Their Thief: Redemption

Chapter 17 (Part 1)

The world resumed below like normal. Cars roamed the streets and people crowded the walkways. Some walked leisurely, out for an early morning stroll. Others rushed, weaving through the masses as they tried to keep from being late for their morning obligations. I watched the small specks that appeared like ants from the glass window so far from the ground below.

Just a few days ago, I would have been doing the same, making my way through the golden morning rays to work. Money was a different kind of entrapment, but one that I could manage on my own conditions. It's why I refused to let them pay for me. They didn't own me.

But would that be so bad? Were those conditions really better than the ones the hulking masses that had kept me up all night with heated dreams could provide?

I tried to shake the thought from my head, but it just wouldn't go. The extravagance surrounding me only made it more difficult. Many of those walking down there would kill to be in my place. Vince never failed to remind me of how many when I acted "ungrateful for not recognizing and appreciating what landed in my lap" as he put it. Max liked to phrase it a little differently, claiming fate landed me in the right laps.

Were they forgetting everything the men they were telling me to be thankful for had done to me?

I didn't care how much they did to make sure I was "safe" and "taken care of," they proved that they were the real danger to me. I wouldn't let heated dreams and magical bites sway me otherwise. It would land me right where I was once as a child, chasing after the love of a man who would only crush mine under the sole of his foot once he got what he wanted. What they wanted. I could already see the cycle repeating itself with the way I had held Luca's sheets and the citrus-scented clothes he had pulled from the bag he had packed me to my nose all night long. He claimed the scent would help ease the heat flashes that the bite would cause.

It did not help. All it did was make me yearn more for the flesh that wore the wrinkled fabric. I was wanting what I shouldn't want from a monster again. Only this time there were three. Maybe if he hadn't shoved it under my nose before leaving me alone to wash up, eat, and sleep, I could have just kept myself distracted by the crisp scent overwhelming the room. But no, he had to make me catch a whiff of the scent that had me holding the button-up shirt he had thrown at me to my nose while eating and sleeping. I even found it difficult to separate from it to take a shower. When I woke up, it was to disappointment when I found that the scent saturating the fabric had faded a bit. Maybe that's why I could think a bit clearer, even with sleep weighing my lids.

I lifted my hand and pressed it against the glass. The shock of cold helped chase away a bit of the exhaustion causing me to teeter towards the glass. I pressed against the glass harder, provoking intrusive thoughts to follow. How much pressure it would take for it to give way and plummet me to the ground? Would it hurt? Or would I be falling one moment, and then nothing the next?

Would it bring a stop to the awakening feelings in my chest that I was too scared to look too closely at?

My breath fogged the glass before my, blocking my sight. The question had my fingers straining to try to curl against the firm surface. The feelings of concern, worry, and... My skin grew heated against the cold of the glass as the flames of want licked their way through my body, being summoned by only a thought. Though the faintest of feeling existed that I couldn't deny from the moment I met them, what followed after allowed it to be insignificant. But now? Those feelings had strengthened to the point where memories of splattering blood and charred flesh weren't enough to push them back down. Not since they had surged forward at the pure fear that filled my every cell when I thought that Alec and Jace were going to seriously injure or kill one another. It's what had the emotions slamming to attention in my chest in a way I couldn't explain away with excuses. Not when they were for the two who had been the leaders in orchestrating my trauma. It took me a long while to not have to talk myself into eating while my stomach turned in revolt or to be able to look down at the scars still faintly marking my thighs, let alone touch them.