The Closer You Look... (Now You See Me, Jack Wilder fanfic)

Chapter 1 - street performance

I grabbed my black over the shoulder bag and got out of my Nissan Skyline GTR R34. I parked a few streets away for my next performance site. A little park on the outskirts of California, the perfect place to find a nice sized crowd and a good target. I slipped my worn favourite pack of card into the back pocket of my black high waisted shorts before walking to the park. I had on a dark pink, flowy crop top that matched my pink converse, and a leather jacket.

My grey, blue eyes scanned the area for somewhere to perform. Not too central, but not too hidden that no one would see me. I finally settled on an old bench, shaded by a beautiful cherry tree in full bloom, the perfect place to set up.

I threw by bag on the bench the hopped up and stood on it, my own little stage. I pulled the deck of cards from my back pocket and began to shuffle them in many ways, using some of the simple shuffling tricks I had taught myself years before.

"Lady's and gentlemen, boys and girls prepare to be astounded by the marvel that is magic." I shouted out to the families playing, busy people passing and soon I had a small audience.

I started with a few simple card tricks, you know, the pick a card kind. I asked a young man to pick a card and place it on one of three piles of cards that were cut randomly. After putting the deck back together, loosing his card in the deck, I began to create five smaller random piles with the cards. Once all the card were randomly placed i put the deck back together again.

I arched the cards in my hand and began to spell out the name of the guys card. T-H-R-E-E O-F H-E-A-R-T-S I spelt out, and with each letter I made one of the cards fly out towards the guy, and as I finished making the card fly the card on the top of the deck was indeed the 3 of hearts.

"Is this your card?" I asked him.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah it is!" He stuttered, clearly amazed but what he had just witnessed.

Th audience clapped as it picked up my dropped cards. Counting them as I collected them. It was windy in the park and I didn't want my cars to blow away. The wind was blowing my brown hair, that was ombré purple to pink from about half way, into my face so I quickly threw it up into a high pony tail.

I decided to do a few more little tricks like that and then to end with some card throwing.

"Can I have a volunteer?" I asked the audience, many hands shot up and the children began to shout "me, me, pick me"

"Could that little girl in the beautiful purple jacket and her mother come forward please." I asked.

They moved through the crowd towards the old bench I was standing on. Time for a little mentalist before throwing cards, i thought.

"Your a business woman, single mother?" I asked, she nodded in response

"Your lovely daughter, um, Katie, kaylee? Kayla!" I said

"Mummy she knows my name" Kayla said in awe.

"She means the world to you, I can see it by the way you look at her" I told her.

"Yeah she does" the woman said.

Now for the finale..

"In your bag is a banana." I said, the woman looked in her a bag and sure enough pulled out a ripe, yellow banana.

"Her snack" she said nodding to Kayla.

" Kayla, could you peel this banana about half way then move back about 10 steps for me?" I asked

She nodded and grabbed the banana out of her mothers hand then ran back 10 steps.

"Okay, now I'm gonna throw these three cards at your banana to slice it for you" I said, making three cards appear in my hand.

"Cool" she giggled and peeled the banana.

I lined up the first card and threw it with a flick of my wrist. The card sliced into the banana about and inch from the top cutting right through but so the card remained in the banana.

Very quickly I threw the second and third card. Each landing evenly spaced and slicing right through the banana.

"You can eat the banana off the cards if you like" I said. The crowd erupted with cheers and claps. Kayla ate the slices of banana and gave the cards back to me.

" thank you" her mother said to me as the crowd began to disburse. "I haven't seen her smile so much since my husband walked out on us" she said.

"Well that's why I am here, I want to make people happy" I said.

Some of the crowd put money on top of my bag that was on the bench, Kayla took some money her mother gave her and added it to the pile. I smiled at them both as they walked away.

Normally when I need the money I just do street magic, but occasionally I pickpocket or con people. I was going to take the woman's purse but when I was looking into her, during the mentalist part of the show, I realised the business woman persona was all a front. Yes, she has a business but it was going badly. I couldn't steal from someone like that.

I only steal when I have to, and only from people who can afford to miss $50, $100 or a watch. It was kinda a personal rule to only take from the wealthy.

********************

A/N: thank you so much for reading this, it means a lot to me. All comments and vote would be greatly appreciated as it is the first story I am putting online. Any advise would be great too, I'd love to know what you think.

Don't worry, the next chapter is where the NYSM stuff happens, this was just a little insight to Niki's magic and life. And the chapters will get longer.

Thanks again, Izzy xoxo😊