Lou Miller has not had a home in ten years, and that's just fine with her.
When she was eight, she left the orphanage in Canberra and stowed away on an enormous ship, sleeping in an empty shipping container and stealing scraps from the kitchen, and she's been traveling ever since. Mostly she sticks to the continental U.S., with some notable detours into Vancouver and Mexico City.
Paradoxically, she feels safest in American cities: they're sprawling, chaotic, and utterly disinterested in the fates of homeless children. She can get away with anything.
She picks pockets and shoplifts the small shit—meals, clothes, lighters—and every now and then she plans out a robbery or con to get something bigger: money for a fake ID, then money for plane tickets. A suit that fits her properly. A good phone, though she doesn't have anyone to call.
She likes being a drifter, and she likes being alone. She tells herself that that's why she has so few soulmarks: she's just not destined for meaningful relationships.
There's the pale yellow handprint of her mother's first touch on her side, the slightly deeper blue of a social worker's fingers on her shoulder, the faint orange on her knee of the creep who sold her the fake, and—brightest, most pronounced—the lavender mark on her elbow of her first and only friend at the orphanage.
At the age of six, they'd promised not to leave each other behind; promised that, if anyone tried to adopt one, she'd insist on the other's adoption as well. They told everyone who would listen that they were sisters, and it wasn't a lie, because if someone stood up for you and saved cookies for you and played with you every day—that was a sister, right? And sisters shouldn't—couldn't—be separated.
So, when Cate was adopted, Lou ran away. At first it was about trying to find her, and then it was about getting away from the orphanage, and then it was about getting away from everyone. Eight years old and all alone, she realized that the way to prevent people from letting her down was to never give them the chance to.
(Ten years later, she knows that Cate had no power in the situation, that she couldn't have brought Lou with her if she tried. But she doesn't know if her mother had always planned to give her up, or if she had laid a hand on her daughter and learned, through the weakness of the soulmark left, that she was not destined to be more than a passing character in her child's life.
It's easier to imagine her mother as a teenager, as frightened as Lou pretends not to be, leaving her out of desperation. She doesn't want to think that she might've had a choice).
So she wears boots and leather pants and jackets everywhere. Puts on gloves when she fights, and doesn't shake hands. Every person but one who has touched her has given her faint colors or nothing at all, and it's too painful to hope that one day someone might touch her and leave a stain. That one day, someone might stay.
The first words Debbie says to Lou are: "I have a proposal for you."
Lou doesn't bother glancing up from her cigarette. She doesn't know this girl who's joined her without an invitation, and she doesn't like it when strangers talk to her—even when they're gorgeous. It's been a long day, she came out into the cold, dark alley for some peace and quiet, and she's not interested in indulging the whims of some daddy's girl.
Unless those whims include calling her Daddy, of course.
"Buy me dinner first, sweetheart," Lou says, and flicks ash onto the cobblestones.
The girl laughs. "I can get you dinner, but I won't promise to pay for it."
Lou scoffs, looks her up and down. She's got long loose hair, perfectly applied lipstick, and a sheath dress just simple enough to show how expensive it really is.
"What, you're going to bat your lashes into—"
The girl casually lifts her hand and begins thumbing through a wallet. Lou's wallet.
Lou feels inside her jacket.
"You little—"
"Now, now, Louisa," the girl says, patronizingly. "Language."
"Don't call me that," Lou snarls, grabbing for her wallet. But the girl dodges, and laughs again.
"I'm Debbie," she says, and tosses her the wallet. "What's your real name?"
Lou's distracted, making sure Debbie hasn't taken anything else. But her cash is still there.
"What?"
"This is clearly fake," Debbie says, waving the ID. "Real name?"
Lou eyes her for a moment. She's pretty sure she could take her—Debbie's a few inches shorter than her, and not dressed for fighting. But she's also sneakier than she looks, and what if she has a blade strapped to her leg or something?
Not that she's thinking about Debbie's legs. Or her lips. Or her hair, and how it might feel between Lou's fingers as Debbie's legs spread for her and her red lips part, as she moans, sighs, gasps—
"Lou," she says.
"As in Louisa Miller?"
"Unfortunately."
"Why would you put your real name on a fake ID?"
Lou shrugs. "Sentimentality?"
It's true. When she left Australia, she didn't have much, but she had her birth certificate, a sweater stolen from the orphanage and a small kangaroo figurine given to her by a tourist lady who seemed to think that giving her money or food was out of the question, but that a little toy would somehow help. It was dumb, but Lou held onto it—until her purse, and all her worldly possessions, were stolen on the street when she was twelve.
The kangaroo was stupid and the sweater was itchy, but she can't remember her mother's name, and there is now no earthly proof that she exists.
Other than her clearly fake ID, which bears her legal name, and which is currently being held between the manicured nails of a very confusing girl.
Then Debbie smiles, and Lou's heart jumps.
"Lou, then. I have a proposal for you."
Lou holds out her hand. Debbie places the ID in her palm, carefully not touching her.
Lou has to hand it to her. It isn't easy to pick her pocket.
"All right," Lou says. "I'm listening."
Debbie's plan is clever: just complex enough to be elegant, just simple enough to work.
She explains it to Lou over cocktails at a nearby bar in a quiet, nonchalant voice: she wants to rob an upscale, old-fashioned restaurant that keeps their earnings in a safe, only emptying it at the end of the month. Phase One—of Five—involves them both posing as customers dining alone. Debbie will specifically ask for dietary information, then pretend to have an allergy attack. While everyone's attention is occupied, Lou can snag the key to the safe from the manager, duplicate it quickly, then replace it.
Lou sips her cocktail. It's too sweet for her taste, but it's got three shots in it, so she drinks it without complaint.
The truth is, she doesn't need to know Debbie's whole plan to trust her. In the thirty minutes that they've known each other—well, that Lou's known Debbie; Debbie apparently has been watching her for some time—Lou has already concluded that Debbie is blazingly intelligent, with a sharp eye for observation and a real skill for strategy. Plus, she's an excellent actor with an unthreatening façade that seems to have been nailed into place by years of practice.
So Lou stops listening, and starts looking.
She's never considered partnering up with anyone. Between her abandonment issues and the overall caliber of the few criminals she interacts with, there's never been a good reason to. She can scrape together enough money to get by on her own, and she doesn't need companionship, never has. She's doing just fine.
And yet.
There's a girl sitting in front of her who's as smart as she is beautiful; who's as skilled as Lou, maybe more so; who wants to work with her. Because she thinks Lou's worth it.
Debbie finishes her speech, and drinks the rest of her cocktail in one gulp. Then she looks Lou in the eyes, and her stare burns through her brain, drops down deep into her stomach, sends a shot of adrenaline straight to her heart.
"You in?" Debbie asks, and Lou is nodding almost before she's finished the question.
They don't shake on it. There aren't many marks on Debbie's bare arms and shoulders, which is rare for adults: just a lime green mark on her neck, which Lou later learns is from her brother Danny, and the deep navy blue of a few fingerprints on her shoulder, from her father.
It soothes Lou, somehow. The idea that Debbie is also untouched.
At any rate, it tells her that Debbie won't ever infringe on her space, physical or otherwise, and that's all she needs to know to feel comfortable following her home.
An hour later, she's in a small but elegant apartment, facing a bedroom that is now, apparently, hers. For the duration of the con—it'll take them a few weeks to get it figured out and done—and, if she plays her cards right, maybe longer.
"Get settled," Deborah Ocean tells her. "We start first thing in the morning."
Lou doesn't unpack that night, or ever, really. She's not sure she knows how: usually she's squatting in abandoned apartments or houses, and needs to be ready to run. But over time her things scatter from her bag across her room, and then across Debbie's.
For the next few weeks, they become virtually inseparable, bonding over their mutual love for strategizing, planning, thinking and overthinking. Lou memorizes Debbie's five phases, her pages of notes and maps and detailed, specific instructions in the first week, and asks clarifying questions. A few times, she stumbles across an open moment, an opportunity for disaster, and they figure out the solution together.
They spend hours poring over the plan together, rehearsing—Debbie is very dedicated to the authenticity of her allergy attack—and every so often, Lou looks up to see Debbie smiling at her, a secret, subtle thing that speaks of pride and affection, and something else that Lou can't quite place.
When the night comes, they get dressed up together. Debbie lends Lou makeup and a crisp white blouse to go with her suit, and Lou helps zip up her dress, which is long and black, with a slit to show off her legs. They walk out of the apartment arm-in-arm, and for a moment, Lou pretends that she's taking Debbie on a date to this fancy restaurant for a romantic, candle-lit dinner.
They'll sit across from each other and hold hands under the tablecloth, and Debbie will laugh her perfect, mischievous, tinkly laugh, and Lou will be able to feel her heartbeat in her wrists and stomach and tongue, and later she'll walk Debbie home and brush her long hair out of her eyes before pressing the pulse of her lips to Debbie's, and—
"Now remember," Debbie says, in her teacher voice. She adjusts Lou's collar carefully, taking care, as always, not to brush her skin. "Don't go to the back room until you're sure the hostess has left the front—"
"—because she can see into the back room from the computer," Lou recites easily, deliberately pushing her daydream out of mind. She can't get distracted now. Not when all their work is on the line. "I know, honey."
Debbie smiles, the blinding one that makes Lou's throat dry. "I know you know."
Then she looks around and checks her watch. "I'm up." She nods at Lou once, then walks off, and the plan is officially in motion.
The con goes so successfully that in addition to stealing ten grand from the safe, Lou has time to lift a few necklaces and watches as well, and Debbie positively glows when she presents them to her. They order Chinese food to celebrate, and sit on the floor in the living room, eating, drinking red wine out of the bottle, and counting their money.
"So, I guess I should—" Lou says, when they've finished dividing the spoils, sixty-forty, just like they agreed, and the struggling orphan stowaway part of her that's desperate to survive at any cost might be frustrated by the uneven split were it not for the fact that her share, if ten percent smaller, is still more money than she's ever seen in her life, ever, and may in fact amount to more money than she's had in her eighteen years of life put together.
"What?" Debbie says, leaning against the wall, somehow managing to look good while eating greasy noodles.
By this point, Lou knows very well that Debbie's pretty girl act is all part of the ruse—she looks too naïve to shoplift, let alone to plot elaborate cons; hell, it duped her too the first time she saw it—but it still leaves her breathless sometimes, when Debbie flicks her hair, or bites her lip. The makeup, the clothing, the air of wide-eyed innocence are part of the costume she cloaks herself in, but the beauty is all too real.
Lou shrugs, opens her mouth, closes it again. Doesn't want to say it, but feels she has to.
"Should I—go?"
Debbie lowers the carton and eyes her. "If you like."
She takes a bite, chews, swallows. "But I'd rather you didn't."
She says it flippantly, like she's pretending not to care, but Lou can tell that she's pretending by the way she sets her jaw and deliberately relaxes her brows, and the fact that she cares—
Lou tries to match her tone. "I'll stay."
Then she attacks her own carton, suddenly ravenous.
Lou stays, and it's good—far better than she ever imagined life, specifically her life, could be. She has never had a family, or a roommate, or a best friend—Cate notwithstanding; she's ten years gone and Lou dreams about finding her sometimes but it's too impossible to even hope for—but Debbie is a strange combination of everything movies taught her about what those things could be.
They plan another con, and another; and Lou learns to not think too much about Debbie's smile, her quick hands, the long line of her body when they're running, her breath in the darkness beside her. The mornings when Debbie comes into the kitchen, hair tousled and eyes warm, and Lou hands her a coffee mug, and Debbie gives her this sleepy smile that just melts her insides into mush.
Lou Miller has not had a home in ten years, and she's not planning on losing this one.
And still, they don't touch. It's more instinctive than anything else, Lou thinks, because at this point it's inevitable that they'll leave bright marks on each other: they've spent too much time together for faint colors.
She daydreams about it, sometimes: how her shade of deep red would look on Debbie's skin. Wonders what would happen if she went up to Debbie, placed her palm on Debbie's cheek, and leaned in. She gets a possessive thrill out of imagining her color along Debbie's jaw. Proof that she exists. That she matters to someone.
In this daydream, she pictures an identical red across her palm: the red that would mark her as Debbie's, and Debbie's as hers. The red that would mean they were soulmates.
Lou always shakes the idea off, feeling embarrassed, a little guilty. Debbie is her best friend, her roommate, her literal partner in crime. They live together, work together, eat and laugh and shoplift nail polish from CVS just because they can together. It's enough.
It has to be enough.
One day, a heist goes wrong. Lou's not sure how it happens—they always check and double check and triple check their plans, going over them for weeks in advance. They may be eighteen, but they've been in this business for years already, and they've never yet had a con fail.
But there's a first time for everything. Lou's standing at a blackjack table in a casino that she's not old enough to be in when she hears sirens.
It's not unusual for their part of town, but she feels a thrill of unease ripple down her spine, thinks: Debbie. Find Debbie.
She doesn't bother grabbing her jacket from the table, even though it's one of her favorites. (She took it off to prove there was nothing up her sleeves, at the insistence of the dealer, who couldn't understand how a lanky Australian girl was winning so frequently; and she decided not to point out that there could just as easily be cards in her pant pockets).
She just runs out of the room and into the maze of dark hallways. Debbie. Find Debbie.
She's running and it's dark and she can't see Debbie anywhere, she's bumping into people, spilling drinks, probably attracting too much attention but she can't begin to care, frantic and breathing hard, because what if something happened, something serious, what on earth would she do without Debbie—she keeps running, searching desperately, and then—
A shape melts out of the darkness and says, "This way!"
Lou stops, shocked. "Deb—"
"Come on!" Debbie hisses, and grabs her arm, and then they're outside and running hard, and the cold air tastes like relief on Lou's tongue.
They take the long way home and run all the way there, just to be safe; the sirens don't seem to have followed them, but they're not taking any chances.
They sprint up the stairs to their apartment—Debbie's apartment, Lou catches herself too late, it feels like theirs but it's Debbie's—and Lou hurriedly unlocks the door while Debbie watches the street like a hawk, ready to pull a blade if necessary. They get the door open and get inside, slam and lock the door.
Debbie collapses into a chair while Lou flips on the light, then leans against the door, panting for breath.
"My God, that was a rush," she says, almost to herself. She laughs, burying her face in her hands. "What the fuck happened?"
When Debbie doesn't respond immediately, Lou looks up. Debbie is staring at her, open-mouthed. Her eyes are wide, filled with shock, and with something that looks almost like joy.
"What?" Lou looks down at herself. "What's—"
She sees her bare forearm. Or, more accurately, she sees her forearm, which is bare except for a handprint in the place Debbie grabbed her while they were running. Lou's exact shade of red, deeper, brighter than she's ever seen it.
Lou's shade of red, from Debbie's hand.
Lou looks up and sees that hand, the palm and finger pads the same bright red; sees Debbie's eyes, glowing and warm and a little damp.
"Lou," Debbie says, hoarse, a shudder of breath—
And then Debbie's palm is on Lou's cheek, her body pressing Lou back into the door, and they're kissing, and the last piece falls into place.
Lou Miller has finally come home.