible course of action. Nat always knew exactly what to expect from her crew, but when she pushed open that door she realized just how much had changed.
"Hey, I couldn't find a Thai place so I got Chinese-Hello?"
There was no sign of them. And that was terrifying. Mac wasn't in his corner. There was no sound of pacing down the hall, and the space beside the window remained vacant.
For one terrifying moment Natalie thought they might have left her but there was no note left on the door and Siena never would have left her without an explanation.
She dropped the take out on the dining table and began to search the suite. What if Teller's men had come for them? What if releasing Mac was only a way to get to the rest of them?
Whispers echoed from the boys' bedroom and ran down the hall. "Hello?" Natalie called out.
There was no reply. Natalie felt for the pocketknife Mac had given her in her back pocket and stepped down the dead hall, listening for anything that might tip her off to a threat in the shadows. She slid into the darkened room, knife poised in her clenched fist and sighed in relief. They were silhouetted in the window, heads titled together in a hushed argument. James and Dmitri turned toward her startled. Dmitri's wide eyes glowed like green phantoms in the dark space.
"What's wrong with you two?" Natalie demanded, "You scared me. I though Teller might have come for you."
"We're alright," Dmitri assured her. "Everything is fine."
"She can tell you're lying," James spat.
"Dmitri what's going on?" Natalie clicked the knife closed and moved toward the two shadows of men.
"Go on, Dmitri. Tell her." James jerked his head back to the window. "Tell her why you're abandoning your family."
Mac found her on the adjacent rooftop. She had laid a board across the gap to the next rooftop, like she always did. As if it weren't enough to be six floors up, she also had to trust her life to a rotting piece of wood. Mac's knuckles turned white as he griped the stairwell doorway, while silently cursing himself for falling for a girl that was part bird of prey. Why did she always have to be so high up?
Mac knew why. To get away from him. It was Siena's way of making sense of the world. She liked everything best when it was at a distance. Mac did not. He had escaped a police trail at 200 km per hour, crawled through the Roman catacombs and dived into shark-infested waters but he had never been able to conquer his fear of heights.
"Hey," he called meekly.
She ignored him.
Mac raised his voice and tried again, "Siena?"
More silence.
"S, will you please just talk to me?"
"Why should I? You never talk to me. You never tell me what your plans are. Why should I treat you any differently?" Siena turned on him, obviously agitated. She stood thirty feet away and still that electric green gaze nearly knocked Mac off his feet.
He sighed, running a hand through his bright hair, and forced himself to step away from the safety of the doorway, "Yeah, I thought you might be angry with me."
"Well, you thought right." She turned back toward the skyline, determined to ignore him.
"S, please, hear me out," he pleaded.
"Leave me alone, Mac," she threw over her shoulder.
"No. I won't leave you, Siena. Never again. Not unless you want me to."
"Don't you dare," she whirled on him, screaming now. "Don't you dare lie to me, Mac!"
"I would never lie-"
"I've had enough! I'm not going to wait around for you to decide whether I'm worth it. Do you or do you not like me? And not as a friend, or a sister."
"Do I like you? You're asking me if I like you?"
"It's not that hard of a question, Mac."
He stood in a stony silence at the edge of the roof.
"Ugh. You're infuriating!" She threw up her arms.
"Infuriating?" He was eyeing the six floor drop that lay in between them.
"Yes, Bagshaw. You piss me off! You and your stupid blank expressions, and your stares and your intolerable silence. It not fair. It's not fair and I'm not putting up with it anymore."
"Siena-"
"No! No, no, no, no, no! You don't get to look at me like that. You don't get to stare at me like you can see right into me and then just cut and run. I won't let you. You don't get to stare at me like that only to break my heart a second later."
"I never wanted to hurt you, Siena."
"Bullshit! You hurt me every time you turn away and you know it. Well, I'm done. No more. You will tell me the damned truth and then you will never look at me like that again. Do you or do you not like me?"
"S, please. Just calm down for a second-" Mac begged as he moved closer to the roof's edge.
"Maybe you don't understand what you're doing to me, because I can't believe that the boy that I grew up with would kiss me and then cast me off like that. Well, never again, Mac. I won't let you-"
"Would you shut up for a minute! You want to know if I like you?"
Siena nodded, scowling but holding her tongue.
"When you smile I feel it on my skin. And it's warm," He hesitantly placed a foot on the board. Even from where Siena stood she could see his entire body was trembling. "You're like sunlight to me, Siena. Maybe its possible to live without you, but I never want to find out." With every breath he took another shaking step toward Siena but his eyes never left hers
"What are you doing? Mac, the board isn't strong enough," she said.
He ignored her protests, "And now here you are, telling me that I break you every time I look at you. Siena, every time you look at me, you fix me. Bit by bit. It's gotten to the point where I can't recall what it feels like to be broken. So no I never just liked you Siena, because I can't remember a time when I was not in love with you."
When Siena found she could finally breath again she said, "Go back, the board can't hold you."
He took another step, "I want to know if you feel the same."
"Mac, don't. You don't have to do that. Go back!"
"No."
"But you hate heights," she insisted.
He gave a shy smile, "Not half as much as I love you."
"Mac, the board can't hold your weight. You'll fall. Please go back."
"Not until you say it."
The board wobbled beneath him, and Siena shouted, "Mac!"
He took another step forward.
"Alright, I love you! I love you! I love you! Now get off the board, you idiot!" Siena screamed.
Mac jumped forward towards her and the final push cracked the board beneath his feet. Siena grabbed hold of his arm and tugged Mac away from the edge as the broken board shattered on the ground somewhere below. The pair collapsed and lay on top of the warm tiles, a bundle of entangled limbs, pulsing adrenaline and supernova hearts.
"Why would you do that? How could you be so stupid-" she demanded punching his chest like she used to when he teased her as a child.
Siena's rage was cut off by the grin on Mac's face. "You love me?"
She nodded, catching his contagious joy, "And you love me."
Mac watched as the momentarily forgotten grief made its way back into Siena's eyes, "Teller. He could have hurt you," she breathed.
Mac laced his fingers through her hair and pulled her face closer to his. "He didn't."
"But the family. There's no way out of this without hurting them."
"We'll figure something out, love," he whispered.
"It will kill James to betray Uncle Hale like that. And what happens to Natalie's company if we don't-"
"Siena,"
"Yeah,"
"Will you just shut up for a minute and let me kiss you?"
The tears slipped down over her lips, "Okay."
They stood outside the hotel door, pressed together.
Mac broke away from her lips long enough to breathe, "We should go inside. We should be with the crew right now."
"We should." Siena agreed before plunging back into his kiss.
He managed to pull himself away from her again to say, "To be continued?"
"Yes," she nodded and straightened her hair.
Why did she have to be so damn beautiful? Mac broke down and pulled her towards him, exploring the curves of her jaw with his lips and travelling down her neck.
"I though we'd hit pause," she laughed, head titled back.
"Pause? Never," he whispered against her skin.
As Mac kissed his way back to her lips Siena let out a sigh.
"Don't," he pleaded into her ear. "Don't think about it, just stay here with me."
"I want to forget," Siena let herself sink into him, "I want you to make me forget."
Mac wove his arms around her body and held fast, "I wish I could. But you need to know I'll be right here. No matter what, love, I will always stand with you. You understand that don't you?"
Siena's startling irises turned toward him, "I'm starting to."
A piercing ring startled the entangled pair.
"My phone," Siena started to explain but Mac had already reached into her back pocket and flipped it open, punching in the code. "Its password protected," Siena reached for the phone.
Mac's eyes came alive in that way that she loved, "Thanks, S, but I think I can spell my own name."
"How long have you known my password?" She felt her cheeks flush.
He only smiled in response.
Embarrassed Siena let her head fall back on his broad shoulder, "Its not fair that my boyfriend is a criminal mastermind."
"Boyfriend. I like the way you that sounds," Mac tried to check Siena's messages but he found her eyelashes fluttering against his skin distracting.
"That was Nat's ring tone. What'd she say?" Siena asked.
Mac tensed, "We need to get inside."
"What is it?" Siena retracted from him. Suddenly they were thieves again and Mac wasn't just her boyfriend, he was her partner in crime.
He placed the phone back in her hand and headed toward the door. Five black word felt heavy on the screen, 'Get back to base pronto'.
Mac stood in front of the door, looking over his shoulder at her.
Siena nodded and followed him inside. She was expecting a hell hole but was met with silence.
"That was fast. You weren't far?" Nat met them in the hall.
"What's happening?" Mac demanded.
Natalie's eyes flashes between the two thieves several times before she answered but if she had any inclination as to what had happened outside the hotel door she gave no sign. She only replied, "Nothing good."
James appeared in the doorway behind her, "Its Dmitri," he spoke from the darkness.
Siena inhaled sharply and was semi aware that Mac's hand had flinched toward her own.
"Always with the drama, Jay. Stop scaring them," Dmitri mocked as he pushed his way passed James into the crowded hall. "I'm alright. Everyone is alright."
"Alright is not how I would describe things." Cake's irritated tone came through Natalie's hoodie pocket. By this point the crew was used to Cake possessing their electronics but it was rare that she ever broke from her overly sweet demeanor.
"Enough of this," Mac growled, "What's happened?"
Dmitri was avoiding eye contact with Siena, "We had better move to the kitchen."
Siena swallowed back her agitation for the moment. The kitchen was a place for serious talks. Where the news of deaths and births, arrests and betrayals was delivered. It was the center of every family. And though their family may not have had a permanent kitchen, the tradition stood.
There was awkward silence as the crew shuffled into the small kitchen space. As she looked around Siena noted the shadows cast on her crew's faces from the harsh florescent lights. Every one of them was exhausted and defeated but if there was one place in which their family could ever hope to rally it had always been the kitchen.
Dmitri seemed reluctant to speak, "You all know that you mean the world to me. Hell, you are my world. More then my friends, you're my family. I couldn't live without you-"
"For once in your life would you cut the sweet talk? You can't charm your way out of this so just say it," James snapped.
Dmitri let his head hang, "I need to leave the crew. At least for the time being."
"What?" Siena croaked.
"Sis, Teller doesn't know about me. Not yet. And if I stay with the crew and the family I am practically giving myself to him."
The situation seemed to dawn on Mac then, "You're cutting your loses."
"In a matter of speaking," Dmitri admitted.
"No that's exactly what he's doing," James spat.
"I'm sorry if this upsets you but staying here would be suicide for me. If this goes south I would go down with the rest of you," he looked to his sister, "Siena? Come on, its not like you to be tongue tied, sis."
"You're my brother," her voice was barely louder then a breath.
"Yeah but Teller doesn't know that. See? That's why I still have a chance to get out of here."
"To hell with Teller, I know that you're my brother!," she screamed, "You're my brother, my freaking blood and you're abandoning me." Her anger boiled into a hateful laugh. "Typical Dmitri, when the going gets tough, the snake charmer slinks away to the shadows and leaves the rest of us rot."
"I know you're angry," he replied calmly.
"Oh, really?" she shouted, "What tipped you off?"
"I understand that you're all ticked, but there is no use to me staying here. There is nothing I can do."
Natalie waded into the conflict cautiously, "He's right. Dmitri can't help us and if he wants to go, then its up to him."
Dmitri mouthed a thanks at her but was met with a cold stare. He searched else where for support, "Cake? Thoughts?"
"Oh, you don't want to hear what I have to say, darling."
A cornered Dmitri turned back to his sister, "Please, S. Try and understand."
She had draw back within herself. Never had he seen his sister's bright eyes go so dark, "I do, Dmitri," her voice held a deadly calm, "Its what is best."
"Well I don't understand," James hissed.
"Jay-" Dmitri was about to try to reason with him but was cut off.
James shook his head in disgust, "I don't believe this. I don't believe that my best mate is capable of abandoning his family like this."
"What the hell do you want me to do?" Dmitri snapped, "What good will sacrificing myself do?"
Mac broke in, "That's not the point."
Dmitri rolled his eyes, one last attempt to play it all off lightly, "Come off it, ginger, you would do the same and you know it."
"I wouldn't leave my twin," Mac was in a deadly calm, "I would stand by my family."
"I'm sorry I can't be the saint you are, Bagshaw."
Then Siena standing between them, "Don't you dare throw his name back at him like that! He is as much a part of this family as you are."
"So that's it huh? You're siding with him," he jerked his chin toward Mac.
Siena straightened her spine and answered, "I am siding with my family."
"I'm your twin. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"Apparently not," she spat back.
"That's enough!" James cut them off, "Dmitri's made up his mind. Its time for him to go."
"Jay?" Dmitri looked to him one last time for sympathy.
James refused to grant Dmitri his gaze, "You should head out through the service entrance so they don't see you going. Teller will have men watching us."
"Allow me to call you a cab," Cake sneered before ending the connection with a sharp click.
Dmitri was surrounded by cold stares and for once in his life he had nothing charming to say. All that was left was bitter. "So this is what you all think of me now?" Dmitri had to laugh at himself, "Why did I think any of you would understand what I'm trying to do? Not even you, Jay?" He was met with a charged silence. "Well then maybe its better this way."
Natalie shouldered his packed back, "Come on. I'll walk you out."
The pair left the enraged crew behind and walked the service corridors of the hotel in echoing silence. It wasn't until they found the service exit that Dmitri found the words.
"I know you can't, that you're just as trapped as they are, but would you hate me if I asked you to come with me?"
Natalie slipped the bag off of her shoulder and placed it in his arms like a child. "This is as far as I go."
"Can you do something for me?"
Natalie zipped up his hoodie and let her palm rest on his shoulders as she replied, "Ten minutes ago I would have done anything for you."
"Tell them I love them. Remind them of it when this is all over."
"I think they understand how much you love them, Dmitri." She began to withdraw but her caught her hand.
"Please, Natalie. Tell me you understand why I'm doing this." There was that familiar Dmitri spark in his eye but the flame had changed. It no longer burned bright. He was desperate now. Starved for the oxygen only his crew could provide. There was something in his eyes he was desperately trying to tell her. That starved flame beat wildly against the gazed wall of his eyes but it couldn't touch her.
Natalie's eyes fell to their sneakers, "I understand, Dmitri. It's the smart choice. But its not the one I would have made."
He tried once more, before she silenced him, "Nat, I'm not re-"
"Stay safe, Dmitri." She pulled the hood over his head and left him with one last affectionate kiss lingering on his cold cheek as he ventured out into the midnight alleyway.
Yup. So thats happening. We won't be hearing from Dmitri for a while but fear not readers for I shall make it up to you ;) just trust me on this. Thanks for reading and leave me a review so I can adore you forever! -George&Eckels