Chapter One
At first glance, Aiden Gray didn’t look like a thief.
He was a gangly youth of middling height, neither very tall nor very short, with a face framed by messy black hair that defied all attempts to comb or tame it. His eyes were a lively shade of light brown, the same color as coffee with cream, and they danced with intelligence.
But appearances can be deceiving.
He was only 16, but Aiden had long since started down the path of delinquency. He already had dozens of near-arrests and innumerable detentions, and as a result, he gained a reputation as an incorrigible delinquent. Not a thug, though. He wasn’t mean-spirited enough to be a thug. Or big enough, for that matter, he added with a mental shrug. If someone wants something stolen, I can do that. If they want someone else’s ribs or knees broken, they can call somebody else.
No, he wasn’t a thug. But thief? Guilty as charged. The thought made his mouth curve into a wry smile.
Aiden’s criminal repertoire was impressively wide-ranging for one of such tender years. Petty thievery, pickpocketing, shoplifting, and burglary. Especially burglary. He possessed a natural talent for it. He didn’t know how or why, he just did. Some people were good at painting, others were good at sports, and he was good at breaking into places he wasn’t supposed to be in, removing items of value and then escaping without getting caught. Fooling security cameras, disabling alarms, they were all pieces in a big puzzle. You just had to know where the pieces fit.
His target tonight was a small shop on Decatur Street, one whose smudged, dirty windows and peeling paint hinted that the owner was not too interested in investing in a state-of-the-art security system. Aiden had stolen from a lot of stores like that over the course of his budding criminal career. Just a job like all the others, he thought. I’ll be in and out in a couple of minutes with no one the wiser.
It proved easy enough to pick the lock on the small curio shop’s back door. It was easier still to switch off the security cameras and silent alarm, which—just as he suspected—were aged and poorly maintained. All he needed to do was clip the right wires with the small knife he carried in his pocket.
Aiden waited a breath, listening for anyone who might have seen or heard his breaking in, then shut the door behind him and quietly slipped inside. His face stretched in a smile as he looked at the racks and shelves. The goods they held were his for the taking. Many of them were secondhand products of dubious quality, but he didn’t care. To him, it was still a treasure trove.
His expression grew serious again as he remembered why he was here. This job was not just about money. It was about proving himself. Aiden was used to working on his own, but when he was approached by a crew of small-time toughs a few days ago, he had seen a chance to better his prospects and eagerly seized it. They needed a skilled thief, so the gang had told him, someone who could get in and out of places without being seen or apprehended. And they had given him this heist as a job interview. If he succeeded, he would get a handsome cut of the profits once the items he stole were fenced, and there would be many more jobs to come. If he failed, he was out of the running for good.
A ring, he reminded himself. They had talked about a ring. An old one, little more than tarnished silver band with engravings on it. A famous person had owned it once. Marie something or other. He didn’t remember the name, and it didn’t matter anyway. What mattered was that someone wanted it badly enough to have it stolen. Besides, the ring’s original owner was hardly in any position to complain.
Aiden didn’t know who this gang worked for, or the identity of the person who had hired them to carry out the theft. They had not said, and he knew better than to ask. When you dealt in crime, asking too many questions was hazardous to your health. But the flashy cars the gang’s members drove and the fine clothes they wore spoke volumes about their operation’s profitability. Aiden would almost kill to have that kind of money. It had not taken him more than a few seconds to make up his mind.
He took a quick look around, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The jewelry case was easy enough to spot, but Aiden could not help pausing for a moment in front of the racks of clothes. Those clothes tickled his greed in a way jewelry never did. Thick jackets, new shoes, jeans...it was almost enough to make him start salivating. I should just get the ring and leave, he thought, but then he looked down at the ragged jeans he was wearing and the frayed hem of his black shirt.
He winced. I need new things to wear, and I’m not the only one.
Aiden muttered a curse, grabbed a plastic bag from behind the counter and stuffed as many items into it as he could. When it was full, he got a second bag and filled that one up too. Then he set the bags down and peered into the display case. If the ring was here, it would no doubt be behind those thick panes of glass.
He fished a small flashlight from his pocket and switched it on, moving down the rows of bracelets, necklaces, and other bejeweled finery. It was a strange collection, he mused. Apparently whoever runs this joint isn’t very picky. Some of the jewelry was gaudy, some of it tarnished, and some…
Aiden’s face lit up with triumph. “Found you,” he whispered. This had to be it. Had to be. It perfectly fit the description he was given.
The ring he was sent to steal was nothing more than a plain silver band, bereft of jewels or adornment. It was indeed tarnished with age, so tarnished that it was almost completely black, and it had weird symbols and etchings worked into it. The unknown script had dulled with age and was hard to make out, and while the markings no doubt meant something, Aiden had no idea what it might be.
None of those things were his problem, of course. He was being paid to steal it, not clean it up or study it. The client—whoever he or she was—would have to take care of that themselves.
Nothing for it, then. Aiden fished into one of his pockets and removed a small glass cutter that he always carried for jobs like this. Simply smashing the display case was not an option—the noise alone made it far too risky. Subtlety, not brute force, was called for.
With skill borne of hours of practice, Aiden set the tool against a section of glass directly above the ring’s resting place. His tongue poked out of one corner of his mouth as he worked, silently and carefully, to cut a hole in the display case just large enough to fit his hand in. His heart soared with triumph as he closed his fist around his prize.
So much trouble for such a small trinket, Aiden mused. It really must be more valuable than it looks.
Even more reason to hurry, then. The sooner he was gone, the sooner he could get paid. Aiden snatched the ring, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his ears, then threw the bags of clothes over his shoulder and hurried toward the door.
He ran back out into the street just in time to see the police cruiser pull up.
And by then, it was far, far too late.
For a moment, Aiden could not quite understand what he was seeing. This was not happening, could not be happening. So careful, he thought, his mind reeling with disbelief. I was so careful. Had he, in the process of switching off the alarm, accidentally triggered a silent one instead? Or had someone seen him enter and reported the break-in? How did they know? How did they know?
Either way, it didn’t matter now.
The car screeched to a halt and two burly officers got out of it with their hands on their side-arms. One of them was saying something to him, probably telling his to drop whatever he was carrying, but the words became garbled in Aiden’s ears. Panic made them unintelligible.
He resisted the urge to scream in frustration and fear. He could not go to jail, not now, not when he was so close…
Away. He needed to get away. There had to be a way out. There was always a way out. He had to finish this job!
If Aiden was thinking more clearly, he would have realized that trying to run was an exercise in futility. There was no way he could outrun a police car, not on foot, and the officers had guns and tasers on their belts.
But he wasn’t thinking clearly, and so he did not.
He ran. He ran as if Hell had thrown wide its gates and all its demons were charging out behind him. He ran with his head bowed as if against a squall of driving rain, hunching his shoulders to try and make himself a smaller target. The officers, still shouting, ran after him, but after a moment they halted their pursuit.
Then the sound of gunfire rang out behind him like the crack of doom. Aiden screamed as bullets whizzed past his head like angry wasps, but he kept moving. There was no other way, no other choice. If he stopped, if he paused, if he hesitated or took so much as a single look back, it was all over. He forced himself to keep going, driven by nothing but pure Darwinian survival instincts. His eyes were wide and white as he searched desperately for a way out.
The canal. Realization and wild, desperate hope flashed through him. The store was close to one of the canals that crisscrossed the city. Sometimes they were very shallow, but in the rainy season they could get quite deep. That’s my best way out. It was also his only way out, though he tried not to think about that.
He veered toward the water, ignoring the warning shouts and the sound of running feet behind him. Aiden had no doubt that the cops were hot on his heels, and the sound of gunfire just would not stop—
The water was just a few feet away. So close. A few more steps and he could leap over the railing to make his escape. He was an adequate swimmer, and he didn’t think the cops had a good look at him, not really, not with the black ski mask he was wearing. If he kept his head down for a few days, he could probably avoid arrest.
Closer, now. Closer. Just a little bit more…
He was only a few steps away from watery salvation when something slammed into his back and knocked the breath from him. The bullet drilled through his flesh like a hot poker through snow and nearly knocked him off his feet. Aiden staggered, stunned. Something warm and wet was pouring down his chest beneath his shirt. The pain didn’t come until a few seconds later, and when it did, it was so intense that it left him breathless and unable to scream.
A second bullet hit him. Then a third.
Aiden’s kneels buckled. The bags of clothes fell from his hands. Red ichor spilled from his lips. He swayed for a moment, almost drunkenly, before toppling into the canal with a faint splash.
It was all happening so fast, too fast. So fast that Aiden didn’t even have enough time to be afraid as he sank to the bottom and the dark water closed around him. The only—and last—thing he felt was a surge of helpless frustration. He was so close to getting the job done. So close, only to choke in the home stretch.
He felt the ring slip from his fingers. His heart gave a single beat, then stopped.
Blackness.
