A Rogue's Restraints

Chapter Two: Balisongs and Bravado

The tears I cry will never be heard, never be wiped, never be consoled. I am completely and utterly alone in the world. I flatter myself by ever saying I had a place or purpose.

In case you have never had someone lunge at you with a knife, or never seen someone go through a similar situation, I'll inform you that people typically don't laugh.

But I did.

"Ha!" I dodged, the thug's knife embedding itself in the wood of the stagecoach. Splinters flew as he yanked his weapon free.

Here's another tidbit of information: Stagecoaches really aren't that big. Definitely not best place for a fight. I kneed the thug in a place that made me wince in sympathy. He howled in pain and fell out of the loosely closed door. It was comical how easy that was.

I turned back to Koeik, rolling my eyes. "You're still hiring idiots like him?" Koeik had a reputation for never sticking with the same crew. He traveled for his jobs and hired a crew in the area. That made him harder to track down. In theory. Personally, I would rather work with a team that I trusted and worked well with, than a bunch of incompetent strangers.

"That idiot helped me accomplish the job of the decade, so don't go putting your adolescent nose where it doesn't belong." Koeik said.

"Right. Because the best crews are made up of foolhardy halfwits like him." I said dryly. "Why don't we take our disagreement outside."

"Lets." Koeik replied.

I glanced at the normal passengers. "You might as well too. And get walking. Your coachman is dead." I said. The woman I had threatened gasped covering her mouth in horror. "Sorry." I added as an afterthought.

Once outside, I stepped over to Theon as the passengers filed out. "Find anything?" I asked in a low voice. Willa stepped closer as well.

"Nothing. I mean, we found some jewelry that can be pawned, but not what you're referring to." Theon replied.

"I think Koeik has it on his person, under his cloak." I said to them. "We're within our rights to kill him, though he denies he's violating the codes."

Willa rolled her eyes. "Of course, he is. What a pig."

I nodded in agreement. "Truer words were never said."

"What are we going to do about them?" Theon asked. "I don't fancy engaging in a slaughter."

I shook my head. "We would be the ones dead anyways. There's five of them and three of us."

"And no one is going to let us get near good ol' Ko over there." Theon said.

"Even if we do, he'll just stab our brains out." Willa said. I resisted the urge to laugh. That comment made by a cute, but grave, thirteen-year-old girl was comical to me. But that was Willa for you.

I looked around, thoughtful. What could we do? There was always a better way, a cleverer way to get around killing. We always tried to find that way, even if it proved more difficult.

I know what you're thinking. 'But you're criminals. Why does killing bother you?' We're thieves not murderers. While some are both, that doesn't mean we are. While we had killed before (mostly by accident), it was something that haunted us. All we wanted was to be able to take care of ourselves and it turned out that we were good at thieving. The fact that it's illegal is an unfortunate detail. We would threaten and bluff, but at the end of the day, we were normal people doing our job.

"If you're done chit-chatting over there, we can get this done and over with." Koeik called to us.

I turned around shooting him an affable smile. "I'm sorry. Wouldn't want to keep you from skipping town." I looked Koeik and his thugs over. These men were probably armed to the teeth. It was likely that Koeik was the one hiding their profit, but Koeik wasn't a complete idiot. He might have let one of the other men carry it to throw people off if this exact situation arose.