Waiting. One of the worst kinds of torture. And Luan was stuck in it. Serves him right, considering what led to it, but still. He hated waiting. There were so many things he could be doing instead.
His leg bounced frantically as he sat, watching the street below.
The room he was in had seen better days, that's for sure. It was an abandoned building, one of many in this part of town. Mira sat on the floor, a blanket keeping the dust at bay as she played with the plush shark and tiger he'd picked up for her. She really seemed to like them, considering she'd refused to put them down once they'd been introduced.
Whatever kept her happy and quiet.
This was one kid Luan didn't want talking. However her father had raised her, she clearly had some insane ideas
A man in a dark coat appeared on the street Luan was watching. He had a large hat, with sunglasses and a mask to keep his face concealed.
Finally.
The wait was over.
The man wandered over to the bench across from the building Luan was in. Taking out a parchment wrapped package the size of a small book, he placed it next to him as he sat down. The plan was in motion.
"Mira". She looked up at her name, golden eyes focusing onto the man at the windows.
"Yeah?" She asked, head tilting a bit to the right.
"You ready to see your dad?" Luan turned to her as he inquired.
Her eyes lit up at the question.
"Is he here?!" An excited note slipped out as she stood up, running to windows he was sitting at, the tiger and shark clutched tight in her arms.
"There." Luan pointed to the man on the bench, the package still sitting by him.
"Hmmmm." She scrunched up her nose in thought as she looked at the overdressed man.
"Are You sure? That guy doesn't look as handsome as Papa."
"It's probably whoever he sent to get you. I'd imagine this kind of thing to be a bit tedious for a man in his position. Ya know, running the entire city, and all that." Luan answered, studying the man closely.
Even hunched over, as he was, he seemed tall. Broad shoulders pulled back the ends of the coat, hinting to some serious muscles underneath.
Luckily, Luan wouldn't have to deal with this enigma, if the plan went accordingly.
"Alright, ready as we'll ever be, right Mira?" Luan asked, scooping her up with her little treasures as he made his way to the rickety staircase in the hallway.
She, of course, smiled brightly, as though they were on their way to a walk in the park. Maybe he could borrow her optimism, and just not stress about his life dangling by a thread by the choices he'd made. Not like it was his fault he'd lost the dang thing in the first place, but he had chosen the means with which he was trying to get it back.
Smarter people would be mocking him for this disaster of a plan. There had to have been better options, but going for a weakness like a tiny child seemed so appealing at the time. He didn't expect her to be mildly pleasant, though awfully open to strange ideas that were bound to get her in a world of trouble someday.
And he certainly didn't expect to enjoy her company, if just a little. Moving on, time to un-kidnap a child and steal something that already belonged to him. A world of strange phenomena, for sure.
Getting to the end of the stairs that would lead out of the crumbling building, Luan lowered her to the floor. Kneeling down, he put his face at Mira's level.
"Remember, you wait here until you hear the big boom sound, understand?"
"Yep. It's big and loud, and prolly scary, right?" She asked, using the words he'd told her earlier.
He nodded, pulling her hair out of her golden eyes a bit as he looked at her. He really would kidnap her again, if he needed to. Despite his initial concerns before, he had actually enjoyed his time with her. Even when she tried to proposition him to be her new mother, something he hoped she'd keep quiet about on her return home.
"It won't hurt you a bit, so just make sure you stand right outside of here and wave to the big man in all the clothes when you hear it, okay?" He needed her to follow the small part of the plan, or else it might not work so well.
She nodded again, a determined look entering her eyes.
"I'm gonna go see papa and tell him all about you, mommy." Of course, Luan should be used to her going right past whatever he hoped, and just stabbing his dreams to death with every deluded, ill-conceived word she uttered.
"I'm not your mother, and you will tell your father nothing about me. If he finds out anything that could help him find me, I would be in a world of suffering, Mira. So you say nothing. Remember, it's our little secret, which means you can't tell anyone, or I won't ever share secrets with you again, understand?" He punctuated every last word with a little point of his finger in her face, trying to get the importance of secrecy across to this deranged little creature.
She nodded vigorously, like she actually understood.
Luan didn't believe a single motion of her head, but he sighhed nonetheless, standing and preparing to send the little traitor back to the man that would kill him.
Catch him if he could, right? Time to just play the game, and let the cards fall where they may.
It was a temperate day, the sun shining brightly. Not the kind of day one dresses in all black, including a hat, face mask, and sunglasses for. Though the glasses would at least help with the blinding light the sun had a tendency to give off.
But, the point was, enigma man looked like he was here to make a strange deal with people that couldn't be trusted. Not something Luan appreciated him making known to every passer-by on the street. At least Luan had the decency to blend into the surrounding humans, passing off as another random blob.
He had gotten to the building behind the man, coming around the corner like he had other places to be. Just another face in the crowd. Approaching the bench, package in plain view, he pulled out a tiny button from his pocket. It looked like the kind you'd sew on your clothes, though the top of it came away from the rest a bit. One of his favorite bomb triggers ever.
"Boom." He whispered under his breath, clicking it softly as he got within five feet of the bench, pretending to be on his phone.
One second, one foot closer.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
A loud boom went off, an explosion rattling the windows all around as fire sprung up in one of the abandoned buildings down the road. Far away from where Mira was, but the perfect distraction to make the man turn away from the package. .
Luan swept it into his hand, depositing it in an inside pocket of his jacket as he went by. The streets filled with terrified screams, the pedestrians Luan had been using as cover turning into a horrified mass of fear. Passing the man in full disguise, he briefly made eye contact with the shades, hoping he didn't think he'd done anything other than stumble from the explosion down the road.
It was only a moment, and he found his breath a second later, the distance between them growing.
Looking at the building he'd left prior, Luan and the man seemed to sight Mira at the same time. She stood at the entrance, hands covering her ears tightly, decked out in a silver, frilly dress, covered by a dark purple coat. Her shark and tiger were in the crook of her elbow, holding onto them tightly even as she kept her ears protected from any more deafening sounds that might come. The pink framed shades sat in her dark locks, a few falling around her golden eyes.
The man made quick work of the distance between him and her. He bent down to her level, much like Luan had done previously, and lowered his shades sliver.
Luan almost completely stopped walking when he saw that. There was a golden glow that emitted from that crack. It seemed he'd been wrong. Mira's father had shown up personally to get her. And he had just made eye contact with the man as he stole from him. Again.
He only took a moment, before he couldn't stay here anymore. Not with that man so close. Luan took off sprinting, trying to put as much distance between them as he possibly could. There was no way he could let him catch him. Luckily, a lot of people were running away from the diversion he'd caused, so he disappeared fairly quickly.
It was only after he'd put a couple blocks between himself and certain death that he decided to check the package. He'd known it was a risk, to believe Dante would be honest with the exchange. But he had to trust it. There wasn't any other option. Having Mira present herself as he grabbed it was already risky enough.
He felt himself completely relax when he laid eyes on what was in the packaging. Beneath the paper sat a box, brown and unassuming. What was the point in even wrapping it? Lifting the lid from the box, he saw everything he'd risked his life for in the past two days.
It was a necklace. A simple chain wrapped around a small pendant. Said pendant had a gold casing, contained within only the simplest of pieces of chalcedony. It glowed a faint silvery blue. He only knew its name because of his mother. She had loved this necklace, telling him all about it, including the name of the stone when he'd asked.
He felt slight tears flow to the front of his eyes, fist clenching tightly to keep them inside. He hadn't cried since his mother died, and he wasn't going to cry now.
He checked over the piece, making sure there weren't any tracking devices hidden in its crevices. After deciding it was clean, he slipped it over his neck, tucking it into his shirt as he started moving again. He didn't dwell on the lack of warmth in his hand, absence of a smaller one leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
He'd hang around later, do a little surveillance to make sure Mira was happy and safe. If another kidnapping was necessary, he'd arrange it, but it might be better for them both if he could find a third party to undertake it. Seeing her again would make him not want to let her go again.
He wanted her to be happy, and it wasn't going to happen with him.