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CHAPTER ONE; bloodthirsty
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THE VILLAINOUS THIEF OF KETTERDAM, ACE
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WANTED DEAD or ALIVE by the order of the Merchant Council
100 000 kruge reward for capture
Ace blinked at the poster dangling in front of her face, the tears in her eyes blurring the image, her heart hammering against her ribcage, fear coating her bones. They wanted Ace dead or alive—and dead was the only way they'd take her.
She had woken sometime after the fight on Vellgeluk, with no sense of how long she'd been unconscious and no idea where she was in Ketterdam. She was in an old warehouse, the building so tall and wide and bare that a single scrape of her foot against the ground echoed off the walls. It was cold and damp and she could hear the ocean rumbling around her. The warehouse was bare of anything, only a few windows high in the ceiling, doors on opposite ends—it had to be used for storage, though Ace doubted that had been recently by the old look of it.
Her head was throbbing and her muscles felt spent, and as she tried to move she realized her ankles and hands were shackled, chains attached to the wall behind her as if she was a wild animal. She'd searched the cuffs on her wrists and ankles for locks and her heart had stopped.
There were no locks. The cuffs had been welded shut.
Barely breathing properly, Ace tried to pry the cuffs from her wrists. Tried to pull them off her, scratching at her skin until her wrists were raw and red—the cuffs were so tight around her wrists and ankles there was no space for them to move; like they'd been welded directly onto her skin.
"Come on," she grunted, pulling on the cuff, her breathing turning shallow. Standing up, trying to remain calm, Ace had tried to yank the chains from the wall but as much as she pulled at them, they wouldn't budge. They'd been bolted to the brick wall. She was stuck.
The silence pressed against her, broken only by her shallow, ragged breaths. She knew she had to keep her composure, to resist the urge to scream or show any weakness. But the fear gnawed at her, consuming her thoughts. She collapsed against the brick wall, and sat on the ground, hugging Kaz's shirt, the one she was still wearing on top of her suit, closer to her body.
"A good thief always has an escape plan," her father's voice sounded in her mind, taunting her in her helpless state. All those skills, all that confidence he taught, and yet...
