Favourite Crime

Haoun

I walked up to Forhn. With one swift movement, I pulled out his compass. "What's this, Forhn?"

"A- a compass."

"Is it?" I crushed it between my gloved fingers and it leaked sand. I stepped back and looked at the others. "Did you all know that our friend here, Forhn Tawen, has been pulling that ship in our direction?"

No reply came forth.

"It's a really interesting binding." I commented, turning back to him. I bent and picked up a piece of the glass from the sand. "The other ship follows the route laid down by the sand from this compass." I pressed the piece of glass to Forhn's face. He was gasping. "And Forhn is also the reason our ship is going slow. He can control water." I pressed harder and blood leaked from the formed cut. "Tell me, how many people are on that ship, and I won't cut off your head?

"Twenty." He whimpered.

"Any children?"

"No. Now let me go." He closed his eyes.

"All slavers?"

"Ye- yes."

I stepped back and tilted my head at him. "How many miles can you travel underwater, Shade?"

"As many as I need to." They replied.

"Lovely. Could you deliver a gift to our friends on that ship?" I turned to Forhn. "I'm a man of my word." I delivered a punch to his throat that left him choking.

Water rose up behind him, but I was already shooting his head with the gun I had pulled out.

The water fell back and I threw Forhn overboard.

I turned to the others, all of who had taken seats while watching the show. I turned to Cada. "Make sure they never sail again."

They nodded and pulled off their hat and coat. Then they jumped into the water.

The event had cast a worrisome atmosphere over everyone as they realised that people were indeed after us and this mission was likely a death wish.

It took half an hour for Cada to drown the ship and come back, and when Herou pulled them up, their clothes were stuck to the and they were freezing.

When I saw them shivering, my breath caught in my throat.

Souren got them a towel and they went into the cabins.

I steeled myself for as long as I could.

After a while, Souren and Herou came back outside, having made sure that Cada wasn't going to freeze.

When Cada resurfaced, I offered them their chat and coat back.

"You didn't use this opportunity to take your coat back. I'm surprised." They commented.

"I thought I leave the clothing stealth to you." I watched them put on both those things. How their arms stretched out as they pulled on one sleeve after another.

"I know that as scavengers, we are not expected to show gratitude," They began, "But I do appreciate that I don't have to deal with Forhn for the rest of this job."

"I am quite sad not having your squabbles to witness, though." I said.

"I wouldn't waste my breath on him." They rolled their eyes.

I caught myself wanting to smile, wanting to keep talking to them, wanting to ask them to come back to the gambling house after this job. It was all with the same feeling as when they had asked me what I wanted that I couldn't have. And, if I was honest, that feeling had struck me several times since I'd met them.

I needed to distance myself from them. What that they encouraged in me were not worth exploring.

I had known that for a while, but my self-control was galling loose.

The rest of the voyage was fairly uneventful.

The waiting was long and I kept hearing Roy talk about how good things come to those who wait.

I told him that good things don't come. You have to go and steal them.

After another week, we were docked on the shire of Jorebia.

We hadn't even gotten off the ship and I could already see how different this place was. Organised and structured. Expensively built.

The Jorebian fashion trends weren't visible on the tourists, but that made it easy to spot a Jorebian.

Cada had spent a lot of the voyage teaching us basic Jorebian.

Herou got to work. "Strawberries, for the farms of Carjimatra!" She told the unloaders.

"Aye, aye." They said, smiling as they took the boxes from the ship and loaded them onto belts that transported them into a building to be examined.

We were all marked as traders and our fake visas were checked. Everyone maintained confident facades and smiley personalities.

I really did wish they would stop questioning my forgery.

They let us proceed after patting us down for the weapons we had thrown off board only an hour before we had arrived.  It took everything in me not to smack them away, and they were oblivious.

However, once we were in, we threw all formality out to sea.