=== CINDI ===

I got back to the room Curt and I had been sharing late. It was almost noon; I had accomplished a lot. I had gotten a caterer and procured the masks for the wedding. But mostly, I spent my time considering what I would do about Hope. And the artifact that she had procured. That we had procured together. And what I needed to do to get it back. It was what gave me my powers. Before acquiring them, I had still been a thief. A fantastic one. I couldn't help but think back to everything that happened then. Everything that led up to this.

=== FLASHBACK ===

Long before I was Cindi Drei, I had first learned how to sneak out of my house under the watchful eye of my father. He wasn't doing it out of any desire to protect me. Merely to control me. To keep me from revealing what he had done to me. Done to my family. The last time I saw him was when I was fifteen. I heard him storming up the steps. I threw more clothes in a bag, willing myself not to flinch with every crash. I finished stuffing things in my bag and got to the window when he burst through my door, taking it off its hinges. It was a cheap door. Everything here was cheap. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, girl? The school called. Said you hadn't been there in a week."

  "Hard to go to school when I have a black eye and a bruised throat, dad." I spit the last word out, throwing open the window. He was immense; I couldn't get past him. I peered behind him. My mother was staring at me; she had such deep bags under her eyes; they were cold. She had run out of warmth and joy some time ago. And I wasn't going to let that happen to me. I slung a leg over the window sill.

  "Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

  "Away. I'm done, fucker." He lunged for me, and I dipped out of the window and out onto the roof surrounding my room. He tried to grab me but couldn't quite get through the window. I looked down and felt the phantom pain in my ankles. I knew I could roll well, and it was grass, but the initial look always got me from heights.

  "You think you'll get anywhere without me, you little bitch!?"

  "As long as I'm away from you, it doesn't matter." I saw mom one last time over his shoulder. There were tears on her face, but she nodded at me. I grimaced and turned away. I slipped off the roof and landed in a roll.

=== PRESENT DAY ===

Curt had found the plans for Hope's place in all of the wedding plans. Damn it! I didn't want him to know about her. It wasn't that I didn't trust him. At least not completely. I didn't know what would happen if he knew I had already been married. He was asleep, being a natural night owl. One of several reasons why we just worked together. I picked up his note.

Cindi,

Found your plans for that compound. They have good tech. Figured that you didn't ask for help for a reason. Decided to help anyway. These are small EMP generators and a bag with a Faraday Cage in it to protect whatever electronics you need on the job.

Let me know if you need my help.

Love,

Curt

I looked through the things he had created. He didn't have any of the context of the job. Just the blueprints. He hadn't looked into it at all. Hadn't tried to figure out what I was doing. I felt my chest seize up a little bit. He just wanted to help. He still trusts me. After everything. Some part of me wanted to call him a fool. But that wasn't true. He just accepts me for everything that I am. And these would be very helpful. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Best get started then. I thought tiredly. I considered going to bed before starting the rest of the prep work. I just want to get this done. Maybe then, these memories will fuck off to whatever deep recesses they came from.

=== FLASHBACK ===

My life has never been all roses, but that's hardly the point. It's better not to dwell on it right now. Out on the street, I learned how to be invisible. Not literally. But I could always find the best hiding spots so no one could catch me. I learned how to be silent. These skills allowed me to come and go as I pleased. There were lots of men, men like him, who would offer a place to stay if I gave something of myself away. Usually, it was my body. They would treat me like they owned me just because they offered a warm place to stay and a hot meal. And when I refused, they would take it out on me. But one of the other skills I developed quickly was the ability to stop a man from going too far. It's not complicated. Men are fragile creatures.

  One incredibly fragile creature was Larry. He started off nicer than the others. He got me gifts. Flowers, jewelry, and even let me stay at his place when he wasn't there. And he wasn't there a lot. It was great at first. But one night, he burst in, incredibly drunk. I jolted awake and grabbed a knife I kept on me. It was required. I only stayed there a few times a week. He shambled over to the bed, body-slammed it, and landed on my thigh. I yelped and tried to pull away. He giggled and reached over for me, grabbing me. "Hey, baby. I'm glad you're here. I want you."

  I struggled against his grip and his breath on my face. "I'm. . . I'm not in the mood right now, Lare. Can we do this another time?"

  "But I want you now!" He insisted, pulling up my shirt. I pulled away further. "C'mon, honey. You owe me."

  I froze under those words. "Owe you?"

  "Yeah, I mean, look at it this way. You stay here, have a roof over your head, get some gifts, get some love, and I get some nookie," He said, pulling my shirt up more. I felt my hand move without me thinking; The knife flashed and bit into his skin. He screamed and backed off. "What the fuck, bitch?"

  "Let's get one thing straight," I began, breathing heavily. I brandished the knife in his direction in a shaky hand. "You don't own me. You . . . You have no right to my body. I-it's mine."

  I left after that. Larry tried to get revenge for what I did, but his boss, Shai, stepped in. He helped me further hone my skills. I was quick and quiet, but he taught me more than that. I've always been thin, but Shai taught me how to use leverage to overcome that. Using people's weight and power against them. The other thing he gave me, that the other men had consistently failed to, was a chance. He needed a replacement for Larry, and I eagerly jumped at it. Larry's crew were all talented; Jesse and James could talk their way into anywhere; Harry could hack into anything. Larry had tried to do a little bit of everything, covering wherever was necessary. They told me he was good. At the time, my only real skill was that I could get in and out of anywhere. That didn't last long, though. I studied them. How they did what they did. The hacking was a little beyond me, but social engineering was right up my alley. We pulled off many jobs.

=== PRESENT DAY ===

I collected everything I thought I would need. The duffle bag Curt had retrofitted was actually perfect for that. Damn him. He really thinks of everything, doesn't he? I couldn't help but smile. I wish he could come on this job. He's almost always so clear-headed about these things. And I could use a clear head right now. I took a set of screwdrivers, wire cutters, gloves, clothes, EMP generators, and four Poppers. Two to get me there and two backups. I cycled through the Pop app on my phone and selected the destination; It was on the other side of the world in the Hampdens. She chose that place on purpose. A place where I would want to steal from anyway. This is definitely a trap. The thought echoed through my head. But I always thought everything she did was a trap. At least at first.

=== FLASHBACK ===

Our last job was when I was nineteen. It was a long con. While Bion and other paramilitary groups were ravaging the Middle East under the guise of country-building or installing democracy or whatever the excuse of the week was, other people were selling ancient artifacts from the area for egregious amounts. And my crew wanted some of the pie. So, we infiltrated an archeological dig crew. That's where I met her. Hope. She was everything I had been missing in my previous life. She was raised well, spoke several languages, and, unlike me, barely ever focused on how people saw her. She was an archeology student and spent her time trying to stop the constant exporting of artifacts from the area and was trying to preserve the cultures and historical context of each of them. Which meant she had a lot of access. Harry managed to forge me some top-notch credentials, and I came in as an intern.

  A big part of a plan like this is to know your new persona inside and out. Harry had crafted Cindi Drei from the ether. Gave her a social security number, a school transcript that was good enough to get in as a Master's level intern, and a couple of run-ins with the law. To make it a little more realistic.

  "Spotless records don't exist," Harry would always insist. "If someone knows what to look for and sees a life where nothing has ever gone wrong is going to be suspicious."

  The issue with these documents is that they don't give any context. And therefore, don't do much to inform the persona. Bringing those documents to life is my job. The schools I went to were good. There were scholarship records, grants, and even tax records. So, she- I grew up poor, I thought as I went through the documents. Some things never change. The arrest records were for loitering and public indecency. Hmm. Small-time crimes, unlikely for any cop to really remember. I had to create a narrative around these. Until that point in my life, I had spent my life hiding my body under heavy sweaters and baggy pants unless I was trying to get something.

  I had used my body to get attention a few times, but it was mostly so I'd have a place to stay and some food to eat. And those men rarely cared about how I dressed or did my makeup. Which, back then, I didn't do so much. James had encouraged me to wear fancy dresses for some jobs, and Jesse had taught me all his favorite makeup techniques. Apparently, before he fell in with us, he was an actor. And a drag queen. And there are times where, even with a beard, he looked better in a dress than I ever could. While reviewing Cindi's documents, I decided I wanted her to be a little different than me. She wouldn't hide under sweaters. For one thing, the Middle East is way too hot for sweaters. And it's also essential to differentiate the character from who you are, so it's harder for people to pin you down if they figure out you're not who you say you are.

  So, I met Hope as Cindi, a girl in a tank top, shorts, some makeup, and short, messy brown hair. A complete contrast to her refined, buttoned-up, long-haired, no-nonsense affectation. Her unruly, frizzy red hair was the only thing she ever struggled to control. She was serious about not just keeping the pieces of art, artifacts, and everything together but keeping them in their place of origin. She always insisted, "I want to study their cultures in their original context. Archeology has a long history of white people like us coming in and making a bunch of assumptions. All we really need to do is look, listen, and be respectful."

  I wasn't entirely up on all of the archeological terms. And little things can get you caught in a long con. So I spent hours trying to ensure I wouldn't get caught in an immediate lie. I studied and absorbed as much as I could. And my efforts didn't go unnoticed. A few months into the job, Hope stopped by my tent. We slept at a dig site. The big one. It had some ancient emperor buried in it. "Another late night?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I-uh . . . I just wanted to make sure that I get these things right." She smiled down at me.

  "Well, I'm your teacher," She said with a grin. "Maybe I can help. What are you reading?"

  We spent the following months excavating the ruins covered in thousands of years of sands and identifying things. We would collect artifacts and ship them back to a warehouse, where they would stay for further cataloging. And my late nights stopped being about paranoia of not knowing my stuff because, after a while, I did know it. It became about Hope. She started visiting my tent more and more at night. One night, I went to hers. I had gotten some French wine. She always talked about how she loved France. She'd gone to boarding school there and was always missing it. "Hey, professor. Look at what I found!"

  She looked up from her book as I barged into her tent and smiled. I hadn't thought about it, but it was late, and she was in what passed for pajamas in the desert. Which is to say, barely anything. A tank top and panties. It was the first time I had seen her out of her exploring clothes or a suit. I felt heat coloring my face, but I couldn't bring myself to look away. She crossed the room and took the bottle from my hands. "2005. I think that was a good year."

  "Yeah, I remembered you saying you missed drinking wine with your meals," I said thickly. I am an idiot, just coming here in the middle of the night. This could've waited.

  "Did I say that?" She laughed and walked over to her makeshift desk, plucking up a Swiss Army Knife. She thumbed out the corkscrew and went to work on the bottle. After removing it, she sniffed the cork and sighed happily. "Yeah, I miss France. Do you want a glass?"

  She was still smiling at me. That's what I remember the most about that night. We finished the bottle. And I woke up curled in her arms. I can't remember much else from that night, but she made up for that with several more nights. And it was terrific. It was the first time I felt I really belonged somewhere. That somewhere happened to be her bed. A bed where someone wasn't pressuring me to do things. Where I wanted to be. And that was a first. I was fairly experienced in many things by the time I met her, but the one thing I was utterly unused to was genuine affection. She was the first person I wanted to have by my side. Not for a night. Not for a job.

=== PRESENT DAY ===

I arrived below her balcony. I looked down at myself. I was wearing clothes similar to those I had met her in all those years ago. A black tank top, shorts, and no underwear. It was just as much of a disguise this time as it had been last time. I jumped up to her balcony and flipped over the railing, landing carefully. No alarms went off. Well, at least there's that. I walked up to the door, and a retina scanner lock was installed. That's new. Ordinarily, I would just phase through it and be done with it, but there was a good chance that Hope had planned for that. I knew that on all of the actual pieces she kept had a strong electric current running through them. Things that disabled my phasing. Which was terribly inconvenient. But she'd know exactly how to counter me. Since she was there when I became Buck Cherry. Or perhaps I was her when I was given that name. Honestly, who can keep track anymore? I leaned down and examined it. The scanner flashed forward and caught the image. I panicked and started digging through the bag to grab the EMP generator. Then I heard the door click. The readout on the screen said

CINDI LESSLIER

AUTHORIZED

DOOR UNLOCKED

Even after all these years, she still keeps surprising me. But I've never really known what to expect when I'm around her.

=== FLASHBACK ===

After several months, the crew came back in. Jesse, James, Harry, and Shai came in. Rough calculations of what we had collected from the dig sites was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Enough for all of us to retire. And it had been nine months since the job had started. Nine months of me spending lots of nights with Hope. Several of them where I would wake up in her bed. And they were getting antsy. Shai called me on the burner cell I kept specifically for the crew. "It's time, Sare. You guys have enough. We need to get it and go."

  "If you wait a little longer, there's much more we're about to uncover," I lied. I felt a little guilty about lying to Shai. He had taken me in and taught me a lot. And he was the only reason I was on this crew. The only reason I met her.

  "The longer you're on this job, the more likely it's going to fall apart. I'm worried about you," Shai said. "We need to get out while we're ahead."

  "I . . . We're close to a breakthrough. There should be another massive find here soon."

  "You guys haven't shipped anything back in two weeks. The site's dried up. Just cut ties, and let's go."

  "Just a few more days. I promise. Something big is coming." I wasn't lying. There was one big part of the structure left. A stone slab that we had assumed was a wall. It was very strangely placed, but we had circled around it while clearing out the rest of the site, and it was a perfect square. There was something in there. And I had an idea to get it. We had figured out fairly quickly that it was a room, but we wanted to be careful. It was deep in the structure, so we couldn't just get huge equipment in. We didn't want to use dynamite or even smaller explosives. We didn't know what was inside. Hope was adamant that we couldn't risk damaging anything. But I had gotten pretty good at reading the ancient texts, and there was something special in there. Some religious artifact said to grant the power of gods. And I discovered they had actually developed a mechanism to open it up. They had disguised it really well. And it still worked. Kind of. I pressed it, and a wall scraped loudly as it moved aside. It only opened a foot or so, but I could work with that; I had squeezed into much tighter places.

  It was a tighter fit than I had expected. I had been eating more than I was used to and had filled out some. And at the time, I was cursing it. I'd be much happier about it later. Then again, after that day, it would never stop me from getting into wherever I wanted again. I made my way through the thin shaft, scratching the hell out of my arms, legs, and face. Hope was right behind me. I squeezed through the final few feet and burst through. And I couldn't believe my eyes. Inside the room in the middle of a compound was a garden. Like an active, living garden. There were lush green plants, running water, and daylight, perhaps most surprisingly. Honest-to-God daylight. How they managed that, we never figured out. In the middle of it, there was an idol on a pedestal.

  "Wow! I would have never expected this! How do you think they did it?" Hope asked as she bent down to look at the plants.

  "No clue," I said, walking forward. I got to the idol. It was a woman made of stone and glass. Embedded in her face were small sapphires for eyes. I circled it, entranced. A sudden loud scraping echoed through the room, and the trance was broken. Both Hope and I turned and rushed to the door as it closed. The last thing I saw was Shai's face. He frowned at me and shook his head. A staticky voice came over our walkie-talkies.

  "I'm sorry, kid. Someone's gotta go down for it, and it's better if the person doing that isn't around. And your girlfriend is it. You're just collateral." The machine went dead. I tried to reach someone, anyone, but there was no response.

  "What was that about?" Hope asked.

  "Um." I couldn't look at her. I felt so guilty. This person who had given me so much. But so had Shai. "I dunno. Let's try to find a way out of here. They couldn't have made a room without an exit."

=== PRESENT DAY ===

I crept into the house as quietly as I knew how. I made my way over to the gallery. Her collection was several rooms full of art from all over the world. Almost as big as Marcelli's collection, but with decidedly more thought put into it. She kept everything from different cultures separate and even had little plaques explaining everything. I got to the room dedicated to artifacts from the Middle East. I recognized most of the pieces. Hell, I had collected some of them. We had collected some of them. I stopped in front of a glass case that held a glass and stone idol of a woman with sapphires for eyes. I marveled at it for a moment.

  The artistry put into it was astounding. How they blended the glass and stone and set in the gems would have been complicated. The way the layers of glass and stone intermingled, alternating, and the level of detail put into it still took my breath away. But time was short, and I needed to get this and go. I bent down and took some tools out of the bag. I started unscrewing the panel on the pedestal and opened it up. There was a nest of wires behind it. Damn it. Curt was better at this kind of thing, but I had still been trained by some of the best. I scraped off some of the plastic coating on one of the wires, took out one of Curt's batteries, and attached it. It sent out a power surge, and the display went dead. The lights all went out. I stood up straight and phased my hand through the glass.

  "I'm disappointed in you, Cind." A voice called out from behind me. I jumped and turned. Hope was standing in the doorway.

  "I wish I cared more, H," I said, turning back to the idol and grabbing it. I slipped it out of the case and went to put it in a box. Hope had stepped back but was still watching me from the door when gates slammed down on all the exits. She frowned at it, and I placed the idol in its protective case, closed and locked it. Then I walked over to the gated door and examined it. I could hear the humming of electricity going through the gate. So, if I try to phase through it, I'd get electrocuted, become substantial again, and be stuck feeling however many volts that is until Hope turned it off. I looked at her. The woman I used to love. Before she turned out like everyone else.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

=== FLASHBACK ===

We found the mechanism to open the door, but it didn't work. No surprise there. It was honestly a miracle that it worked the first time and had only barely done so. But still. It meant we were going to die in here. I collapsed against the pedestal in the center of the room and sighed.

  "So, you're a thief," Hope said. It was a statement. Not a question. Not even an accusation. "That makes a lot of sense."

  "You knew?" I asked, looking up at her.

  "No, I had no idea. You fooled me right up until we got locked up in here. You are outstanding."

  "Not good enough to not get caught," I muttered bitterly.

  "Well, you were betrayed. He's your . . . partner?" Hope asked, crossing the room to sit near me.

  "The crew leader. He likes to call himself the Mastermind."

  "Ah. Well, he masterminded your murder. Not part of the plan, I take it?" I laughed. I couldn't help it.

  "No, not part of the plan. The . . . plan . . . I changed it. He disagreed."

  "Changed it? How so?" Hope asked, trying to keep a bored, academic tone.

  "I . . . We were supposed to end weeks ago. I . . . was stalling."

  "Why?"

  "I wanted to finish the excavation. We only had one room left!" I exclaimed. "And look at it! Look at this amazing room! A room where they somehow managed to grow plants with no direct sunlight! Kept water flowing for hundreds, thousands of years! I needed to finish it."

  "Is that the only reason?" Her academic boredom faltered a little.

  "No. I . . . Like you. Your passion is . . . Your passion is why I'm still here."

  "The cynical thief turned into an archeologist because of a pretty girl?" Hope teased.

  "I didn't say you were pretty," I said, huffing.

  "You did last night," Hope said softly. "Was that a lie, too?"

  "What? No. I . . . Why are we talking about this? We're going to die in this room. Shouldn't you be more worried about that?"

  "I don't want to think about that. And I just found out that my girlfriend is a thief that was out to steal my entire life's work. Which is a little more interesting than my inevitable death. Was seducing me a part of the plan?"

  "Hah! No. Are you kidding? I didn't seduce anyone."

  "You're the one who came to my tent with wine."

  "That . . . was after."

  "After?"

  "After I started liking you."

  "Oh?"

  "At first, I was just studying to make sure that I didn't get caught. Then you came around to tutor me. And when I found that wine, I wasn't trying to . . ."

  "I was," Hope said, leaning back against the pedestal.

  "What?"

  "Oh, I bought that wine and gave it to the guy you bought it from."

  "What? Why?"

  "So, you'd buy it and make a move," she said, unable to keep the smile out of her voice. "You were taking forever. So, I wanted to give you a push."

  "That's devious!" I said, laughing.

  "Well, if I had known you were a thief, I may have tried something more devious. I didn't know it was a competition yet." Hope looked over at me. "Are you done moping yet?"

  "Moping?"

  "Yeah. It's not like you to give up. After all, you did learn how to be an archeologist in a few months. How hard could it be for a thief to get out of one room?"

  "I . . . Fine. I don't know what we can do, but I'll keep looking," I said, pushing myself up to my feet. I walked around the room. The room was humid. It looked like light was being dispersed from the ceiling, but I didn't understand how they had done that. The fact that this room existed at all still boggles my mind.

  "Cind, c'mere." Hope was hovering over the statue.

  "What is it?"

  "It's a little weird, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, I guess. I don't see how it's going to help us get out of here, though."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just odd," Hope said, shaking her head. "I guess I can't suppress the archeologist in me."

  "Yeah, I know what you mean."

  "She has your eyes, though?"

  "What?" I asked, turning back to her and the statue. She gestured to the sapphires.

  "I . . ." I leaned closer. A little too close. I fell over and headbutted the statue, which toppled over. Panicking, I grabbed my hands, caught it, and clutched it to my chest. Then there was a jolt that went through me. A weird hum resonated through my body. Everything went black. Then the black cleared a little bit, with little sparks way off in the distance. Then those became stars as my vision cleared more. I spun around. My body felt weird; there was no resistance; I realized I wasn't touching the ground. I looked around and couldn't find anything but the inky darkness and the stars. But I heard a voice.

  "Cindi! Cindi! Wake up!" I shuddered awake, and I saw Hope crying over me. I pressed my hand into her cheek.

  "Hey, H. It's okay. I just took a little nap."

  "A n-nap? You started to fall through the ground!"

  "What? What are you talking about?" I asked, sitting up. I looked down at myself and saw my clothes lying on the floor. "Why am I naked? Were you . . . ?"

  "What? No! That's what I'm saying! They just fell off!" Hope exclaimed. "Fell through you!"

  "Hope . . . That's crazy." I realized I was still holding the statue and sat it down and got dressed again. Then I opened my bag and put the figure in it.

  "What are you doing?" Hope asked, sniffling.

  "Well, we'll probably need something to sell if we get out of here. Something to get us back home." I started walking around the room, and that weird resonance went through my body, and I felt a wave go through me, and my foot got caught on something. I looked down, and it was a pair of shorts. My shorts. "What the hell is happening?"

  "See! It happened again!"

  "What?" I asked, pulling my shorts back up. "Maybe they're just loose or something. I don't know."

  I was being a little thick, and it took five more accidental stripping sessions to accept that something weird was happening. And poor Hope wasn't even able to enjoy the show at all. Though it was less theatrical than I would do now. But hindsight, and all that. Through a little trial and error, I figured out that I could get out of the room. And we were saved. I didn't have the level of control I do now, so I had to go slow, and Hope was incredibly scared to go with me through the wall, but we escaped.

  When we got back to town, Hope's face was everywhere. She was being blamed for the most significant art heist in history. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of antiquities had gone missing, and she had supposedly gone into hiding.

  "We can just go to the cops and clear everything up," Hope insisted after we found out.

  "If they believe our story."

  "What story? We were in the excavation team for the ruins."

  "It won't explain where all of the pieces went. To clear your name, we'd have to turn in Shai."

  "So? He tried to kill you. It's too good for him."

  "And then he'd just plead out and turn me in as the Mastermind of all of it. Also, his story would stand up better. A significant portion of our story involves us locked in a room that we can't get back into and an escape that . . ." I froze, looking at my hand. It became somewhat translucent before my eyes. I held it up to her face, and she blanched a little.

  "I still think we should."

  "I'm telling you, cops are not our friends in this situation."

  "And who are our friends?" Hope asked. "I'm not a thief. I don't know what to do, Cind!"

  "We'll figure something out. Sell this piece and get out of the country. Get home."

  "And what will we do then?"

  "I don't know. Go to Shai. Get my share. It's enough to retire on."

  It was not that simple, unfortunately. No one would touch the idol. Not with how hot everything had become on the black market. It was a massive theft. They froze all of Hope's accounts, and when she went to the bank to try and withdraw some money, she was arrested. She wasn't cut out for this life. At least not yet. I struggled with what to do. I didn't want to leave her behind. But I also didn't want to get caught, myself. And I was having trouble controlling my new powers. My clothes would come off at the most inopportune times. I had to spend any time in public desperately clinging to every scrap of will to keep them up.

  Eventually, I decided I couldn't just leave her behind. I scraped together just enough of an identity to get a visitation as she awaited trial for her crimes. When I saw her, she was a wreck. She had lost weight, and her face had become harsher and more angular. She had bruises and a black eye. It hurt to see her like that. "What happened?"

  "The . . . people in here . . . they're animals, Cind. You need to get me out of here."

  "How?"

  "I don't care! Just do it. I can't. . . I can't do it. You can get me out of here. I know you can."

  "They won't believe anything I say, H."

  "Don't talk to them. Can you still . . ." She looked around and got closer to the glass separating us. "Can you still go through stuff?"

  "Yeah," I said hesitantly. "But I'll lose all my clothes if I do. I still can't figure out how to keep them on when I'm. . ."

  "Cind, please. Am I not worth a pair of pants?"

  "Of course you are!" I all but shouted. "But what am I supposed to do? Just grab you and run naked through the streets."

  "Just get me out of here!" She demanded, slamming her hand on the table. One of the guards started moving over to her. "Please!"

  The guard grabbed her arm and started pulling her away roughly. I swallowed. This was a bad idea. I stood up and phased through the bars and the table. Hope cried out in joy. And while I would like to think that it was a response to my nudity, with my clothes hanging limply on the table behind me, it was more likely her imminent escape inspiring such joy. The guard turned and dropped his ward's hand to grab at a weapon, a taser. He lifted it, and I ducked under his aim and punched him in the ribs. He grunted but threw me off. I rebounded off the wall and dived for Hope. I grabbed her hand and started to phase through the floor, but something pierced me. Kind of. When I go through something, there is still a slight resistance that needs to be overcome. Sort of like swimming. Everything becomes equally dense to me. Curt often says I can fly, but I mostly swim through things. And I still kind of interact with the things that go through me. Which was a problem. Because I vaguely felt the barbs of the taser sink into me and the guard pulled the trigger. I felt a powerful jolt go through my whole body, and I collapsed on the ground and shuddered violently. I couldn't move. He stopped and started moving closer to me.

  "Cind, we have to go. Get up. I need you. Damn it, Cindi!" Hope cried. I watched her look at the taser lines stuck in my skin, and she dove for them. She couldn't get them out, but she ripped the taser from the man's hand. He tackled her and pinned her to the ground. I pushed myself to my knees shakily. Then I rushed over to him, kneed him in the ribs, and made him off her. I grabbed her arm and started pulling her along. We were on the third floor of the large prison they were holding her in, and I didn't like what I had to do. It was probably going to hurt as much as the taser. And be longer-lasting. I dashed through the wall, dragging Hope behind me. I started falling, and then I felt my leg yanked up, and I started falling headfirst to the ground, and I felt the barbs of the taser that I had been dragging behind me rip out.

  The ground rushed up to meet me, because who wouldn't, honestly? But suddenly, it stopped. Before Hope and I splattered to the ground, we stopped and floated a few feet above the exercise yard. Sirens started going off, and people started firing guns at me. The bullets went through us. I felt my entire body ripple around them; the sensation was so weird that I lost concentration and fell the last few feet to the ground. Hope and I grunted, and I pulled myself to my feet. I grabbed Hope, and as I pulled her up, a bullet went straight through her shoulder, and she yelled out in pain. I clutched to her and started running. I concentrated hard as I saw men shooting at us. The bullets phased through us and caused the weird rippling again; I gritted my teeth and made it through. We hid behind a wall, catching our breaths for a moment. Hope was gasping in pain. I pulled her along, and she ran with me. I cursed the lack of clothes. Damn it! I could really use a sports bra right now. Or a regular bra. Or a shirt. Or fucking anything! We got to the wall, and I dived through, dragging a bleeding Hope with me.

  We spent the next few weeks lying low. Hope's escape was all over the news and my face, disguised under some heavy makeup and a wig I had kept, was out there. The story of how she escaped was mixed and confused, and no one was sure what to believe. I found a doctor to treat Hope, and she recovered. And I went back to who I really was. Not Cindi the archeologist. I am a thief. I always have been and always will be. I stole food, clothes, shelter, and everything not bolted down.

  And for a while, that was good enough. I got better with my new powers. We couldn't go back to the archeology site to learn more about what caused them. But I had the idol. Hope was sure that they were tied together. She was what made that time bearable. We were together. Which was more than I had the last time I had been a street rat, running around, scrounging for food and shelter. She was always a comfort. And she picked up on the streets fast; she hated the situation and hardened quickly. She had come to my line of thinking about the cops not being our friends and avoided them whenever possible. And it was her focus that really got us through it.

  "We need to get back to the states," was something she would constantly say. And eventually, she even came up with a plan. With my powers, we would get some new identities and money and just get back there. As though that were so easy. We found someone who had the equipment, and I thought about just trying to buy it, but it would be ten grand to afford new identities like that. And that was well more than we could get easily. So, we spent some time collecting money. Doing odd jobs. Hope became a Mastermind in her own right. She would set out the target and come up with a plan. None of them had to be incredibly complicated. There weren't a lot of places prepared for the woman who would become Buck Cherry just yet. Because, again, who could be?

  One of the problems with dealing with criminals is that not a lot of them work in good faith. After months of living in the Middle East, we had enough to afford two identities. Or we would have if someone hadn't decided to stiff us on our last payout. We had given the client everything they asked for, and they decided to bring in the cops when we went to collect. And that's the first sign that Hope had become too hard. During our meeting, a detective came in, brandished a gun, and went to cuff her, but she shot him. She just took out a gun . . . that I hadn't known she had and shot him. In front of all of us. His partner came in, and she shot him too. Then she fired on the client and walked out of the room. Even still, I was happy just to have her around. So we stuck together. At the time, it seemed reasonable.

  And we did buy our new identities, eventually. After almost two years in the Middle East, from the start of the job, we escaped. And that's also when Hope surprised me with something. The marriage certificate.

  "Now it's official!" She exclaimed. I was stunned; We had talked about it. But, when staring at the paper, I couldn't believe it.

Certificate of Marriage

This certifies that Hope Lesslier and Cindi Drei were united in marriage on the day of 19th of June, 2017.

Witnessed and Celebrated by:

Selina Hardy

Felicia Kyle

Lona Anderson

We kept the idol. No one would sell it, and now that I was convinced it was tied to my powers, I hid it. I don't know what would happen if it was destroyed. I don't know if I'd keep my abilities, lose them, or even worse; I was getting used to them. And she had made that my identity. Which I guess I was on my way to developing a reputation. But she had linked us together. And without any ceremony. A ceremony I didn't know I wanted. "Now that we've tied the knot. We'll be together forever."

  She seemed so excited about it. And I tried to share her enthusiasm, but things had started changing. Her idealism had been dimmed by her time on the run. And when we got back to the states, things got worse. I figured we would just try to find a way to survive. Maybe try to carve out a sense of normalcy. Maybe she would get a job as a professor. Even then, I think I knew that was a pipe dream. She was just as much of a thief as I was now. Maybe more so. We did more jobs in the states, and she got even harder as things went on. The stress of being a criminal on the run never gave her a chance to become the woman she used to be again. The harsh cheekbones that she developed in prison only worsened. And so did her itchy trigger finger. If a client even hinted at betraying us, she would kill them. I didn't know that. I usually just gave her the stuff.

  But our work dried up after a while, and I started to look into why. And I found out about our reputation; we were coldblooded murderers. People were afraid of us. We were effective but also had a hair-trigger, apparently. When I confronted her about this, she just said, "I'm not going back to jail. I'm not getting caught over some stupid, petty bullshit. People want to fuck with me, with us, and I won't hold back. Not anymore."

  That's when I noticed the change in her. But I was still in love. Mostly. That was around the time that I got caught stealing The Cherries, and I was given my name. Hope hated it. I actually really enjoyed it. There was a lot of attention on me. Alone. It was kind of vindicating. I became more daring with my crimes, a little more public. And eventually, Shai contacted me.

  "Hey, kid. I'm glad to see you survived that little misunderstanding. I see you're making a name for yourself. Some pretty big . . . cherries ya got on you, I'll give you that." I listened to the message a few times; I couldn't believe it. I felt the tears leaking down my cheeks. I didn't tell Hope; I didn't want to remind her that Shai existed. I hadn't realized that she had never forgotten him. And certainly never forgiven him.

  One day, she came to me with a surprise. "C'mon, Cind. I got something to show you."

  We took a train, rented a car, and drove to a very remote part of Virginia. When we got to a small cabin, I had all kinds of thoughts in my head. Maybe it was a vacation spot? Maybe it's going to be our new home. We have the money to just live in peace for a long while. Maybe it's just a weekend getaway. I didn't know what to think. But I didn't expect what was waiting for me behind that door. I opened it up, and Shai, Jesse, James, and Harry were all bound and gagged in the room. They all looked up and tried to cry out. "What is this?"

  "What we need. Closure," she said, cocking her gun. She handed one to me, and I looked down at it.

  "Closure?" I asked. I looked into the faces of my old friends; My hand started shaking. Some part of me was still angry with them. They had abandoned me. But I also understood that, to some degree, that was part of the game.

  "Yeah, closure. I've been waiting for so long for this." She sashayed over to Shai and pointed the gun directly between his brown eyes. He screamed.

  "H-Hope, are you sure you want to do this?"

  "He took my life away from me, Cindi," she said, looking back at me. Her face softened when she looked at me. "Our life. We could've been together. I could be a professor now; I could have taught people so much. An entire generation of archeologists. With what we found? With your powers? We could've found who knows what with your abilities and my know-how."

  "Why can't we still do that?" I asked, my voice cracking.

  "Because he took it away. He made me do this. He made me into a killer."

  "But he brought us together. Isn't that something?"

  "Of course, Cind! I love you," she said softly. "But I can't forgive him. He stole the life I was supposed to have with you. My reputation, my career, my . . . Everything. He took away everything. And you gave me you. He wanted to take even you from me."

  She fired, and Shai was no more. The other three jumped and cried out. They tried to wriggle out of their bonds but couldn't manage it. "C'mon, Cind. Let's finish this. Then we can go get dinner."

  My hand was shaking. I didn't know what to do; I didn't want to kill them. I walked forward and started to lift the gun. She smiled at me until I pointed it at her. "What are you doing, my love? You can't kill me. We're together. Forever."

  "N-no. I c-can't do this. I can't kill them," I said.

  "So you're going to kill me?" She walked up to me, smiling. It was a vicious thing. Not like the time before all of this. She slapped me, and I went to the ground. "Cindi, you have to learn how to be harder. You taught me a lot, but you're still too soft for this. You care too much about the people who betray you. I'll do this for you. Because I have to."

  She shot the other three. I couldn't watch; they were my friends. She was my . . . She was my wife; my wife had just killed my friends. For revenge. In some ways, she was doing it for me. And I hated it. She walked up to me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to my feet. My eyes met hers, and I could feel her hand in mine. It had always been calloused and strong, but it felt hard now. Her eyes, her face, her body were all hard; she wasn't my Hope anymore. And she hit me. She actually hit me. And if I let her, she'd kill me too. If I betrayed her, whatever that means, she'll kill me, too. My hand shook in hers. And that's when I learned about my stunning ability. A tingle ran down my arm and shot into her, and she went limp, falling to the ground. Before she was even all the way down, I started running. I couldn't do this.

  "Cindi! No, Cindi! Come back! You can't do this. I'm your wife!" Her voice became harsher as she cried out in rage. "You are mine! You can't just leave me here!"

  The words struck me, and I stopped. I looked back at her. "I-I don't belong to anyone! I decide who I am."

=== PRESENT DAY ===

"It's good to see you, Cind," Hope said, smiling softly through the bars.

  "So, what's the plan, Hope? Just going to keep me trapped here? Do you really think I didn't come here without an escape plan?" I reached in and grabbed a popper, and pressed the button. Nothing happened. I pushed it again. Fuck. Curt can teleport anywhere in the world, but the one fucking time I needed it, it won't work. Maybe Hope knows how to block it, somehow. I leaned down, started digging through my bag, and grabbed the little EMP generator. Hope watched me placidly. I made sure to close the bag to protect all of the other electronics and clicked the button. The lights flickered for a split second and died all around the room. The instant they did, I jumped through the bars, phasing through them, my tank top and shorts being left behind on the floor, but the bag came with me. I landed on the other side and started dashing for the door.

  "Oh, I figured you'd have a plan," she called after me. I didn't turn back to look at her. I started to phase through the glass door on the other side, and I felt barbs pierce inside me and a jolt of electricity. My body convulsed, and I became solid again. The glass shattered around me, and I collapsed on the balcony, shuddering. I reached behind me and tried to pull the barbs out as I heard footsteps walking over to me. I convulsed violently as more electricity was pumped into me. As my vision dimmed, I saw a pair of shoes step in front of me. "I do know you, after all. I am your wife."