She thought back to her mother. She remembered her long red hair and her bright smile, but little else. At times she wondered if those were really her own memories or those from a photograph she had. She did remember bits and pieces of the afternoon grandma came to pick her up from daycare instead of mom. This lady she had never met before drove her to a small house that seemed so far away at the time. All her toys were already there, and she was told the bad news, mom wasn’t coming home again. Something bad had happened. All Madeline had left were family pictures of mom and a necklace. Grandma had told her that her mother would have wanted her to have it and that it would bring her close to mom’s spirit when she wore it. It was a gorgeous, sparkling opal, and Madeline would stare at it for hours as a child, watching the light dance off the rainbow of colors set in the black stone. She had hardly removed it since.

Growing up with grandma had been wonderful. She was kind, helped Madeline through school, taught her to cook and to appreciate music. She also taught Madeline how to be independent and the importance of being strong, both in mind and body. She was a bit eccentric, talking to herself from time to time, or acting like she was talking to the grandpa Madeline never knew, but never anything that made Madeline feel uncomfortable. About five years ago, grandma passed away. Madeline was able to sell her house for enough to pay off the rest of the mortgage and had money to spare to get herself into an apartment.

Levi had done his own research into her family background before he took the job to rescue her. He didn’t ask Madeline about her dad because there wasn’t a father listed on the birth certificate. Her mom, Elizabeth McCaffery, had been a single mother. The rest of the story pretty much went as Madeline told it. After her mother’s death, her grandmother, Dorothy McCaffery, was granted full custody and raised her granddaughter on her own modest pension. Her grandfather, Albert McCaffery, had passed on some twenty years ago. Levi had searched even deeper into Madeline’s family background hoping to find something that would directly, or indirectly, tie her to the fae, but came up empty. For all intensive purposes, she was a normal, lower-class human girl. However, it was very possible someone had covered up her or her family’s tracks. There had to be something, he just hadn’t found it yet, and that intrigued him. No simple, lower-class human was worth that much money.

“I guess you can say the necklace is important to me, but I can’t imagine why it would be important to anyone else unless they wanted to sell it.”

Reflecting back on the night she was kidnapped, she remembered how they shoved her down on her bed when she tried to run out of the room. When they grabbed at her necklace, she thought they were going to rape her. A paralyzing chill ran down her spine as she dwelled on that single moment.

“They only tried to take it off me once, now that I think about it,” she said, her voice a bit shaky from the memory, “When they first broke into my apartment. Then they started to go through my jewelry box. Maybe it’s not this necklace they were looking for? Do you think they will try again?”

“Probably. Without knowing why they were so interested in the first place, I can’t even guess if it will be the fae that come back looking or others.”

“Others?”

“Vampires, shapeshifters, phantoms... basically if you’ve heard of some sort of monster, they exist in one form or another. Myths always have a basis in truth.”

He could tell she was considering all the possible fiction vs. reality situations deeply now, as her gaze was a dozen fables away, and clearly shaken. His voice softened, hoping to cushion the blow of the reality she was going to have to deal with from this point forward.

“Think of it this way - most of the world is dead to what’s going on, draped in blindness, like there's a shroud of gossamer keeping them from seeing what's really there. Everyday things reinforce that blindness. Take the news for example. Or social media. All the trending stories are just distractions. They keep the public fighting and arguing differences of opinions, and redirect any focus from things that are actually important. And the few people who rip away the gossamer, be it by chance or by choice, realize that to survive they have to support the deceit and the distractions. If they don't... well, you know what happens to people spouting nonsense about monsters and conspiracies...”

He leaned forward, green eyes locked curiously on the pendant.

“May I?” he asked politely.

Madeline nodded and set her coffee mug down on the polished, wooden table.

He took a seat, dragging it right up to Madeline. He was so close she could once again smell the exotic, woodsy scent she first encountered the night she clung to his back on the motorcycle. Carefully, with his index finger and thumb, he lifted the pendant so expertly off her skin that she didn’t even feel his touch. He stared at it intensely and rubbed it between his fingers so it caught the light at different angles, completely ignoring the increased rate of Madeline’s heartbeat. It warmed to the friction of his touch, which he expected, but he couldn’t detect anything unusual about it from this rudimentary inspection. It appeared to be a genuine black opal, with a multi-colored, diamond pattern blazing with depth and clarity. It had none of the characteristics he was specifically looking for, which would have flagged it as something more than just a precious stone. He could mess with it further, but that would require her to remove it and give it to him for a bit of undisturbed study, which he wasn’t in much of a mood to do.

“Sorry, but I don’t see anything other than a fine quality black opal.”

He let it slip from his fingers and fall back against her skin a few inches under the base of her throat. It felt very warm when it landed, but it soon cooled back down to her own body temperature to the point that she could no longer feel its presence.

“Do you remember anything else while they had you?” Levi continued. “Anything they might have said, or anyone that came to see them?”

Levi already knew they were petty thugs as far as fae went, so it was obvious they were working for someone higher up on the food chain.

Madeline thought deeply, trying to remember their conversations. They talked about beer, and they argued over their card game and if someone had been cheating. And then there was that one phone call.

“They did take a few phone calls while I was there. That one guy did. The one I strangled,” she said, smiling briefly in between bites of egg. “I think it was the second day I was there. He made a call to someone and then told the other guys that there was going to be a delay because something happened in court. Maybe someone got arrested or something?”

Levi knew what that meant. Whomever arranged her kidnapping couldn’t move her because of some unexpected activities in the fae court, which meant the person behind this was probably an actual courtier. Beneficial to them was the fact that it was against court policy to kidnap humans, so whomever was behind this was going to lay low for a while.

Picking up the coffee cup once again, Madeline took a couple more sips, trying to appear calm on the outside even though she felt she was shaking to pieces on the inside. There was a gentle, late afternoon breeze reminding her how good it felt to be free from her captives, but was her future going to be spent running? And how long could she run? Realistically? If Leviticus hadn’t been there to save her, it’s possible she could be dead right now. She certainly was no match for fighting off something like the fae if they wanted to outright kill her. Sensing her troubled mind, Levi rose from his chair and walked around to where she sat. Placing his hands lightly on her shoulders from behind, he tried to reassure her.

“Not all the monsters are bad,” he said calmly. “For instance, not all fae are like the ones that kidnapped you. Just like with humans, there are the good and the evil. And someone cared enough to hire me to rescue you. That in itself is a sign that you are not as alone and defenseless as you feel right now.”

His hands felt warm and relaxing, and despite the path that lay before her now, she felt a little better about it. Then again, she didn’t know if she was trusting of him because she was still in a fragile state of mind, or if he really was a kind person.

“What do I do now? I am afraid of going back to my apartment. They know I live there, so it would be stupid of me to go back. I have to disappear, don’t I?”

She sounded so sad, and yet so resolved in her decision that Levi wasn’t really sure how to respond. She definitely couldn’t go back. It would be too dangerous for her.

“Normally, I would have been sent a drop-off location for the objective,” Levi began, “Which is you, in this case. Odd thing is, I haven’t heard a peep from my broker in nearly two days, and that’s unusual.”

The last communication with his broker, Syriem, was the night he brought Madeline to his condo. He figured once she was safe, he would get instructions on what to do with her, who to take her to, etc… But there had been no response. That made things troublesome. He couldn’t just kick her out.

Stepping away from her, he slowly walked over to the balcony railing and looked out over the city. The caliber of her desire, which was above her species’ normal grade, would be an asset to keep close by. It would be like having his own rechargeable battery if he played his cards right. Not knowing why her emotions were so potent both bothered and fascinated him, and he’d never had a live-in pet before. It might work out, and it might not. Either way, it would only be for as long as it took for the client to claim her.

“We can head over to your apartment tomorrow and start the process of getting you off the grid. You can store your stuff here for now,” He said still overlooking the city, with his back to her.

“I don’t have my keys though,” she replied, “But I can call the leasing office and have them let us in.”

“That’s not going to be necessary,” Levi replied, turning around to face her. “We need the whole process to appear so normal that it’s boring, so we don’t even want your leasing office to know anything other than you’re moving out. Getting into your locked apartment is going to be the easiest part.”

Madeline’s blue eyes widened as she put two and two together.

“So that’s what you meant by retrieving stuff,” she realized. “You’re a thief.”

Levi frowned.

“Don’t make it sound so degrading,” he responded, put off by what the word implied. “There are a lot of precious things that get stolen from good people. And more often than not, those good people don’t have any way to get things back on their own without risking their lives. I steal from the greedy and manipulative and return the items back to their rightful owners. I don’t steal just to fence stuff. Unless someone pisses me off.”

Guilt spread across Madeline’s face.

“I’m sorry, that was really rude of me,” she apologized, looking away. “I didn’t realize.” She paused a moment in thought as she took another long sip of the rich coffee he had made. “That actually sounds like a really rewarding way to live,” she continued rather quietly. “To be able to give people back what they had stolen from them. To give them back hope. I bet you make a lot of people extremely happy.”

“The people I steal from aren’t too happy about it.”

“But you can take care of yourself. The way you fought was amazing.”

“It’s rarely that heroic.”

Madeline gnawed her lower lip, apprehensive about what she was about to ask next.

“Could you teach me how to fight? I’m not expecting to be able to be anywhere near as good as you, but I have taken some karate classes, so I know some basics at least, and I’ve been told I’m very good at it. It will increase my chances of survival.” Madeline began to raise her voice nervously. “And in return, I’ll owe you a bunch of favors… I don’t know… maybe help with trivial jobs or be a lookout or something? Please… at least it will give me a better chance to live through this.”

There was a very long pause as Levi considered it. In fact, he was surprised at himself for actually even thinking about it at all. He’d never taught anything to anyone before, let alone a human. Still, she was impressive in the warehouse, all things considered. She didn’t hesitate for a second when it came time to try to get herself out of that cage, even though it meant exposing herself. And she handled the fae pretty fearlessly given the fact she had just found out that whole world even existed. She definitely wasn’t timid, and it might be amusing. To see how far he could push her. To see at what point she would break. He was fairly sure she would get discouraged after a few weeks or so and that would be that. Not to mention she was a pretty little thing he would get to play with.

“Sure. Why not,” he replied. “It isn’t going to be easy though. And you will owe me many favors.”

She brightened up. At least she had something to focus on besides the possible dangers she faced.

“You can continue to stay here for now in the guest bedroom,” he began. “Not sure if you noticed, but it has its own full bath. And for the time being, I don’t want you going out on your own. The reason I mention that is because there will be times I am gone, often for weeks at a time, so I wouldn’t be around to keep an eye on you. Let’s go back inside.”

As Madeline stood with her coffee cup in hand, Levi grabbed his cup and the empty plate and stepped through the opened sliding glass door. Motioning for her to have a seat on the couch, he walked into the kitchen to put the tableware in the sink and then walked back out to the living room to close the sliding door to the balcony. As he took a seat in the adjacent armchair and propped his bare feet up on the oak coffee table, she couldn’t help but feel his proximity within the walls of the apartment. She internally scolded herself for checking him out at a time like this. Before meeting her gaze, he smiled as if he knew what she was thinking.

“I will try to focus my work around this location so I will be here more often than usual. I’ll leave you some numbers you can call if you need groceries delivered, or something needs to be fixed in the condo while I am out. I’ll cover all costs upfront, so you don’t need to worry about money, but I do expect you to cook for me when I am here.”

Madeline nodded.

“When I’m here, we’ll be training. When I’m not here, you’ll be studying languages and cultures. The first language you are going to learn is Japanese because it’s my native language. I’ll make some calls to prepare us for tomorrow, and we’ll need to go over the details and develop a scenario.”