Page 5 of Lost to Thievery
“But we do this quietly. Just you and me. I’m calling in sick, and you need to get Rachel to create some sort of alibi as to why you’re not coming out of the house for the next few days. You’ll need to sneak out tonight. I’ll wait for you in our usual spot at the park. One a.m. sharp. Don’t be late.”
I slinked in the shadows from house to house, just like I’d done with Grayson once. Now it was to escape him. Or whoever he had following me. Rachel was excited to take out her old Ava-wig, she had bought in college to dress up like me for Halloween. It was her brilliant idea to wander around the house with it while I was gone. I haven’t smiled so broadly in a long time, watching her practice to be me.
Agent Becket stood exactly where he said he’d be, nervously glancing around to see if I’d been followed. It would have been disastrous to our efforts these last couple of months if we were caught. We’ve met at this spot many times over during those months. I had come to call it ourmidnight sessions. Always in the middle of the night, always no more than an hour. I mostly talked about my time with the Apparitions, and Agent Becket took notes. He wrote down every little detail I offered up. Nothing was too trivial; nothing was too personal. For him at least. For me it was all too personal; all too hard. Some nights, when I couldn’t talk anymore, he would talk about his own efforts to catch the Apparitions. How he started putting together the pieces of them and how no one believed him. It was a temporary distraction and a comfort, knowing that I wasn’t alone. That all of them weren’t just a figment of my imagination.And I was sure that Agent Becket felt the same. So, I continued to talk, told him every detail I could remember, reliving all of it, seeing the things I missed, making the dots connect.
We drove in silence to the small airport where Becket’s pilot friend waited to give us a lift to Mexico. In the short time that I’d known Agent Becket it was astonishing to see how many connections the man had. It was one of those friends that had helped him keep me out of prison. And it was another friend of his, Doctor Aspen, that had helped me realise just how delusional I was. She still calls, now and again, to check up on me.
“I did some digging, and there are only three things around those parts that Varon would be interested in.” Owen handed me a stack of papers as the small, red plane jostled us.
I looked through each item. A ridiculously expensive necklace from Elizabeth Taylor’s Collection, the Patek Philippe Supercomplication Pocket Watch, and a Fabergè Egg. I instantly knew which one he was after.
“After Rainbow Falls, this is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” I whispered into the cold air. It was an unusually clear night. The first real snow had hit us, and Grayson had spent the evening shovelling snow, clearing the roof and then decided on stargazing for the rest of the night. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tighter against his chest, as we sat on the cabin roof, watching the stars, ignoring the eery sounds around us. They couldn’t hurt me, anyway. Nothing could hurt me while I was in Grayson’s arms.
“Mm, but they’ll never compare to you, Princess,” he whispered back, pressing his lips against my neck, inhaling my scent. “I swear you glow sometimes. Like these stars. Especially when you laugh… or when I make you come. God, you’re beautiful when you come.”
I chuckled, fighting the urge to kiss him. It would only end one way. Me being fucked on the icy roof of the cabin. But this ruthless, cold man could be so cheezily sweet sometimes, I couldn’t bare it. “So tell me about these stars, Doctor Astronomer.” I pointed at the small cluster of stars that was creating a small hazy glow in the sky.
“That is the Pleiades Stars. They were born from the same gas cloud a hundred million years ago. They hurdle through space together at about forty kilometres per second.” He chuckled softly. “But that’s not what you want to hear about, is it?”
I giggled, shaking my head.
“They are also known as the Seven Sisters,” Grayson continued. “Daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Because Atlas was forced to hold the sky up for eternity, he couldn’t save his daughters from the hunter, Orion. So Zeus stepped in and transformed the seven women into stars.”
“But we can only see six of them,” I coaxed, nuzzling my cold nose against his neck, wondering if he knew the story about the seventh star.
He shifted to peer down into my eyes. “It is said that one star fell in love with a man. A mere mortal man, a sinful simpleton, so completely undeserving of her breath-taking light.” His fingertips trailed softly down my cheek, as his eyes attempted to reach down into the darkest depths of my soul, claiming yet another piece of it.
“What a man he must have been to have caught the eye of a star,” I countered breathlessly.
His smile was damn near angelic as he dipped down and claimed my lips, his fingers tangling in my hair. “How did I ever live without your light, little star?” he whispered against my lips.
Hours later, when I was flushed and glowing and breathless, he wrapped the blanket tightly around us. “Are you tired yet,Princess? I can take you back down if you want. It’s…” he paused and looked up at the sky, “… about three a.m.”
“You can tell the time from the stars?” I inquired.
“I can tell a lot by the position of the stars.”
“Yet, you don’t believe in Astrology,” I teased.
Grayson only nipped at my neck in answer. I could feel his smile against the sensitive skin.
“So tell me. Why is it that all the legends around the world agree on seven stars, but only six are visible to the naked eye?” I questioned curiously. It was not only the Greeks whose legends spoke of seven, but stories from cultures around the world agreed on the number.
“Most of the stories you refer to are a hundred thousand years old. The sky looked a bit different back then. Seven stars were most likely visible.” He kissed my temple. “I think we’ll solve a lot of mysteries surrounding old structures like the pyramids and stone henge if we knew exactly what they’d seen in the sky at night.”
I hummed my agreement. “Gray? Do you believe in aliens?”
He chuckled. “Of course. It’s mathematically implausible for us to be the only life forms in this vast and old universe. Not to mention the possibility of other universes.”
I smiled at that. “What about ghosts? And angels? And demons? And gods?”
He was quiet for a moment, contemplating it. “Everything is just energy. So those things are a possibility. Besides, we’re three-dimensional beings, only able to process things in two dimensions. Who says there aren’t things around us from higher dimensions that we simply cannot comprehend?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I enjoyed the way he contemplated the supernatural with science—two things so completely at odds with one another.
Just like we were. Two complete opposites, somehow making perfect sense together. Belonging together, like the stars against the black void. Breath-taking in their contrast.
“Gray?”
