TLC Shots

C.A.J. Part 10

Thorne had no clue as to why a girl like Crescent had a pistol in her jacket pocket. Still, it proved his idea from before. Crescent wasn't nice through naivety. It was who she was that made her kind.

Somehow, Thorne was unsure if that kindness would extend to him at the moment.

Even as she held the pistol, she was hardly intimidating. Her hands shook and her stance was all wrong. If she fired, she'd go flying backward and probably hit the wall.

"Stay back," she warned, the gun wavering in her grasp. Her tone shook as much as her pistol. "I'm not afraid to shoot you."

Thorne raised his hands over his head and tried to talk Crescent down. "Crescent, I know what you just saw scared you. But I can promise you I'm not dangerous."

"Don't lie to me," she spat, more confident than before. "I've seen reports on you. But I rarely saw any pictures of you." She started mumbling to herself, but Thorne caught a few words. Like stupid, idiot, worthless, and ruined.

He took a step forward, and Crescent instantly reacted. She trained her pistol back on him and wiped a single tear from her cheek. What horrified Thorne was the fact that he'd pushed Crescent to the point of crying.

"Crescent, I swear, I would never hurt you. And you are not any of those things you just called yourself." He bit back the other descriptive words he had on his tongue when Crescent came to his mind. Beautiful, adorable, generous, enthusiastic, refreshing, geeky, intelligent, dazzling, and several more that he would not say aloud.

Even with his words of encouragement and praise, Crescent refused to trust him. She started shifting across the cracked pavement down the alley. Away from Thorne, and he thought he'd never see her again.

Again, he was wrong, and another person popped out at the end of the alley. Before Crescent saw him, or Thorne had the chance to warn her, he snatched her pistol and pointed it at her head.

"No!" Thorne yelled. He bolted down the alley after Crescent and the man dragging her away. He wasn't fast, and Crescent wasn't fighting him off that well. Probably because she had nothing to throw around or hit him with in terms of her own weight. Still, the guys holding a gun to her head was ill-prepared to deal with an international con man/thief.

Before he knew it, Thorne had the burglar on the ground with both arms pinned behind his back. One of them might have been broken, but that's none of Thorne's business.

He hauled the petty thief to his feet and threatened, "If you ever come back here, or harm this woman again, I will end you." With that, thorne shoved the guy into the nearest wall, and watched with disgusted as the man scrambled away.

Thorne wiped his hands on his shirt. There was no telling what kind of filth that piece of trash had come from. Robbers like that made Thorne almost ashamed to be a part of the thievery world.

Almost.

Carswell turned to Crescent, who had both hands stuffed into her pockets. Thorne knew she'd placed her pistol back in one of them, and was carefully holding it to keep herself safe. With the recent events that had Crescent at their centers, he didn't blame her for being ready to defend herself.

He wrung his hands in front of him. "Sorry about that," he apologized. Crescent was still having trouble looking at him. He had the idea that showing off his kickboxing and martial arts training was not a good way to prove to her that he wasn't dangerous.

"No, it's fine," she said, not really sure herself. "Thanks for saving me."

Again, the politeness was killing Thorne. Here was a girl that was terrified that he could hurt her, and she still found it in herself to say "thank you". Aces, Thorne could not think of one person in the world that was anything close to Crescent in terms of sweetness.