beautiful thieves | ✓

eleven

The bullet hits close to the centre of the target, about half a meter above his head. Zavier and Danielle look impressed.

With Blake thankfully still intact, the four of us make our way to my last task of the day, according to Danielle. She has her arm across my shoulders as we walk, continuing to provide me comfort, but all the reassurance seems to wash out my body as I see everyone- Chelsea, Enoch, Jayden and Colby- standing around the boxing ring, where Maeve is standing in the centre.

Danielle and I stop when we're beside the ring, Blake and Zavier going to stand with the others.

"What's going on?" I whisper to her.

She rubs my am with the hand across my shoulders. "You and Maeve fight, then you're done for the day."

"Fight?" I ask loudly, causing a few amused eyes to glance our way.

Danielle nods. "The only rule is that you don't go easy on one another. I've told Maeve to make it difficult for you and I expect you to do the same. It's the only way you'll get used to... what might go down during a raid."

I suck in a harsh breath, not sure if I can do this. For starters, I've never been in a fight in my life, unless you count the playful ones between me and my brothers or the one-sided one where Mum slapped me round the face- from which I still have a grazed cheekbone surrounded by a yellowing bruise. But there's also the fact that I don't want to possibly hurt Maeve. She's quickly becoming my friend and, similarly to the situation with Blake, everyone here loves her. She's also small and slight, barely reaching my height, and the idea of fighting her feels like kicking a puppy.

Still, I know there's no way out of this. I can't back out, otherwise the whole group will think of me as coward and I don't want that kind of humiliation from people I think so highly off. This will give me the chance to maybe prove to myself and everyone else that I belong here.

I jump up onto the platform, crouching through the ropes as everyone cheers rowdily with their excitement. Maeve smirks, looking almost as badass as she did last night with her pastel pink hair up in a ponytail and dark eye-liner surrounding baby blue eyes. Something tells me that she's done that on purpose to make her seem intimidating. It's working.

"Sure about this?" she smiles, making eye-contact with Zavier who grins back at her.

"Let's just do it," I say.

I thought there'd be some kind of countdown, or even a second for me to prepare myself, but all of a sudden my head is whipped to the side as Maeve lands a punch square on my jaw.

I barely have time to react as she uses my moment of vulnerability to place both hands on my shoulders and knee me in the stomach, taking all the air out of me. I hear the muffled sounds of the group cheering and wincing at my pain and I feel my cheeks heat up with embarrassment. But this gives me the motivation to stand back upright, step over to Maeve and strike her in the face with strength I didn't know I held. Using her shock to my advantage, I somehow manage to shove her to the floor and kick her hard in the shin with my heel, surprising even myself.

She gets up quickly, glaring at me with so much venom that she's almost unrecognisable. She's limping as we circle one another and my breathing is shallow, struggling to take in any oxygen with the constant throbbing in my gut.

Feeling bold, I rush forward and grab her by the neck to punch her face again, however she manages to block my moves and rips my hand away from her neck. She tightly grips my wrists, making me cringe deeply as the blood circulation in my hands seems to stop.

Before I can do anything to prevent any pain, she knees me in the stomach, kicks me in the hip, punches me in the nose, causing a nauseating feeling to rise up through my throat, before pushing me onto the floor. Our audience goes wild.

The nausea is too much and I start coughing uncontrollably, finding specks of a warm, red liquid splattered onto the ground. When I look up, my eyes meet those of Blake's, whose are full of bemusement as he obviously laughs at the state I'm in, that one smirk all over his face. I shake my head in annoyance and stand to my feet, ignoring every body part that protests in pain. I use the back of my hand to wipe the blood trickling from my nose before I lunge at Maeve once again, hitting her head and attempting to grab her arm.

But then she grabs mine instead and slams me onto my back. With no more air left in my body and my spine feeling like it's been snapped, I roll onto my stomach and half-crawl, half-slide my body away from where Maeve's standing.

"You want to stop?" I hear Danielle ask over the sound of me coughing up more blood. I shake my head, lifting my hand in a vague movement to tell her to wait. I refuse myself to give up so easily.

"I'm sorry, honey, did I hurt you?" Maeve jeers. I can hear the smile in her voice before she kicks at my leg. "Silly little bitch can't handle the heat, huh?"

My courage vanishes. "Stop," I manage out. "Stop."

Maeve gets down to my level and I look up at her, completely rattled. "You done?" she asks. "Because I can keep going all fucking day."

With the intense pain pulsating through my body and my tongue covered in the warm, metallic taste of blood, I know I have to surrender. I nod.

All of a sudden, the promise of pain in Maeve's eyes vanishes, and she places a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Come on, then." Her voice is so kind, completely different to how it was only seconds before.

She helps me up, as I wouldn't have the strength to do it myself if I tried, wrapping a small but strong arm over one shoulder and under the other.

"We're done here," Danielle commands to the others. They start to disperse, giving me looks of concern. "Colby, go help fix her up."

Maeve helps me under the ropes and Colby takes me from her, and as the two of them practically carry me away from the basement, I can't help but feel like I've completely let myself down.

*****

Colby squeezes the excess water from yet another blood-soaked cloth into the sink, continuing to wash off the blood that poured from my nose. We're in one of the many luxurious bathrooms in the house, all shiny, white tiles with a large wetroom and bathtub. Maeve is sat on the edge of the bathtub, wrapping her bruising shin in a bandage with her pink hair hiding her face, while I'm sat on the toilet seat as Colby has been seeing to my injuries. I'm so sore and rattled from earlier that I find his touch is very comforting, like the wings of butterflies fluttering against my skin.

"Thank God," Colby mutters, shaking his head. "I didn't think your nose would ever stop bleeding."

Maeve looks up. "Sorry about that."

I don't say anything. I don't know what I could say.

"I was only following Danielle's orders," she tells me, finishing up with her bandage and bracing her hands on the edge of the tub. "She said she didn't want me to go easy on you, so I didn't. But don't take it personally. We've all been there."

I quirk up an eyebrow. "You've all had the shit beaten out of you?"

"In the first few weeks, yeah, we all do," Colby says, surprising me. He sighs. "In my first week, I was put up against Blake. I'm sure you can guess how that went."

"Damn," I say, imagining Colby a bloody mess on the floor at the hands of Blake. "I guess I got off lightly."

Maeve scoffs. "Oh don't worry, sweetheart, I would've knocked you out if I wanted to."

"You didn't?" I ask.

"Of course not," she says genuinely. "I wasn't lying last night. I do like you, and I want us to be friends. I was pretty gutted when Danielle asked me to go up against you this morning but there's no arguing with the boss. I just figured that I could spill a bit of blood then we'll be done with it."

"Well..." I say, swallowing to try and rid the taste of blood. "You certainly did that."

Maeve looks down, looking pretty guilty.

"But... thanks for, you know, not knocking me unconscious."

We exchange a smile, and I know that everything is okay between us.