Their Thief: Redemption

Chapter 1

Damaris Rana

I groaned as I grabbed my phone. It didn't matter how magical and gentle a sound was when its purpose was to wake you up. To me, the gentle bells were equivalent to the screams of enraged monkeys.

Okay, maybe not quite, but close.

I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed to get ready for work as the sun peaked over the buildings across the street, casting a soft golden glow through the partially open blinds. Knowing the day would be spent indoors sorting through boxes of used books only dampened the peace that came when nature began to awaken before the hustle and bustle of humans began.

And whatever the hell else lurked out there.

As quickly as the thought came, I rushed to brush it aside using meditation techniques I had been learning online. I wasn't sure if I was doing it properly given how easily it was for my mind to wander back to the unwanted thoughts, but it was better to try something rather than sitting here spiralling with thoughts of the unknown.

No, I was better than that. I wouldn't let fear conquer me again. Not without putting up a fight.

I cracked my neck as I rose from the bed. Twisting to crack my back, I made my way to the washroom to get ready. The sky outside looked too promising to let my past cast a gloomy shadow over it just yet.

Jane and Magnus had been kind to me these past two years. They didn't treat me like a stranger, instead, embracing me with open arms from the moment I started working at their bookstore. They cared and wanted to know me, asking everything that I imagined loving parents would. Even though I knew it was all in my head, they filled a void I didn't know existed. A void that Simon had left no room to form in the past, but then he...

Thinking about him made my stomach twist. It was funny how a single act could completely change your feelings towards a person you love... loved.

In the beginning, I was devastated. Devastated that he would hurt me like that, devastated that he was dead. It was difficult to take in everything that had happened so quickly and consecutively, but once I did, I mourned. I mourned him- the old him, the loving one that I knew existed once. Or at least I hoped he did. I mourned our past and the future that could have been. But nonetheless, as I mourned, the truth of reality made it past the grief, making it easier to accept what had happened.

He had... r- rap-

I ground my teeth together, failing to word the truth properly, even in my thoughts.

Though I couldn't say the truth just yet, mentally or verbally, the more I accepted the facts that were failing to register past the pain of losing him, the easier it became for the love I felt for him to twist and turn into resentment. My last moments with Simon revealed the truth of how much we had grown from the innocent and lost children we once were. I was no longer blinded by the foolish trust and belief I had in him. He wasn't the boy who helped me as a child anymore.

And now he was a corpse in the ground and he was still as heartless as he had become while he was living and breathing six feet above.

All because of me, the damning little voice in my head that just wouldn't go away whispered. And in a way it was correct. I was the reason Simon had gone to prison where he had been forced to change and adapt. Then I was the reason he was held prisoner by monsters. I could only imagine what he had gone through based on the horrors I had experienced, not unless I wanted to confront my fears and ask them. They claimed that I was important to them I couldn't imagine what they would do to someone who wasn't.

I shivered as I wiped my hand across the fogged mirror. Cool morning air blew in from the bathroom window that was cracked open to clear the steam filling the room, but it wasn't the cause of the chill that had raced down my spine.