beautiful thieves | ✓

thirty

Aurora

I have a pounding headache by the time I've managed to settle Posie. Everyone's been on edge with the house on 24 hour lockdown, Chelsea especially, so we've all been taking shifts to take care of her. When Enoch passed her to me, she was right as rain, but she started kicking up a fuss and it's taken hours to calm her. Now, with my dead arm and sweating my tits off, I'm scared to move in case it wakes her up again.

I end up having no choice. At first it's just shouting that I hear from downstairs and presume that it's two of the others getting into an argument. Granted, this house is huge, but with ten people and a baby stuck together as everyone is too afraid to leave the house, arguments have been so much more common. But then I hear the gunshots, and I know that no argument would ever get that dangerous.

This must be it. The Drakan Thieves have invaded the house and are going to kill us all. Everyone else could be dead by now.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Thinking fast, I rummage to make a small nest of pillows and duvet on my bed and cautiously place Posie in the middle, scared she might roll off the bed in my absence. Frightened tears gather in my eyes as I press a gentle kiss to Posie's forehead, before I run out of the room, locking the door behind me.

There aren't any gunshots now. Does that mean the job is done?

Am I the only one left?

My heart clenches tightly, a python wrapping around it and squeezing until I'm suffocating. Maybe I should run now. I should get Posie, find a way to slip past these guys, and start a life somewhere else. I could do it. I'd raise Posie as my own and tell her everything there is about the world she was born into. We'd be safe.

But then I hear the yells sound out again, and they sound familiar. Danielle and Blake and Chelsea.

Do we have the upper hand?

I rush down the stairs, not in anyway prepared to fight whatever could be at the bottom, but as I round the corner to go down the last step, my knees grow weak with shock. It's not the Drakan Thieves at all.

It's my brothers.

Sean and Tristan are on the ground, Zavier and Danielle pointing guns towards them and the others yelling at them to stay down. I'm so stunned that it takes a moment to get my body moving again, but when I do I'm practically stumbling down the stairs to blindly step in front of the guns, raising my hands.

There's a chorus of a confused "Aurora?" from my brothers on the floor and shocked "Aurora!" from the thieves, and I don't blame them. I barely know what's happening either.

"Aurora, get out of the way," Danielle orders, continuing to point the guns at my brothers.

"You don't need to do that," I say calmly, keeping my arms up though I know they'd never shoot with me in the crossfire. "They're--"

"Aurora, what are you doing?" Blake asks, stepping closer to me.

"They're my brothers," I say.

It's like a bomb has been diffused. Danielle lowers her gun and raises her hand to make Zavier do the same. Everyone sighs in relief, glancing around at each other and smiling, as if they realise that they had overreacted, and I turn around to help my brothers up from the floor. I hug Tristan first before hugging Sean, feeling their hearts beating wildly in their chests.

Danielle approaches us, having given the gun to someone else. "You two are Tristan and Sean?"

The two of them nod, and I already know they're internally drooling at the sight of her.