Page 30 of The Thief
Marcus leads me upstairs, Freddie trailing behind like a bodyguard. The blue room is exactly what you'd expect—tasteful, expensive, sterile. Like a hotel suite decorated by someone who's never had to live in it.
"Bathroom's through there," Marcus says, pointing to a door. "Breakfast's in thirty minutes. Henry likes punctuality."
"What if I'm not hungry?"
His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "You'll be hungry."
He leaves, closing the door behind him with a soft click. And suddenly I'm alone in a dead man's room, surrounded by ghosts I never knew I had.
The walls are covered with photos. Dad as a teenager, grinning with boys who must be his brothers, his cousins. Dad in a suit, shaking hands with important-looking men. Dad holding a baby—me, I realize with a start. It must have been one of the few times he brought me here when I was too young to remember.
There's a photo on the nightstand that stops me cold. Dad and a woman I recognize from old pictures—my mother, before she became the bitter stranger who walked out on me. They're dancing at what looks like a wedding, both of them young and beautiful and completely in love.
Before Belfast. Before me. Before everything went to hell.
I sink onto the bed, overwhelmed. Too much information, too many emotions I don't know how to process. My entire life has been a lie, and now I'm supposed to just smile and play happy families with people who never bothered to find me until it was convenient.
A soft knock interrupts my spiral. "Come in."
Freddie appears in the doorway, looking uncertain. Like he's not sure if he's welcome.
"You alright?"
"Peachy."
He steps into the room and closes the door behind him. "That's the second time you've lied to me today."
"Who's counting?"
"I am."
He sits on the edge of the bed, careful to keep distance between us. Close enough to talk, far enough away that I don't feel cornered.
"This is hard," he says. "Finding out everything you believed was wrong. Having strangers tell you who you're supposed to be."
"Is that what this is? Strangers telling me who I'm supposed to be?"
"Partly. But also family trying to figure out where you fit."
"And if I don't want to fit?"
"Then you don't fit. Your choice."
Simple words, but they carry weight. Nobody's said that to me since Dad died—that I have choices, that what I want matters.
"Henry seems to think I don't have a choice."
"Henry's old and used to getting his way, but he can't make you stay if you don't want to."
"Can't he?"
Freddie's quiet for a moment, considering. "He could try. But it wouldn't work. You're not the type to be caged."
"How do you know what type I am?"
"Because I've been watching you for days. Because I saw how you handled those men in the alley. Because you'd rather fight the world alone than accept help from people you don't trust."
All true. But hearing it laid out like that makes me sound pathetic, stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.
