Thief: The Scarab Beetle Series: #1 (The Academy) Read Online Free Page A

day. It couldn’t be another mall, as they’d likely cover any of the others now. There weren’t many crowded places with people carrying full wallets walking around. People rarely used cash these days anyway, since they had credit cards. The mall had been my best chance.
    And now that was ruined. Why now? Why when we were trying so hard to do this the right way? I only took what I needed. If I ever had the extra money to spare, I'd dump every last dollar I stole into some donation box for orphaned kids.
    I swallowed back a thick lump in my throat, letting the stream of water wash away my tears. I hated pickpocketing. I hated feeling like a thief. I hated living in a hotel, where men traveling on business stayed. I hated their lecherous eyes and their catcalls. I hated the constant nerve-wracking worry about needing to make rent, and always being a dollar short.
    I hated cringing every time I heard a siren passing by in the night. I always assumed they were coming for me.
    When I couldn’t stand the self-pity any more, I washed, shaved and shut off the water.
    I changed into to a pair of old pajama pants that belonged to Wil once, but had gotten too short for him. Since I was smaller, they were still snug but comfortable. I put on a black T-shirt. The pajama pants stuck to my skin, which was already itchy from the old, worn blades that liked to nick at the crevices behind my knees. I wasn’t sure why I bothered grooming at all, outside of trying to blend in at the mall. There was no one to impress. I couldn’t date anyone. I simply did it because I should and it wasted time.
    Holding the thin blue men’s razor made me think of my mother’s pink razors before she died. Back when I was little, maybe around six years old, I would sneak into the bathroom, and tamper with pink razors, and tampons, and other girl items she kept in a drawer away from everyone else’s toothpastes and washcloths. I didn’t have much to play with as a kid. Rocks and sticks weren’t allowed in the house, so I’d used the razors and the tampon box to build a pretend mansion, where little Molly and Polly Tampon lived in luxury with horses and breakfast cereals I saw on television, and toys overflowing from every closet.
    My mother had caught me and laughed at my imagination. “You’re my little storyteller,” she’d said, braiding a strand of my brown hair, the same color as hers. “Always something interesting. You don’t need a toy when you’ve got such vivid ideas of your own.”
    I sighed at the fogged hotel mirror, blinking away the memories. It was still too hard to think of her back then, because inevitably, I started thinking about the day she died.
    And that was something that made me angry at Jack. I was so tired of being angry, feeling a weight in the pit of my stomach that never went away. When Wil had his diploma, and finally settled into a college, I’d be able to strike out on my own. Then we’d leave Jack to his fate. He wouldn’t be able to come after us. I’d stay for Wil, but not a second more.
    A grumbling old voice, muffled through the bathroom door, broke my thoughts. “Where is she?”
    I made a face, and then drew a frowning face into the fogged up mirror that I thought mimicked my own. I didn’t really want to deal with Jack now. I hung my towel properly to let it dry and yanked open the door.
    Jack was leaning against the wall, his arm up ready to knock. His scruffy face was in dire need of a wash, with grime darkening the crevices. His teeth had yellowed. He had thread veins and a drinker’s nose. “What are you doing in there?” he asked, his question full of suggestive intent.
    “Nothing,” I said, trying to duck around him, and holding my breath as I did. I wasn’t sure how he managed to lure women to the hotel room. Probably on a promise of a twenty dollar bill he’d nipped from me. His heady armpit smell surely wasn’t what they were after.
    Jack coughed thickly, as if he had a fur ball.