Chapter 2
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
She frowned at the young woman in front of her. “April, I’ve told you before,” she subtly shifted away from the smell of oil and vodka and crossed her arms, “No Muggo– I mean, No-Maj clothing when you’re bartending.” It was a shift in her vernacular, one she made with ease, whether that was ‘Muggle’ in England or ‘No-Maj’ here. She needed contacts, people she could trust as much as anyone trusted anyone in their industry, and she got them by cultivating a reputation of speaking in the right language to the right person.
The girl tugged on her beanie and scowled. “Yeah, but–”
“No buts,” she interrupted, annoyed that she might have to explain again that the International Statute of Secrecy stated explicitly that wizarding kind had to dress in Muggo clothing when there were Muggos around. “You can either summon something from home or you can wear something from the employee lounge. I love your robes, kid,” April wore robes the same way punk kids wore clothes and Lou respected that, “but No-Majs won’t.”
April groaned and she sulked for a bit, but Lou stood fast and raised an eyebrow. Wisely, the girl shut up and went into the employee lounge that Lou had stocked with plain T-shirts and jeans. To the Muggo employees, she told them they were for bar emergencies. To the wizarding employees, she handed out a set and warned them about working with and among Muggos. April walked out looking for all the world like a normal teenager, complete with the scowl on her face, and raised both her eyebrows at Lou. Lou nodded, flashing her a small smile.
She didn’t often have to come to the club; she hired good people and the club was doing better than before. But she came anyway and sat at the end of the bar, sometimes bartending, other times simply watching the people around her, soaking herself in youth from afar and with a skeptical eye. She had her own fun, none of them brunette and none of them Debbie, and despite the niggling of guilt she felt sometimes she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She wasn’t a nun and she never found any of her sexual escapades at her club. No shitting where you eat, she thought absently as she winked at the pretty girl who was watching her. She watched in satisfaction at the blush that colored the girl’s cheekbones, a game she played with herself, and then she stole away to her office for some time alone.
She was touching up her notes on the security systems at Cairns Magical Bank of Queensland, contemplating a trip and a job back home, when she felt a burn in the back pocket of her leather pants. The casino chip she had cast a Protean Charm on was only linked to one other chip– the one she slipped into Debbie’s hands the last time she saw her. The letters on the chip had rearranged themselves, and despite all the cultivating of her professional poker face over the years, Lou couldn’t help but break into a grin at the words. They were so quintessentially Debbie that she could hear them in her head:
‘Where’s the fcking cemetery? 12pm? – D.’
Her fingers closed around the chip, and she imagined leaving the casino chip there, throwing it away, or better yet, simply replying with something cruel, like ‘Who’s this?’ It might be better for her, she thought, thinking of wet faces and the ocean next to Azkaban. Her therapist would probably agree, even though she also said that Lou’s problem was herself and not anyone else.
In the end, Lou’s reply was brief and true to form as well.
‘Use a Locating Spell. – L.’
She Apparated to the cemetery where Danny Ocean was buried five minutes early, knowing that Debbie would be early. Under the see-through umbrella she conjured, she was shielded from the slight drizzle and saw Debbie before Debbie saw her. She wasn’t all that surprised to find Debbie accompanied, so she walked around and waited at a respectable distance for what looked distinctly like Reuben, one of Danny Ocean’s old crew members, to finish whatever he was gesturing animatedly about.
She waved away the umbrella she conjured and felt around in the inner pockets of her robe for a piece of flesh-colored string. Danny taught her, long ago, in the wizarding casinos in Vegas, that a good con never let a chance for information go. She was paying tribute to him when she dropped the Extended Ear around the corner and listened to Reuben trying to get Debbie to stop whatever plan she had. Lou chuckled, fingering the string mindlessly. As if Debbie could ever be talked out of something she didn’t want to be talked out of.
“You know, I would’ve thought by now someone would have invented a more sophisticated eavesdropping method,” Debbie’s voice was suddenly louder and clearer than before, and Lou snapped her head up in time to watch as her turn the corner, carrying the Extended Ear in one hand. Reuben must have already Apparated away, because it was only Debbie, standing in front of her, one eyebrow raised and the corners of her mouth turning up. Her hair, still long and wavy and down to her chest, glowed in the misty sunlight, and she wore a black cloak embellished with gold along the edges. Pointed, and heeled, if Lou knew anything at all, black boots peeked out from under the sharp shouldered garment.
Lou grinned, not bashful in the slightest at having been caught. “Who’s to say I didn’t want to get caught?” She asked, breathing in the same, lavender smell that she’s thought of far too often over the past five years. Debbie opened her mouth to retort something, but Lou didn’t bother listening to her before pulling her into her arms. She pressed her lips to soft skin, and tried not to heave with the surge of relief that nearly overtook her.
She released Debbie before the hug began to feel stiff and grinned again. Debbie opened her mouth, glared at Lou, and sniffed, a pretty pink blush blossoming high on her cheekbones, “Careful. I’ve just been in the slammer.” Lou almost sighed; she had missed this. Lou defused tension with jokes, and Debbie deflected all sorts of emotion with them.
She briefly contemplated saying, ‘I missed you.’ ‘Let’s go home.’ or even ‘How are you?’ But she saw Debbie watching her carefully, not suspicious but careful nonetheless, and she saw the lines of weary that lined her chocolate brown eyes, so instead she said, “Really? Here I just thought you changed your Floo address.”
Debbie huffed a laugh, shaking her head. “Did you get the credit line?”
Lou shook her head. “I don’t know what it’s for, Deb.” It wasn’t a complete lie. She had a credit line ready and waiting, but she wasn’t completely without self-defense. Debbie rolled her eyes and sighed, and Lou had the sudden urge to reach out and pinch her cheeks. She indulged herself, “Don’t make that face.”
Debbie batted her hand away without batting an eye at the way Lou had just changed up their routine, “That’s my, ‘I’ve just got out of prison and my partner lets me down’ face.”
Debbie grasped Lou’s offered hand and Lou Apparated back to her loft. “Not your partner.” Lou led the two of them into the abandoned car lot that she had enchanted to both hide her home from Muggos and prevent wizards from Apparating inside. “Yet,” she added, because they both knew, the moment Debbie had sent her a note shaped like an origami bird from Azkaban, that the finale of their dance was inevitable.
Debbie turned around to face her, looking pensive. She nodded towards the chain-link fence and said wryly, “Feels just like home.”
Lou rolled her eyes. “Hold on, let me just,” she waved her wand and removed the fog spell she had cast. She let Debbie inside, muttered “Nebulus,” and made sure the fog settled over again once Debbie walked through the threshold of her loft.
“Nice place.” Debbie looked sincere, her eyes scanning the large space. Lou knew the look; Debbie didn’t do anything without planning, and Lou could hazard a guess at how the size of her home would play into whatever heist Debbie had in mind.
“Try hiding it,” Lou replied, and told Debbie where to find her clothes. She didn’t tell her how she got them. She still smirked whenever she thought of Claude Becker going home to find everything tossed up and covered in dog shit. One of her finer tantrums. “I borrowed some shit, too. Figured you didn’t need it.” She turned back to give Debbie, rolling her eyes, a shit-eating grin. “Are you hungry?” She was riding high, setting the mail she retrieved this morning on the abandoned pool table, glowing at the sudden pulsating life in the loft.
Debbie was chewing her lip, a particular tell Lou had never seen on her before, “For Chinese.” She took a step towards Lou, as though about to say something, but hesitated, hovering instead. Lou paused in what she was doing. Debbie never swallowed what she had to say; she said it, Lou either agreed or disagreed, and they continued. To see Debbie hesitating was bewildering, and Lou couldn’t read it. “I need that credit line, Lou,” she said finally, the moment of uncertainty flashing by so quickly Lou could only catch the tail of it.
“Well, then, tell me what it’s for.” Lou frowned. Debbie never needed to hesitate when trying to wheedle something out of or from Lou. It was odd, and made the world seem tinted in a different color.
Debbie released her tongue and flashed a smile that was too unsettled to be smug. “Can’t do that.”
Lou thought about that for a moment, and then rolled her eyes. “See, this is what you do. You tell me things, get me interested, and then you think that just because I’m interested, I’ll do it.”
Debbie smirked for real this time, losing that odd, faded look and looking much more like herself. “Don’t you want to do things you’re interested in?”
Lou snorted. “Yeah, well, I’m interested in wandlore, but you don’t see me trotting off to go be a wandmaker, do you?” Debbie raised an eyebrow, and without saying a word Lou knew Debbie’s mind flashed to Lou telling her the morning after they met that her wand, nearly ten inches long and made of acacia wood with a White River monster spine core that marked it as a Thiago Quintana creation, was powerful, elegant, and subtle. Much like its owner, she had said, and pressed a wet kiss to Debbie’s clavicle. She hoped Debbie couldn’t see the heat rising on her neck. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me…” She trailed off, dangling the carrot in front of Debbie, waiting for her move.
Debbie studied Lou, her eyes sparkling and filled with mirth, and relented. “It’s diamonds,” Debbie told her, her tone nearly reverent. “Big, sparkling, goblin-made diamonds that belonged to a blood thirsty vampire countess that are now locked in an underground vault that we’d have to break fifteen different international wizarding laws to get into.”
Lou raised an eyebrow and leaned forward despite herself, drawn in by the wicked glint in Debbie’s eyes. “How are we getting them out of the vault?”
“They’re going to bring them to us.” Debbie didn’t wait for Lou to ask any of the thousand questions that bounded in her head before turning and strolling out of the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “You better not order that disgusting orange chicken.”
The room shriveled when Debbie left. Lou called back, “Just because you don’t have taste doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t enjoy life!”
She ordered orange chicken, and was thinking about making herself some juice or something when she heard the front door close softly. She wiped her hands on the rag she hung in front of the sink and stared down at the oranges. They seemed droopy, bent, not the refreshing source of sweetness she had thought they were. She put them back in the fridge.
She thought about chasing after Debbie, letting ‘Where are you going?’ and ‘Who are you going to?’ rip from her mouth like the hurricanes she knew they were. She thought about Debbie paling and telling her, in fewer words, to mind her own business, before striding off. She thought about Debbie softening, taking her hand, and telling her, okay, she wouldn’t go see whoever it was she was out to see without telling Lou. Then she thought about waking up on a Saturday to find the room at the furthest end of the corridor stripped bare.
She took out the oranges again, and squeezed them herself, setting her wand down on the counter and glaring down at the splatter of orange juice that made the counter sticky. Stupid, fucking oranges, she thought to herself, and stabbed one to make a hole to squeeze juice out of. Stupid, fucking oranges. She hated how Debbie could waltz in and immediately make Lou feel twenty, unsure and walking on eggshells again.
She left the carcasses of the oranges on the counter and went upstairs to change. She wrapped her tartan robe over soft, flannel pajama pants and a silk black camisole that used to smell like lavender. Then she layered on two more necklaces and went back downstairs, cleaned up the oranges, and fidgeted with her Protean chip. The eerie silence of the loft that she had wanted, loved, enchanted to make sure it remained so, now seemed to swallow her alive, leaving her alone and small in the middle of its thundering presence. She laid the chip next to her wand and got two mugs, filled them both with orange juice, and carried hers over to the couch. Under a stack of books she found a tax form she had to fill, so she ignored the ticking of the clock and sat down to file it with a quill she summoned from her office.
She filled out two more forms and was wrestling to subdue her book on deadly magical creatures when Debbie strolled back in wearing a dress robe that rung bells in Lou’s head, remembering the way it used to curve into Lou’s hands. Lou looked up, yelped when the book took advantage of her distraction to sink its tiny teeth into her pointer finger, and bit her tongue when she felt the damning urge to question rise up in the back of her throat. “Wrangling books again, babe?” Debbie asked, looking rejuvenated, her entire being lighter.
“Someone has to be the brains of the operation.” Lou slammed the book down, growled at it to stay put, and stood up to retrieve her wand. “Hungry?” She said, waving her wand over the small cut and watching it heal.
“Famished.” So Lou laid out the food that had arrived, and noted Debbie’s eyes on her chest more than once, her gaze analytical and deep in thought. She would have made a joke about it once, but she was figuring out something called ‘self-help’, so instead she set the orange chicken right under Debbie’s nose, snickered when she bunched up her nose at it, and handed her a set of chopsticks before sitting down.
Debbie focused very intently on prying open her chopsticks. “Did you rob a jewelry store while I was gone?” Her tone was light, but she brought it up, and for a moment Lou nearly opened her mouth and said something destructive like, ‘Five years is a long time.’ She heard Tammy tell her to take care of herself, so she gestured toward her necklaces and said, “Only for you, baby.” She wasn’t sure Tammy had meant ‘evade and avoid’, but that was how Lou took care of herself and she didn’t know how to start doing things differently at her age.
They chewed some more. Debbie was acting differently, Lou thought, burying her head down in her food. She didn’t complain about the orange chicken, she asked Lou about her necklaces, and she smelled like lavender entwined with expensive and disgusting cologne. They balanced on something that was preciously fragile, and lighthearted banter was all that Lou dared try, lest the balance break.
Someone was crumbling her mind like an empty can of soda, Lou thought numbly as she stood up and grabbed the cat mask that had been jeering at her all night from the counter and pulled it over her face. “I went out to see Claude,” Debbie offered, mumbling through the food in her mouth.
Lou pulled the mask up and turned to sit back down at the table. She swallowed the tainted joy that threatened to vault out of her when Debbie answered the question she hadn’t dared to ask with an answer she never wanted to hear. She lifted a forkful of food to muffle her revolted relief, “I didn’t even know that fucker was still around. Why would you do that?”
Debbie slid a shiv made from what looked like a toothbrush towards her, her eyes glinting with contagious, mischievous joy. Lou cackled. She couldn’t stifle it, “Jesus. So, did you-?” She mimed stabbing, hoping for a glorious and gruesome moment that Debbie would nod.
Debbie shook her head, and slid over a small button. “Nope. Just a small button.” She wanted to ask why, but Debbie looked like a cat who’d just swallowed a canary, a self-satisfied purr the only thing missing, and Lou smiled at her contentment. “We’ll need seven people and twenty thousand dollars for the job,” she continued, jerking the conversation in a different direction. She waved her wand and murmured, “Accio,” then pushed the picture she summoned at Lou.
Lou took it and frowned at Debbie. “The Bard Ball?” Debbie nodded. “How are you getting the jewels into a gala for actors?”
“It's called the Sanguina,” Debbie said dreamily, her eyes wistful, ignoring Lou’s question with practiced ease. “Belonged to Lady Carmilla Sanguina. They say she drank the blood of young people so she could be young forever.” She smirked. “Clearly, that didn’t work out for her. The diamonds were taken by the Colonial Wizard’s Bank after they staked her to death.”
Lou pulled her computer to her, and clicked away on Google. Debbie seemed content to wait for Lou as she chewed another mouthful of food delicately. “Is it this one?” She turned a grimy, highly pixelated picture of diamonds blinding despite the quality of the photo towards Debbie. Debbie nodded, and she turned the computer back to herself. She studied the jewels. They looked large, fifteen pounds at least, and there was no doubt there would be layers upon layers of Protection Charms and Tracking Spells on it. She was shocked she was even been able to find a picture on the Muggo Internet, honestly. Most wizarding jewels were hidden far from Muggo sights, but apparently these diamonds had been irresistible even to Muggos. “You weren’t kidding when you said they were big and blingy.”
“We’ll need a Tailor, an Inventor, a Curse Breaker, a Niffler, and a Legilimens. That’s seven, with the two of us.” Debbie shoveled another mouthful of rice into her mouth. “Daphne Kluger is hosting the Bard Ball this year. She’ll need dress robes and accessories.”
Realization flashed in Lou’s mind and she shook her head, chuckling. “I love her movies.”
“You would,” Debbie replied, swallowing. “She’s brunette and hot. Aw, babe, do you have a type?” She grinned like a Cheshire cat.
Lou mimed surprise. “Of course not, honey! Unpredictability is the only predictability about me.” She ignored the rising bile in her throat and stabbed her fork at a piece of orange chicken, lifting it to Debbie’s lip. Debbie glared at her. “Come on, Deb. Try it. Go on.” Debbie pursed her lips, but Lou didn’t falter, so finally, grudgingly and with the air of a martyr, Debbie opened her mouth and bit the chicken off the fork. “Good girl,” Lou crooned, “It wasn’t too bad, now, was it?”
“No. It was worse. It was disgusting,” She made a face while chewing, her face screwed up in an expression of malicious disgust. “Prison food has nothing on orange chicken.” Lou laughed, and the bile receded.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
Rose was first, the eccentric, rare pureblood who pursued her dreams of being a Tailor both in the wizarding world and the Muggo world. She wasn’t doing so well for herself in either world, and Lou blanched at the idea of having her on their team when she first saw the Edwardian collars that was her signature. “Travesty,” she bemoaned to Debbie. “Travesty.” Debbie tilted her head and appraised the glossy magazine page, “They’re not that bad. I saw worse at prom.”
Lou searched her memories and frowned. “Ilvermony or Hogwarts?” Debbie had been an exchange student at Hogwarts in her final year of school, which was why she was in London when Lou met her.
“Ilvermony.”
Lou blinked at her. “Ilvermony had prom?”
Debbie blinked back. “Didn’t Khancoban?”
“No. We had Multi-Magic Week and we danced, but it wasn’t prom.”
They hadn’t talked about their days in school very often. Debbie hated Ilvermony, Lou didn’t remember much of Khancoban, and neither of them were ones to begin sentences with the word ‘remember’ besides to remind the other of something. “What’s Multi-Magic week?”
“You didn’t have Multi-Magic Week?” Lou was shocked. It was the only event she remembered from school, besides girls and various small jobs that she pulled on her own. She had assumed all wizarding schools around the world had it. Debbie shook her head. “It’s a celebration of different wizarding cultures around the world. Most of it was magical rituals and culture-specific charms. The Taotie teeth wandcores some Chinese witches brought my last year were incredible.” She waited for Debbie to say something, the inevitable joke about her obsession with wandlore, but when she looked up at Debbie’s silence she only saw Debbie, looking at her with a tender look.
“What?” She asked, almost defensively.
“Nothing,” Debbie said, her face blanking in an instant. She turned back to the pictures of Rose’s Edwardian collars. “She’s our ticket to the vault.” They fall silent for a moment, Lou grimacing each time she remembered the look of the Edwardian collars on the poor models who moved like they were being forced to in the pictures.
“How were you at Potions in school?” Debbie asked suddenly.
Lou got up to get a cup of water. She took a sip and shrugged. “Decent. I was better at powders. Transfiguration was my favorite.”
Debbie nodded, “Me too.” She ripped one of the pages out of the magazine, “We’re going to get all the team together soon. The Bard Ball’s soon.” Lou nodded and got up to go get her book of contacts from her office.
While Lou poured over her notes and contacts for an Inventor that fit Debbie’s criteria, Debbie came back one day and told her over Thai that she found a Curse Breaker. “Amita. Do you remember her?” Debbie asked absently.
“Is she the one who’s family has a long history with the goblins?” Lou vaguely remembered needing a Replication Spell and no one knowing how to do it. Debbie had gotten it done, and told Lou that she knew some people who were familiar with the way the goblins did it.
“Yeah,” Debbie replied and said something else, her words mumbled around a mouthful of food.
“Sorry, I don’t speak Ukrainian,” Lou smirked and watched Debbie swallow.
“I said, I’ve worked with her before.” There wasn’t a question there, but Debbie looked at her as if waiting for her approval. Lou didn’t like goblins, nor did she like the people who associated with them, and she told Debbie as much before. “She’s easy to work with.” Debbie said, as though explaining. “She hates her family, she specializes in goblin curses, and she’s a metal charmer. She’s perfect for the job, Lou.”
“Old flame?” Lou heard something intimate in Debbie’s voice. She stood up and dumped her plate in the trash.
Debbie waited until Lou tuned back to tell her, looking her in the eye with her cheek bulging from where she had pushed all the food to the side to speak clearly, “No.”
Lou shrugged, pretending like she didn’t want to beam from the way Debbie justified herself to her. “It’s your job, Deb. Your job, your crew.” She leaned against the counter, crossed her arms, and smirked cruelly. “I’m just here for the diamonds and the takeout.”
Debbie didn’t move a muscle, but Lou felt the room darken, and thought for a moment that the two of them were going to have an adult staring contest. Then Debbie nodded, turned to her food again, and shoveled another forkful into her still full mouth.
The contacts Lou cultivated in Debbie’s presence proved useful when she heard down the grapevine about a powerful Muggo-born Legilimens in the area. As a bonus, the woman was also a hacker and, if the rumors were to be believed, knew her way around Muggo electronics well. Lou tracked the woman down herself, leaned against the brick wall of the woman’s flat, shades over her eyes and a smirk across her face. “I’m Lou,” she said. “I have a job for you. A big one.”
The woman’s face was inscrutable. Lou admired that, the blankness she carried herself with, as though she were a sheet of blank paper, nothing to hide but nothing to read either. Her wand was less inconspicuous, and Lou almost gasped when she saw the silver lime wood that the woman took out to disengage the Intruder Charm on her home. She hadn’t heard that the woman also had Seer abilities. Perhaps the wand had just chosen uniquely, or perhaps the woman was both a natural Legilimens and a Seer to some small extent. Either way, Lou needed her now. “Who else is on the team?” The woman asked, her Bajan accent light and her tone as impassive as the expression on her face.
“Is that a yes?” Lou tossed the question back glibly, still leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, unafraid to let her curiosity at the woman in front of her show.
The woman looked at her, the slight narrowing of her eyes the only hint that she was intrigued by Lou’s offer. “How did you find me?”
Lou shrugged. “Your reputation proceeds you, Nine Ball,” she appreciated the way the woman’s face remained indifferent when she tossed out her name casually. She noted the smell of cannabis, the muted but colorful color scheme of the woman’s shabby-on-purpose robes, and the very, very light probing she felt in her thoughts. She parried it with ease and chuckled, straightening. “You’re a skilled hacker and Legilimens. Come find me if you’re interested in my offer.”
Lou left without a second glance, walking away with her hands deep in her pockets, just barely restraining herself from whistling. Debbie looked up from her magazine when Lou waltzed back into the loft humming, but Lou made her wait until she went upstairs and changed out of her dress robes to tell her, knowing how it drove Debbie mad not to know, “I think we’ll have a Legilimens soon.” Then she closed her mouth and wouldn’t tell Debbie anything despite her asking, threatening, and glaring. In the end, Debbie sat back on the sofa with a huff, and Lou laughed quietly at how adorable she looked.
She stopped her thoughts short. Debbie Ocean was formidable, intimidating, beautiful, and smart. She could accept all of her feelings about all of those adjectives. Adorable crossed a line she didn’t want to have to think about yet.
The next morning, she stepped outside to collect the mail and found Nine Ball outside the loft, her arms crossed and her face as impassive as before. “Fog. Inspired,” she said when Lou approached her. She sounded almost smug.
Lou raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms as well, knowing she looked impervious and enjoying it, though she didn’t think she’d be able to intimidate Nine Ball. “That was quick.”
“I have a reputation to live up to. And so do you. And Debbie Ocean.” Nine Ball tagged the last name on as though an afterthought. Lou stiffened, but one look at Nine Ball smirking, obviously pleased with herself, and she softened again. She laughed. “You’re good. Come on in, then.” Occlumency was second nature to Lou, a lingering habit from sharing a dorm with too eager roommates, and she hadn’t felt the signature probing of a Legilimens at work from Nine Ball. Regardless, she didn’t ask why Nine Ball would assume without knowing the plan that she was working with Debbie. She assumed Nine Ball just cross-referenced all the data on Lou Miller out there and found Debbie Ocean lurking in every corner.
“This is the Legilimens you’re looking for,” Lou whispered furtively when Debbie was uncharacteristically stubborn about letting Nine Ball on the team after Lou introduced the two of them. Debbie had an innate mistrust of natural Legilimens, and Lou knew this was because Danny Ocean was a natural Legilimens. Debbie had spent a good portion of her childhood annoyed and tortured by a brother who not only read tells like open books but minds as well. It was why Debbie was the most skilled Occlumens that Lou knew. Regardless, Nine Ball was a powerful Legilimens if her past jobs were any indication, and they needed her. She didn’t explain this to Debbie, though. She just whispered, increasingly urgent: “She’s the best.”
Debbie glared, seethed, and acquiesced. Nine Ball smirked at her when she came back after Debbie left in a huff to go upstairs. “Lover’s quarrel?” Lou’s face must have sunk, because Nine Ball didn’t press. She turned back to her computer, and Lou ticked off another thing from her To Do List for Debbie Ocean.
“Let’s go out,” Debbie told her a week later. Lou had given Rose a copy of the key when it became clear that Rose didn’t have anywhere else to stay in New York, and Amita hung around the pseudo-library Lou had constructed in a corner of the loft more often than not, complaining about arranged marriages and overbearing mothers. Nine Ball was here less often than the other two, but she too had claimed a room on the second floor. After so many years of quiet and solitude, Lou sometimes found it overwhelming to see people everywhere. She bit her nail, wondering if Debbie could see the suffocation Lou felt radiating off if her. Surely she hadn’t become that easy to read over the years, she thought. “I want cotton candy,” Debbie added, so Lou nodded.
They were out in Central Park when Lou spotted someone she knew and instantly knew exactly who the Niffler would be. She steered Debbie to a bench and parked them there. Debbie blinked up at her, licking off a wisp of cotton candy on her lips, but sat down without a word. “Trust me,” Lou told her, casting an Invisibility Spell over the two of them.
Debbie blinked at her, and then turned to look straight ahead at what looked like a small, stout old man playing cards. “I do.”
Lou sat down next to her and pinched a piece off from her cotton candy, the soft sugar melting sweetly in her mouth. They watched as the old man lifted a golden watch off the wrist of the man in front of him and deftly slip it into his own pocket. Lou felt more than saw Debbie frown. They didn’t need pickpockets; pesky Anti-Theft Charms made pickpockets go nearly extinct in the wizarding world. To her credit, though, Debbie didn’t say anything, and Lou waited with a bated breath, ignoring the skepticism radiating off Debbie. These were hunting grounds, not just for the old man but for them as well.
Once the man left, the old man sat up straight and looked around surreptitiously. Then, after seemingly having made sure that there was no one around, the man’s hair began to grow long and grow darker, until it was an inky black that hung down to his chest. His face, too, seemed to lift up, the sagging skin and wrinkles disappearing as the skin stretched back. Then he straightened his spine, thrust out his chest, and Debbie gasped quietly. The man, no, the woman rolled her shoulders and grew a few inches taller. “He- She’s a Metamorphagus?” Debbie whispered, still staring in awe at the young Asian woman standing in the place of the old man.
“Yep,” Lou popped the ‘p’ sound, and grinned wide. “Her name’s Constance.”
Debbie turned to look at her, and for a moment Lou thought she might kiss her. Instead, she smiled wide, her eyes curving, and nodded at Lou. “Well, then, let’s go meet her.”
Lou took them to Subway and saw Debbie’s eyes gleam at chocolate chip cookies. She bought her one, and Constance tried to steal Debbie’s watch, the one Debbie never altered with magic because it was Danny’s. Debbie asked Constance for it back, got Lou’s watch back as well—Lou had been too enthralled with the look of plain shock on Debbie’s face to notice Constance’s deft fingers—and stared at Constant gulp down a cup of Coke. Lou snickered quietly at the look of wonderment on her face and refrained from saying ‘I told you so’ by the skin of her teeth. They pitched the job. Constance asked, “All I have to do is lift one necklace?” They nodded. Constance said, “Okay.”
Lou gave Constance the address to the loft, and she and Debbie watched her Disapparate away. When they got back to the loft themselves, Amita was still around, engrossed in Lou’s copy of Gemology: The Hidden Jewels of Magic, and the smell of cannabis floated down the stairs. “Yous are back,” Rose called from the kitchen. She waddled out, her mouth full, “Nutella?”
Lou shook her head, and Debbie looked a bit nauseous. “Maybe later, Rose. You want anything for dinner besides that?” Rose shook her head, and Lou brushed her fingertips against Debbie’s elbow, “I gotta go check in at the club. You still remember how to order Muggo food?”
Debbie looked deeply affronted. “I ordered pizza just the other day!”
Lou shrugged and grinned. “Just making sure,” she grabbed the keys on the counter and turned to head up the stairs to change into Muggo clothing. “Don’t burn the loft down.”
“No promises.” Debbie called after her, and Lou grinned. She came back downstairs after a few minutes in her Muggo clothes, a pair of slim-cut but wide-legged velvet dress pants, a collared mustard yellow button-up, and a black vest. She stopped at the refrigerator to pick up a juice or some cold coffee and moved out of the way for Debbie to get to the sink, finding apple juice and setting it down on the counter to roll up her sleeves. She felt a pair of familiar eyes on her, and turned to find Debbie watching her from the kitchen counter. “Did you forget how to dial the phone?” Lou asked, only half-jokingly, her fingers not pausing at her sleeves.
Debbie licked her lips and swallowed. She waved a hand at Lou, “We’d better return that outfit before Mick Jagger realizes you stole it.”
“Oh please,” Lou rolled her eyes, “As if I would leave prints behind.” She speared a straw through her apple juice and picked up her cloak, draping it over her shoulders. “You want anything from the club?”
Debbie shook her head. “Don’t come back too late.” Lou turned to raise an eyebrow at her, but Debbie had already turned back to the cupboards, looking for something. She made a noise that meant agreement, then stole out the door.
‘Don’t come back too late’? She kicked the kickstand of her bike, tugged on her helmet, and pocketed her apple juice. She searched her memory and came up empty on the number of times Debbie had said anything remotely similar to ‘Don’t come back too late’. Her engine roared to life, and decided Debbie must have been very nauseated by the Nutella, because she was speaking nonsense. The wind lashed against her as she sped up, but she felt warm and fluttery despite it, and the road ripped past her without her noticing much of it. She slowed when she neared her club, the doors open, but the lights still dark because the sun was up, and she parked her bike in her usual spot. She sauntered in through the doors, biting her plastic straw, and absently thanked one of her bartenders who called out, “Looking good, boss.”
“Let me get you a drink?” The same bartender, a Muggo named Randall, asked her, polishing a glass.
She flashed a smile at him. He always asked, she always refused, and he always asked again. “I’m driving.” She figured out the trick to avoiding temptation a long time ago, and now she always had an excuse on hand.
“You’re always driving.” He didn’t sound disappointed anymore. Nowadays, he sounded amused, and Lou wondered if that was because he had noticed that she never took anyone’s drink. For a second, she toyed with the idea of agreeing. Not actually drinking, of course, just agreeing to his offer and seeing what he would do.
He might drop dead of surprise, she thought, and chuckled drily. “And yet you keep asking.” She nodded at the glasses, “Has Cara come in to help you with those yet?” He nodded, and tilted his head towards the employee lounge. “She’s upstairs, changing.” The Muggos working at her club all eventually got used to some of their co-workers coming to work dressed in long robes and ornate cloaks. They didn’t even blink an eye anymore.
“Cool. When she comes back down, can you help me tell her to come up to my office after she helps you polish the glasses?” He nodded. “Thanks.” She turned and climbed the stairs to her office, pushing inside and setting down her half-full juice box. She sat down, found a few documents she needed to file, and the fluttering warm feeling in the pit of her stomach persisted all night. She left the club before midnight, nodding at Cara, her new manager, on her way out, and sped down the road, feeling like she was flying.
The loft was quiet and dark when she got back. She hesitated, for a moment, though she didn’t know what she was hesitating for, and sighed, the sound magnified by the emptiness of the room. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate, sipping it on her way up to her room, and saw that there were five doors closed on the second floor. Constance didn’t waste a moment, did she, she chuckled to herself, and went into her own room, on the opposite end of the floor from the others.
She was sitting on her bed, removing her rings from her fingers one by one, when she heard a small knock on her door. She frowned at the door. She had thought everyone was asleep. Maybe Constance wanted to ask about something, or Nine Ball had an issue with the Wi-Fi. Nine Ball didn’t seem like the type to go to bed before midnight, anyway. She got up, grabbing two rings and sliding them on her fingers before she opened the door. “Hey—” Her voice faltered.
Debbie stood behind the door, her face withdrawn and closed to interpretation. She wore a long nightshirt that looked too much like Lou’s to be hers and just stood there, looking at Lou, too relaxed to be really relaxed. Lou wasn’t sure Debbie even breathed until she asked, her voice no different than if she were asking about the weather, “Are you going to bed?”
Lou nodded mutely. This- This was more than Lou wondering if Debbie’s lips still tasted like expensive lipstick and sweet lavender or Debbie telling her to come home early. This was Debbie throwing the age-old routine both of them had down to a tee to the wind, and Lou wasn’t sure if she would become collateral damage. She felt a creaking in her heart, and wondered if it was making space or cracking already.
Debbie was still watching her, her eyes hooded and careful, standing in front of Lou’s bedroom door, all but shouting from the rooftops that she wanted Lou, all but asking if she could stay. It might have been lost on someone else, but Debbie was a poem written in Lou’s language and she had her memorized. Lou knew, even if Debbie herself didn’t, how significant Debbie baring her throat out for rejection was. So Lou took her courage in her hands and moved aside. “Do you want to come in?”
Something in Debbie relaxed immediately. She almost stumbled over Lou, slipping under the covers without another word. Lou closed the door and turned back to find her burrowed in Lou’s comforter, her face covered by her hair. Lou stared down at her for a long moment, but Debbie didn’t move and Lou couldn’t read her when her face was covered by her hair and the comforter.
Lou moved to her bedside table, banished the cup of coffee to the kitchen sink with a wave of her wand, and turned back to taking off her rings and necklaces, striping herself of her armor. The clinking of the metal against the porcelain disk Lou set her rings on was the only sound in the room. Debbie didn’t move at all until Lou shut off the lights, and then she curled up next to Lou, her skin warm and pressed so close that Lou wondered for a moment if this was what drowning in a sea of lavender would feel like. Lou opened her mouth to say something, anything, break whatever spell Debbie throwing a wrench into their routine had cast over them, but Debbie pressed her face to Lou’s shoulder and suddenly Lou had nothing to say.
She woke up the next morning to the sunlight streaming through the window and the feeling of cold sheets where a warm body lay not too long ago. She didn’t open her eyes, just lay there still and silent, wondering if she might fall asleep again to the soft notes of lavender that were still present, even after its owner had left the bed.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, drifting between the seas of unconsciousness and consciousness, before she heard the bedroom door creak, and felt the mattress sinking next to her. “You up?” Debbie asked, smelling of coffee and something sweet. Lou nodded. “We still need an Inventor.” Lou almost chuckled, but instead turned so that she was face down on the bed, her face buried in the crook of her arm, and nodded. “I couldn’t find a list.”
She didn’t make one, Lou wanted to say. That would have left either a magical or a Muggo footprint, and Nine Ball had already admonished her about both. Plus, she knew who she wanted on the team. She didn’t tell Debbie all of that, though. She just rasped, her voice still scratchy with sleep, “Tammy.”
She could almost hear Debbie thinking. “I thought she quit.”
Lou groaned into her arm and pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking blearily at Debbie, who watched her with a small smile dancing on her lips. “Coffee.”
Debbie smirked and got up, staring down at her. “Hurry up and get out of bed, and maybe there’ll be coffee waiting for you downstairs.” Then she turned, and threw over her shoulder, “There might even be blueberry pancakes.”
Lou knew Debbie wouldn’t see, but she flipped her off anyway as she flopped back on her pillows and decided that yes, she wanted pancakes, and yes, she would get out of bed. She needed to owl Tammy and let her know that Debbie Ocean was about to knock down her door, and she needed to make sure her heart hadn’t been engraved with someone else’s name overnight.
The fifth time when she forbode for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
Lou wringed her hands and said, in an accent that she had perfected from watching Thelma and Louise, “Oh dear, I’m really so excited to be here for the Bard Ball!” She put just the right amount of naivety and sincerity into her tone, “I’ve always wanted to see it in person!”
The man interviewing her looked down at his notes and her fake resume. “It says here you’re a Potioneer? Specializing in nutrition and healing?”
She grimaced internally at that. She was going to murder Debbie when she got back to the loft. “Yep! I also studied cuisine at a No-Maj school in France when I was younger.” The man’s brow crinkled in displeasure, and she wanted to sneer at him. “It was useless, but I certainly did find a greater appreciation for Food Charms afterwards!” She laughed, the sound silted only to her ears, and the man relaxed, probably glad she seemed like a plub, the cretin.
“Well, it seems like you’re overqualified for the job,” he said, flashing his teeth in an unpleasant smile, “Can you start tomorrow?”
She pretended to be pleased at the idea that made her want to pull her own hair out. “Perfect! I can’t wait!”
She stormed back into the loft, slamming the door and stomping around. She knew she was acting like a twelve-year-old, but there would be no one in the loft right now anyway, and she was pissed at having to work with the wonderfully abundant number of plubs at the Bard Ball. Debbie was out with Nine Ball, the two of them working to get security details on the Ball itself, Amita and Rose were out trying to get the Sanguina loaned from the Colonial Wizard’s Bank, Constance and Tammy were both at their jobs at the Bard Ball, and she was the only one in the loft. The picture of Lady Carmilla Sanguina hissed at her, and she hissed right back. “We’re stealing your jewels and you’re dead,” Lou snarled, aware that she was snarling at the portrait of a vampire countess long-since buried alive, “So shut the fuck up and let me seethe.”
The picture growled, but it was an old portrait, and the magic keeping it animated was weak compared to modern pictures, so it couldn’t do much. Lou didn’t know, and didn’t care, if the picture was mute because it couldn’t speak or because it didn’t want to. She stared at it, daring it to move again, but the picture froze and after a while Lou decided she was being ludicrous. She was just bored, she told herself. Bored that the heist was taking place in three days and she had nothing to do for now. When Debbie got back, the two of them would need to talk about the origami frog that had hopped onto Lou’s desk that morning after Debbie left, the one that was signed ‘Daphne Kluger’ in a flowery script. Lou wasn’t that worried about it, though. If Daphne Kluger had a problem with what little she had gleamed about their plan, she wouldn’t be writing to Lou, she’d be writing to the Magical Congress of the United States of America.
She rubbed her eyes, and got up to get her dog-eared and marked up copy of A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick, and Surgery. She needed to memorize so many Cooking Spells she wished she had chosen Magical Culinary Skills 101 back in school. She also needed to figure out the receipt for Weasley’s Puking Pastilles before the Bard Ball. Debbie told her they couldn’t buy them in case the job went wrong and the MACUSA decided to look into their purchasing history. That didn’t mean Lou couldn’t just Apparate to Diagon Alley and swipe a box, but she figured it couldn’t be too hard to make the candies and Apparating too far always made her nervous.
She was still absorbed in her cauldron when someone laid a hand on her shoulder. She would have jumped a mile in the air if she was still capable of being scared, but as it was, she was a hardened con and the only thing that scared her anymore was the idea of having a heart. Plus, there was only one person who could sneak up on her. Debbie sounded deeply amused. “Still going at the Puking Pastilles?”
She straightened her spine and sighed, taking off her glasses to rub her eyes tiredly. “Yeah. God knows how the Weasley twins came up with this in school.” She didn’t add it was harder because she, like she told Debbie, wasn’t the best at Potions to begin with. “I think I might be getting close, though. The colors are looking kinda right.” The pastille she held in her hand was a sickly orange and an eggplant purple, so she wasn’t completely lying.
“You know, babe, you could just buy some No-Maj medicine that makes you throw up,” Debbie told her, her hand still on Lou’s shoulder even though Lou had turned towards her. Lou had the distant thought that that was weird as she replied, “I thought you said you wanted to watch our purchasing history?”
Debbie shrugged, removing her hand and walking past Lou to peek down into her cauldron. “It’s No-Maj medicine. Swipe some. MACUSA isn’t going to check No-Maj pharmacy stores. It would hurt their little egos.” She sneered. Debbie might be a pureblood, but like Lou she had a healthy disdain for anyone who suggested wizarding folk was supreme. It was to their benefit, of course, because after each heist they would always change wizarding money to Muggo money and no one at any country previously had ever though to look into Muggo Swedish banks for the stolen loot. Lou privately believed that the real reason why Debbie wasn’t a pureblood supremacist was because if Muggos were inferior that would mean that many of the infamous Ocean cons targeted inferiors, and Debbie was too proud to believe that.
Lou threw her hands up in the air. “Thank you so much for telling me that now, Deborah.” Debbie just chuckled at her sarcasm and patted her on the back as she headed back out. “Oh, and I need to talk to you about something.”
“Hm?” Debbie hummed, turning back. “Is it your job interview?”
Lou rolled her eyes. “Please, have some confidence in my bullshitting abilities. No, it’s about,” she lowered her voice unintentionally and stepped closer to Debbie, ignoring the heady scent of lavender. “Daphne Kluger.”
Debbie’s brow stitched together immediately. “Has something happened to her? Rose didn’t say anything when I saw her.”
“No. I think she knows about the job. She sent me a note. I’ll show it to you later.” She turned back to her cauldron. “Right now, I need to figure out how to get this Lacewing fly juice out of my counter.”
Debbie swatted her arm as she left the kitchen, and Lou scrubbed hard the spot that glowed faintly neon. It didn’t budge, so she gave up and cleaned the kitchen with a few sweeps of her wand.
When she went out, the other women were crowded around the Muggo projector Lou had insisted Debbie learn how to use, and Lou smirked to herself at Debbie standing in front of them telling them about the plan. She watched from afar for a moment, letting her gaze wash over Debbie in her natural place. Debbie was intimidating in normal life, but standing in front of a team, she practically glowed, the charisma she had normally magnified until she was nearly irresistible. She was never more herself than when she stood in front of a team, leading a job that she was proud of, Lou thought, a wistful smile on her face. She had missed a lot when Debbie left, but she missed this the way you miss your favorite book: always trying to remember, never quite as glorious as the real thing. She made her way to the group, stepping lightly so not to disrupt Debbie, and looked up at the projector. They were going through the seating plan again, and Lou smirked, knowing that Debbie liked to run things through a million times. She scanned the seating plan just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything and her eyes landed on a name, innocently penned in neat, block letters next to Daphne Kluger:
Claude Becker.
Lou felt like an atomic bomb had dropped on her mind.
Debbie’s eyes met hers the moment Lou looked up, but Lou barely saw her. She was seeing nothing except a blinding, angry red, and the last remaining logic in her brain spurred her into action. She read something frantic in Debbie’s eyes before she turned on her heel, the sound of blood rushing in her ears drowning out everything, and stormed out of the loft, not heading anywhere, just needing to get out, away from Debbie standing in front of the projector, smoothly telling everyone the plan and taking a hammer to Lou’s beating heart.
She barely registered the gravel crunching under her boots, and when she looked up again she was standing next to rushing water. She took a deep breath, one, two, three, and tried to will her heart to stop beating because each beat hurt like a knife cutting. It didn’t, of course, because everything betrays her.
“Lou!”
She stared hard at the faint black dot far away on the water, and wiped a hand roughly across her eyes. She didn’t know why she was surprised. It was always like this, wasn’t it? Maybe she had been blinded by soft kisses and whispered goodnights, maybe she had been blinded by murmurs of concern and unnecessary gentle touches, but there was no mistaking it, she had been blinded and she was now reeling in her own foolishness. She sneered at herself. How could a person be so stupid? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, and she was filled to the brink with shame.
“Lou!” A hand landed on her elbow, and she yanked her skin away from the touch.
“Lou,” the sound of pleading was a foreign color on Debbie’s tone, “Lou, look at me.”
She refused, and turned to leave. Debbie stepped in front of her, her eyes sincere and panicked. “Lou, please. Let me explain.”
“What is there to explain?” Her voice came from far away, and she looked everywhere except in Debbie’s eyes. She took a step back, shaking her head numbly. “This is just like last time.” She shook her head again, stepping back further. “I can’t do this, Debbie. If you’re doing this, I walk.”
“No, Lou, it’s not. This is nothing like last time,” Debbie’s voice was so distraught that Lou wondered, hysterically, if something had happened when she left the loft, like the plan had exploded or someone had combusted into flames, because Debbie never sounded so distraught. “I have to do this, Lou. He sent me to jail. You have no idea what that’s like. You have to understand.”
‘He sent me to jail.’ The words sent struck Lou like lightning. Her mind might be fraught, but she heard the subtext anyway, because she always heard Debbie’s subtexts. He sent her to jail, and all Lou had been able to do was vandalize his apartment. All Lou had been able to do was visit Debbie once, and two years late at that.
She rubbed a hand over her eyes, cursed the way she could already feel her resolve softening, and let Debbie grab her hand. Debbie clutched it so hard it almost hurt. “Why does there always have to be an asterisk with you, Debbie?” Lou asked, her eyes still closed, her voice steady because she didn’t know how to speak to Debbie otherwise. “Why can’t you just do a heist, and be happy with a heist well done?”
Debbie didn’t answer. Lou believed she didn’t know, either. She just clutched Lou’s hand even tighter in her own, and stood waiting for Lou’s verdict with a bated breath. Lou sucked in a deep breath, and opened her eyes, meeting Debbie’s. She was sure she looked as tired as she felt, but Debbie’s face was hard, as though preparing herself for the worst, and her hold on Lou was strong. “This is the last time, Debbie.” She didn’t know what last time it was, but Lou meant every word, and she could tell Debbie knew it. “He’s going to put you back in jail.”
“No.” Debbie vowed to her, still tense, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop. “No, he’s not.” Lou sighed. She believed her, too, and that was the sad thing. When was Lou Miller going to learn that Debbie Ocean wasn’t, maybe couldn’t, be completely transparent?
Lou let Debbie lead her back to the loft, even though she told Debbie, “I know where the loft is.” Debbie didn’t relinquish her hold, and Lou let her lead her, already feeling her anger seep away until she was left with nothing but a welcome emptiness.
When they got back inside, the other women looked at their entwined hands curiously, but even Constance shut her mouth when Debbie glared hard at them. They all turned back hastily to whatever they were doing before except Tammy, who stalked up to Debbie, took one look at Debbie crushing Lou’s hand, and jerked Debbie away. “We need to talk.”
Lou was too tired to say anything to either Tammy or Debbie, and she turned to the kitchen to get herself a glass of milk. She carried the milk up to her room, pulled out her A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick, and Surgery, and found a quill. The note Daphne Kluger sent her was still wedged securely between its pages. She set the glass on the note and started going through the book again.
She must have fallen asleep, but she didn’t have to open her eyes to know when Debbie walked in without knocking. She breathed in the smell of the pages marked with ink and let the book slide down from her face. Debbie didn’t meet her eyes. “You said something about Daphne Kluger?” Her voice was rough, and Lou frowned at her. She still wasn’t meeting Lou’s eyes.
Lou wondered what Tammy had told her, then turned to hand Debbie the note. She tried for a joke to bring their trajectory back on familiar lands, “A personal note from Daphne Kluger. I think I should be swooning right now.”
Debbie ignored her attempt at lightening the mood, another out of character move for her, and opened the note, chewing her lower lip as she read the note. It was bewildering, this Debbie that let the easy out Lou had offered her go, but Lou didn’t say anything. Debbie kept her eyes on the note and was silent for a moment after she finished it, thinking, and Lou waited patiently for Debbie’s decision. She personally thought they should just suck it up and go recruit Daphne, but Debbie didn’t always agree with her ideas and when they argued about a job Debbie always won.
“I think we should go meet her,” Debbie said finally, still staring down at the note. “If Rose is really that terrible of an actor, we’re going to need Daphne on our side before we get to the Ball.”
Lou snickered, thinking about the way Rose had frozen like a deer in highlights when Lou asked her where all the Nutella had gone. It was hilarious, and she was honestly shocked Rose had lasted this long, though she did notice the Irish witch’s hair getting more and more frizzy as the days went on. “A date with the Daphne Kluger. I wonder what I should wear.”
Debbie nodded, and left the room so quickly that some might describe it as fleeing the room, leaving Lou to stare at the spot she had just been and wonder what this new reality was. Lou stared a little longer, decided she wouldn’t ever be able to figure out the enigma that was Debbie Ocean, and picked up her quill to pen a note back to Daphne Kluger.
The meeting with Daphne went smoothly. They met at the Blind Pig, and Daphne looked distinctly out of place at the seedy bar when she arrived in a flowy magenta dress robe that covered every inch of skin but hugged her curves like a second skin before flaring out past her hips. She paired it with a black cloak, clasped at her throat with a single ruby. Debbie and Lou, on the other hand, having frequented the bar before and knowing well the type of patrons the Blind Pig sees on the average day, were dressed in long black cloaks that blurred any shape and weapons they might be carrying underneath, the only difference between the two of them being Debbie’s sharp shoulders and Lou’s array of necklaces. Only small signs gave away Daphne’s discomfort, though, and Lou had to admire the way she wore the mask of a brainless starlet like a cloak. In the end, they shook on a deal well made, and Daphne glided her way back out the way she came.
“You’re drooling,” Debbie said drolly, having returned to herself sometime between yesterday and now, watching Daphne leave as well.
“I’m not the one who was ogling her the entire time,” Lou fired back, and Debbie tilted her head in concession. “Touché.”
Later, Lou closed her book on Brazilian Muggo art and looked down at Debbie, who was curled on her side even closer than usual. “Are you nervous?” The heist was the next day, and though Lou doubted anyone else on the team would feel it, Lou could feel a high-strung energy radiating off of Debbie as they had run through the entire plan one last time.
Debbie’s voice was muffled by Lou’s comforter. “We won’t get caught.” Lou nodded. She knew what she had said to Debbie, but she also knew the plan was airtight and if nothing else, Debbie would be able to pull it off. “We won’t get caught, because I’ve run this thing a million times and I’ve corrected everything, every possible mistake.” Lou let her speak, hearing the way Debbie was speaking as though comforting herself. “We won’t get caught, but,” and at this Debbie pushed herself off the bed to look Lou in the eye. “If we do, you give me up.”
Lou’s jaw dropped open. “Wha- What?” She asked after a moment, sure she had heard wrong.
“If we get caught, which we won’t, but if we do, you give me up.” Debbie said, her eyes “This is my heist, my plan, and if something goes wrong, I want you to give me up. None of you have a criminal background, so you guys should be fine as long as they find me.” She paused, her expression hard and her eyes glinting like gemstones in the dim bedside light, “None of you go to prison because of me.”
Lou was sure she looked like a gaping fish. “You want me to give you up.”
Normally, though nothing about this situation was normal to Lou, Debbie would have scoffed, asked her if she had stuttered, and rolled her eyes. Debbie just looked at her evenly. “Yes.”
Lou was frozen with shock, and Debbie didn’t wait for an answer before she lay back down and closed her eyes.