audacious
adj. showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks; showing an impudent lack of respect
She paced the room, studiously avoiding the strip of sunlight breaking through the heavy curtains. She could close them, but instead she brooded over the light.
Without warning, she grabbed the straw hat off a table and scurried out of the room into the hushed corridors. She skittered from one corner to the next, hands nervous on the brim of the hat. No one was there, it seemed, so she sped across the hall.
“What’re you doing?” a voice asked quietly, and she drew away from the doorknob with a hiss, whipping around in a swirl of annoyance and hair. It was one of his minions.
“Scared me,” she muttered, glaring up at him, but replaced it quickly with a smile. “He said I could borrow a book,” she explained, nodding at the door closed firmly against intrusion. “I forgot it.”
The man looked unsure. “You should wait--”
“Just a book, what’s wrong with a book?” she complained, her foot stamping. “Fine, I’ll wait,” she huffed, knocking her back against the wall and sliding down to the floor in a pile of grumpiness and crossed arms.
He sighed. “Fine, just be quick about it.”
She grinned and slipped past the door in a flash. He stayed in the hall. Good. But she had to be quick.
The small box behind the desk called to her, a beacon to her eye. She opened it carefully. There were several items held within, but she ignored all but one. She lifted the small ring gingerly, trying not to touch the other things--they weren’t hers.
Slipping it into her pocket, she flitted to one of the shelves, her fingers running across the spines quickly before she found the one she wanted.
“See? Just a book,” she told the man waiting for her, holding up the thick volume. “It’ll keep me out of your hair for a while, don’t you think?” And with that she twirled away, her hand slipping into her pocket.
Several hours had passed, but he could still tell someone had been here, a subtle shift in his private atmosphere. “Who was here?” he asked, knowing the guard would hear, eyes raking the room.
“Only the girl, Alannah,” he said, standing in the doorway.
“And why should she be allowed to enter?” he asked, moving behind his desk to the box.
The man was uneasy, he could feel it. “She just wanted a book,” he tried to explain as William snapped the lid shut on the box.
Cutting across the plush carpet, he peered at the wide slot, gaping in the book’s absence. A scowl crossed his face. “And you really think the girl is going to be reading Dostoyevsky for fun?” he asked quietly, his fingers resting on the empty shelf.
“I-it didn’t occur--”
“Yes, clearly it didn’t occur to you,” he interrupted in clipped tones, pulling his cell phone out, preparing to do damage control again. Her theft was so audacious, he wasn’t sure what else she might be up to. But he would deal with it, and her. “Crime and Punishment, indeed,” he muttered.
[ @cullenwrites ]
