Living in Power (First Draft)

Chapter Three: Luciana

Me and Tiana walked into a large, a what-was-it, a department store, with a girl's name, Tiffany's? At least, that is what I think Danica called it. No matter what it was called, it was stocked, floor to ceiling with expensive jewelry, gemstones and crystals. It was many floors, large, moving stairs, (Danica called them escalators), I watched Danica go up the escalator as Tiana and I walked off to look.

After a few minutes, as Danica said in the plan, I wandered away from the display that Tiana was looking at, and up the escalator. As I made my way up to the third floor, through the piles of people, I caught eyes with Danica as she curiously looked at a ruby display.

Once I got to the top floor, I wandered around the displays and tried to look as confused as possible. I pretended to look as concerned as possible and I started to bump into people, the feeling of genuine concern as nobody seemed to noticed a lost, teenage girl. Soon, after bumping into a woman who looked asian, maybe korean or cambodian, she started talking to me in hurried english,

"N-non parlo inglese." I stuttered out, the woman's eyes went wide as she grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me over to the third-floor security guard. The two began talking and the guard made a call over the radio, something about bilingual.

Soon the entire circulation desk was buzzing with security guards, all trying to talk to me in overlapping languages. I picked up on some french, one spoke very, very broken Greek, one man, I picked out some man speaking in near-fluent spanish and made a point to pick up on him. I cannot believe that they are buying into this, it's really easy to manipulate these stunads.

"Sí, sí!" I said, pointing at him, he pushed his way forward a bit and began speaking to me slowly.

"Where is your mother?" he asked

"Dead. I am here with my aunt." I whispered quietly.

"Where did you see her last?" the man, named Hector as his badge stated, looked at me with a slight look of fear in his eyes.

"Bottom floor, looking at silverware."

"What does she look like?"

"Can I show you?" I asked him, gesturing for a pad of paper. Hector obliged and handed me a pad of paper with blue Tiffany's writing on top. I did a quick, messy sketch of Tiana and handed it to him with her name scrawled underneath it. It was real bad but it would by Danica some more time.

Soon, there was a frenzy around me, with Hector trying to explain to the other guards what I told him, I also heard him say something about lockdown. There was a hustle around me, and I could see the concerned look of people around me. I bet, that downstairs, Dani was probably trying to find other ways to shove assorted gems and other small objects into her hidden pockets in her jacket.

My eyes began to dart around the store, filling with tears as I did. Soon, they were streaming down my face and I began to breathe heavier, putting on a show for the growing crowd. A woman guard put her hand on my back and said two words that I could pretend that they were the only ones I knew, calm down. I took a deep breath and sat down against the wall. I mean, with the amount of chaos, it was expected that I'd be overwhelmed.

' After about an hour, Tiana appeared in the crowd, yelling at one of the guards in spanish.

"Tiana!" I yelled, running to her, nearly tackling her to the ground. She begins apologizing to the guards and other store officials, and talking to me in Italian, pretending to calm me down.

"She's already back at the hotel. Up for this again?"

"I don't think so, not today."

Tiana continued to ward off the guards that kept swarming her after she told them that we were going back to the hotel. She held me by the shoulders and walked me down the escalator. My eyes went to the rack that I "got lost" at, and I could tell that there were quite a few pieces missing around the first floor. Maybe that's because I knew they would be going missing.

Back at the hotel, we found Danica at the table, curtains closed, cutting the tags and other identifies off of her haul.

"Well, well." She started, "I was able to get in without much issue, except some judgy looks from the piccala, the bellboy."

"Luciana is one hell of an actress." Tiana said, fiddling with one of the necklaces.

"How much?" I ask, sitting cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the table.

"Roughly?" Danica did a quick mental tally, "I want to say, seven or eight grand?"

"Good job?" I ask

"Not the best but definitely good." Tiana confirms, starting to repackage things.

"What will mama th..th..think?" I mumble, concerned of how this could end up for us if, no, when, she gets ahold of us and our "stash". Danica is quick to respond with:

"If we don't get caught? She'll probably scold us for about ten minutes, ask us the value, and then ask about resale prices."

"I'm thinking at least ten-thousand in black market cash." Tiana mumbles.

"What happens if we get caug... caught?" the word chokes me,

"It's simple." Tiana starts, turning to me. "We won't be. Never have, never will."