Turning on the news and seeing a report on myself would never feel normal. It was so odd. Even stranger was being forced into a conversation about it in my criminology class. When I walked into class, the professor was projecting a video of a news clip up on a screen for the class to see. Taking my seat, I watched along with everybody else. The class had fallen silent, every student excited for the discussion that was sure to come. The boy beside me, Logan, shot me a look.

"Not a word," I warned him before he could speak.

My nightlife may have been a secret, but there were those who knew the truth. Those people, aside from one, were not my friends. They, like myself, were just others who'd been discovered by a man named Robert Keen. None of us spoke to each other in public. There were some in the group who I didn't interact with at all. Thieves aren't exactly a chivalrous lot, we weren't stupid enough to trust each other.

"The Circle is angry," he whispered under his breath.

The Circle was the ring of thieves we were a part of. It emphasized secrecy and avoiding attention. Lately, I had been thrust into the spotlight much to their dismay. The most recent developments the police had made in my case must have been driving the others berserk.

Every member had been handpicked by Professor Keen, not to bring us together, but for his own use. Nobody knew what the big purpose behind the whole thing was. I figured it was greed. He didn't interfere with the Circle's matters unless he needed something, which wasn't all that often. Usually, we were all on our own. There would be an occasional meet-up where Logan and I would set down any rules that were needed, and we would go over any heists that were planned. After a couple months of Logan and I arguing and the Circle splitting up to take sides, Professor Keen had stepped in and declared us as 'co-leaders', to be frank, I think the only point of the title was to get the both of us to shut up. Considering that one of the Circle's leaders had been getting so much public attention while the guild struggled to remain in the shadows, they had plenty of reasons to be angry.

Professor Keen watched me carefully until the video ended. He stood behind his podium, tapping his pen. "Can anyone tell me why this particular thief is being classified as a vigilante now?"

This was more bizarre than seeing myself as a headline. A vigilante? That made me sound like Batman. I wasn't exactly racing around in a car, beating up bad guys. I was the one breaking in and stealing secrets. I was the bad guy. Being called a vigilante applied some degree of intended heroism - a quality I severely lacked. I suppose I preferred people to see me for what I was - a thief.

Motive was a murky area for me. People thought that for thieves, one way or another, it always came down to money. A while back, that was the reason for me. It was hard to eat when you were a street kid. It was less hard when you were a thief. I got better at it as time went on, it was almost like an art. But when I was taken in by the Coopers, something changed. I didn't steal because I wanted money - I had more than enough of my own. But I did it anyway - the only thing that had changed was that I didn't know why I was doing it.

Maybe because I wanted to change something. Maybe because I wanted to hurt the sort of people who had hurt me. Maybe because I wanted to help the people who had been hurt like me. Or maybe I was just a bored rich girl that liked adrenaline and pissing people off.

Regardless of motive, I knew what I was. A thief. Nothing more, nothing less.

A girl's hand shot up. "Because of the people she targets. They're all either corrupt people in government or criminals. Then, she delivers what she thinks is an adequate punishment. Like, last night, the media and the police received loads of files from Senator Walsh's hard drive. Allegedly, there were records of payments made to a contract killer."

Professor Keen nodded. "Well put, Miss Hayes."

"What's with the calling card though?" Logan asked him, widening his gray eyes. There was a teasing tone in his voice meant for me. "She leaves a business card with a print of her lipstick. What purpose does that serve?"

Somebody else piped up behind me. "And why the hell does she use arrows? A gun would be easier to use. To conceal, to carry."

Logan made a face at the boy who'd spoken. "I'm more interested in her calling card."

I tried not to smile as I raised my own hand to answer Logan's question. This was an argument we had all too often, I was sure he already knew what I was about to say. "I think it's just her signature. The lipstick is a feminine touch, maybe she's just showing off, maybe it's just her way of saying 'I'm a better thief than most men.'"

One side of Logan's mouth twitched, as he tried to look as indifferent as possible. It was getting harder and harder for the both of us to avoid interacting in public. Our friends may have been clueless, but the Circle wasn't. They would see. They would notice.

"Or she could be a narcissist," Logan said.

Professor Keen pursed his lips. "That's an interesting theory. But what I want to know," he said, his eyes sweeping the room. "Is whose side you think she's on. Is she trying to aid the public or harm them? What are the intentions here?"

Some claimed that the vigilante had to have some humanity left in her, considering her targets weren't exactly innocent. And she'd never killed anyone. Others said any act of vigilantism was illegal, that stealing was immoral.

"The crime in this city is insanity," an older woman groaned. "A jewel thief who uses daggers -"

Logan coughed loudly.

"- art thieves who have never actually been seen. A vigilante or thief or whatever she is with arrows. This city has gone to hell."

Logan looked uninterested, leaning forward on his desk with a hand tucked under his chin.

The conversation dragged in until the end of class. Professor Keen shouted to be heard over students clamoring to get to their next class. "Miss Mason and Mr. Black, stay. I need to have a word with you about your papers." The room eventually cleared out and the two of us remained in our seats.

"You honestly felt the need to lecture about me, Professor?" I asked, incredulously. "It's not like I got caught!"

"You jumped out a window."

"The other exit wasn't exactly an option. Security showed up. I was running behind schedule."

Logan looked at me, intrigued. "Why?"

I looked at Professor Keen. "There was a second thief there."

Logan's eyes bulged and Professor Keen stopped tapping his pen, the look on his face hardening. "The Circle needs to know about this," Logan blurted. "The thief might be a threat -"

"He isn't." Of that I was certain. "I found out who he is. Trust me, he isn't dangerous. Just a pretty boy way in over his head. Minimal training - if even that."

Professor Keen didn't look convinced. "The Circle meets tonight. You both need to make sure everyone lies low for the time being. Yourselves included."

"I have a heist," Logan said, standing, dropping his notebook in his bag. "I won't be able to make it." He winked at me, suddenly, I remembered the two of us had plans. Professor Keen couldn't know, if he found out, so would the rest of Circle.

"So do I," I lied.

"Then cancel," he snapped, pointing to the door. "We will discuss this further, later. I have to prepare for my next class."

When the two of us were outside, I grabbed Logan's arm. "This isn't going to work out, you know. It'll just end up as another Greek tragedy. The kind where everybody dies at the end. "

Logan scowled. "It took me ages to convince you to give us a chance. Are you backing out?"

"I don't know."

He crossed his arms, smiling. "Scared?"

I frowned, biting my lip. What he was doing was the same tactic I'd used countless times to rally up the Circle when we needed to work together for a heist. He was fishing, trying to get me to bite. "I'm not scared, you're just baiting me."

"Then prove it."

"I am not scared and you know it."

He raised his eyebrows, staring me down. "Liana Mason, co-leader of the Circle, a coward? I didn't see that coming."

"Fine," I muttered. "But one chance. That's all."

"Brilliant." He pecked me on the cheek before I could move back and walked into the hall of bustling students. I walked away in towards the opposite end of the campus, striding through the grass before anyone could notice we'd been together. The less public contact, the better.

➵

The House was a barn at a farm that Professor Keen owned. With it's chipping red paint job and silo, it looked like a regular home for the farm's inhabitants. Very few animals were cordoned off behind a white fence, grazing. It was quiet that night, aside from the occasional cluck, there was complete silence.

I pushed open the large door and stepped into a foot of soggy hay. Water dripped through a hole in the roof. "Gross," I grumbled, shaking a patch off my boots as I shut the door. Still, the sound of the rain drumming against the roof was audible.

Inside the barn were a couple targets set up for practice. They were up against the very back wall, across an impressive array of weapons. There were no guns. There were a couple daggers, swords, even a javelin. As far as I knew, nobody ever touched the last one. On the very top shelf was a spare bow and a quiver of arrows that everybody knew were mine. Old crates were lined up along the front, overturned to be used as seating. Two other people were already inside although I'd arrived ahead of time. One of them staring right at me. "Lia," she said, unimpressed, swinging around a sword.

Out of all the assholes in the Circle, she was my least favorite. We simply didn't see eye to eye on anything. In the beginning, she had disliked me so much that she'd sabotaged a couple of my heists. Trusting her would be like cuddling with a cobra.

"Tyra," I nodded. Then I turned to smile at the young man who was absentmindedly carving a pattern on his crate. "Hey, Logan," I added. When he raised his eyebrows as if to say Ready for that date? I shook off my sopping coat to reveal the dress underneath.

His lips quirked up in a smile and he ran a hand through his blonde hair absentmindedly. Neither of us was going to say anything even remotely incriminating in front of Tyra, but there were other ways of communicating. "I refuse to associate with somebody stupid enough to target a senator," he told me.

I made a face at him, walking to the wall of weapons, looking for my favorite. "Corrupt senator," I corrected. "Why does everybody keep forgetting that first part?" Lifting the bow off its hook, I grabbed some arrows and trudged through the clumpy hay toward the targets.

"It went without saying." Logan shrugged. "Right, Tyra?"

She sighed, letting her arm drop to her side, the blade of the sword digging through the hay. "You were totally reckless. Jumping out a window?"

I nocked an arrow, aiming at the target furthest from me. "The other exit wasn't an option, it isn't like I did that for a grand exit." Though in retrospect, I had to admit, it did sound like something I would do. "But I won't deny that it was fun."

"Well, you did a wonderful job of, like, creating a mess." Before I let the arrow fly, I switched my target at the last minute. Tyra swatted it away with her sword before it got her in the eye. "You -"

The barn door opened a crack and a pair of identical young men came in with a small girl.

"Well, the entire Circle is here." Tyra sighed, flinging her sword aside, whereas I clung onto my bow. She sat with Logan, pushing his dagger onto the floor. Logan met my gaze with raised eyebrows. The newcomers took their own seats. "So, what do we do about this mess?"

Mess. Like she's never made one.

One of the twins shot me a skeptical look, eyeing the bow. My stance was making him uneasy. I hung it back up for his sake, but I remained on my feet, leaning against one of the beams. "There was a second thief, right? That's what Professor Keen told us," he said, looking at me for confirmation.

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm not sure if we were there for the same thing, though. The senator had a very old Greek vase on his desk."

"What era?"

"I don't know, Lee. Art isn't my specialty. It was an artifact, that's for sure. It had an image of the god of war."

Lee's twin, Eric, pulled up an image on his phone, holding it up for me to see. "Is this it?"

"Yes."

Eric's eyes were huge, already thinking of a heist no doubt. "God, this vase is priceless. It made a couple appearances on the black market a couple years back and then disappeared. I guess we found out where it is. Did the second thief take it?"

"No, it broke when we were fighting."

Lee winced, like I had physically struck him. "Have you no appreciation for art?"

"I have an appreciation for my life. And not going to prison. The vase was in the way."

"About that other thief," Eric said slowly. "I've been reading up on a string of robberies. All the targets have a similar profile to yours, Lia. You've got competition. He steals art, but the victims aren't innocent civilians."

"Well, I'll keep an eye on him," I promised. Maybe I had dismissed Jace too easily, if he was going after the same sort of people as me, we were bound to cross paths again. I needed to see to it that it would not happen. I held up my key chain, a memory stick swung around on it, clanging against the other keys. "I got what I was looking for, though."

Tyra scoffed, rolling her eyes. "We know. It's all over the papers, which is why we're here. To discuss the consequences."

Lee blinked, looking towards the other leader of the Circle. My opinion was obviously going to be biased. "There's consequences, Logan?"

"No," he said quickly, throwing an apologetic look my way. "Just damage control. Lia hit a high-profile target in his home. What happened to the senator is going to send all potential targets on alert. None of us can pull any sort of heist for the next couple of weeks."

The small girl groaned. "I already had my sights set."

"Sorry, Anna. Not happening," Logan said. "Are we clear?"

"No, that is so unfair!" Tyra protested, red curls bobbing around the frame of her face. "The rules are if one of us endange- "

"Just drop it, Tyra," Lee hissed.

"No," I said. "I want to hear this. What happens if one of endangers the Circle? Unintentionally?"

"They have to leave."

"Okay, Tyra. After you."

"Excuse me?"

"You have called me and the others in the middle of night plenty of times because you've screwed up. You abandoned Lee and Eric in a room full of cops instead of sticking with them. You let Anna get caught stealing a -"

Tyra stood abruptly. "You are in this for the glory! I'm not!"

"Glory?!"

It was Logan who cut me off. "None of us are the good guys. Everyone in here is a shit person and there is no denying that. Some are in it for the money, others for a thrill. You have your reasons Tyra, and she has hers."

Each of us did what we did for a reason. For some, it was more obvious than others. Greed, attention, the exhilaration, whatever.

"People in the city think that she's some sort of a hero now," she said, through clenched teeth. "And they hate me when we do, like, the exact same thing!"

"You steal from everyone. Rich or poor. I steal from other bad guys and give it to their victims."

"Because you don't need the money!"

"None of us do." Lee reminded her. "That's why nobody would suspect us. That's why we're here, it's why Professor Keen recruited us."

Tyra stormed out the barn, grabbing the sword on her way out. Anna muttered something about making her see reason and took off after her.

"I guess we could leave now," Logan said eventually, rubbing his temples. "That's all we needed to talk about."

The twins left, leaving the barn door open. Soon after the roar of their motorcycles was gone, rain started pelting the barn. Logan stood, walking over to the door. He stood there with his eyes shut, letting the rain soak him. He didn't say a word until he was sure that the girls were gone as well. "That's a pretty dress."

"And that's a handsome suit." I slipped back into my coat, readying myself to go back out into the rain. "Tell me you have an umbrella."

''I have an umbrella,'' he smiled, picking it up from beside the crate he'd been sitting on. ''And you shouldn't let Tyra get to you so easily." He held the umbrella over us as we trudged through the mud to his car.

''She doesn't get to me,'' I said, hurrying into the passenger seat.

He shut the door and came around the other side, turning on the heat. ''You shot an arrow at her.''

''Just to scare her.''

''No it wasn't.''

I leaned back, exhaling. ''If I wanted to hit her, I wouldn't have missed.''

He considered it. ''True,'' he said. ''But you were definitely considering it. You looked seriously pissed."

"If you want to spend the three hours I'm giving you talking about Tyra, we're going to have a problem."

He kept his eyes on the road. "You still like Italian?"

"Everybody loves Italian."

"Good.''

He was a horrible driver, so he cut the time it would take us to get to the city in half. Lights lit up the night and signs flashed. The streets were crowded and somebody would occasionally blare their horn. People were weaving in and out of buildings that stretched up into the sky. From a distance, New York must have seemed like an ethereal silhouette to the outside world. I had grown used to it, imagining living anyplace else seemed impossible.

The car turned and parked outside a restaurant. We had barely stepped out the car when both our phones started to ring. He pulled his own out. ''It's Eric,'' he sighed.

''Lee,'' I told him, glancing at my own. He ignored his call, but I went ahead and answered mine. ''What's up?" If both twins were calling us, something was wrong.

''You know how we agreed to lie low?" he asked.

''Yeah,'' I said, looking at Logan.

He narrowed his eyes, making a slicing motion with his finger across his throat. He knew what was coming though he couldn't hear a word. It was getting old, not just for me, but for him too. God knew how many times we'd had to cancel on each other because of the Circle. The second something went wrong, one of our phones would start buzzing.

''Eric and I are at the art museum downtown. We were scouting the place and Eric got caught. I need to you get here and spring him.'' He didn't sound apologetic, but then again, Lee never was. ''They called the police but I intercepted the call.''

''All right, I'm on the way.'' I hung up, getting back in the car. When Logan was in, he started the car, pressing his lips together. ''I need you to drop me off at the museum. Eric got caught doing some scouting for a heist and Lee needs me to get him out of there. Sorry about - ugh, do you have handcuffs?''

I searched through the dashboard, digging through a collection of fake IDs and badges until I found a shiny NYPD badge and a zip tie. After throwing on my coat, I tossed it in my bag. ''Have the car ready.''

''I'll come with you.''

''No need. It might end up attracting more attention. Besides, I'm not breaking him out of there, just a simple grab and go. Have the car ready.''

''Getaway driver,'' he grumbled. ''I've been demoted.''

''Sorry about this.''

''Oh,'' he said, raising his eyebrows. ''No need for that. We are not canceling this date again. We pick the twins up and then we drop them off. Then we resume our night out.''

I laughed somewhat weakly. ''We'll miss our reservations.''

''I'll improvise," he promised. ''It seems that's what we're good at.'' He parked outside the museum steps. ''Go.''

I left the car, slamming the door behind me and walking through the doors of the museum as purposefully as I could. There were far too many people inside, many of them drinking from champagne flutes, awing over some new collection. When I saw a security guard, I went over to him. ''Detective Harrison, NYPD.'' I flashed the badge. ''Got a call. Something about a possible thief?"

At first glance, I counted three different cameras trained on me.

That was a problem.

He nodded. ''Follow me,'' He led me past the paintings and through a couple halls before coming to a heavy black room marked SECURITY ONLY. I brushed against him to go in, lifting his keys off of him without him realizing. Inside the room were CCTV's displaying the ongoing showing, including everything out front. Logan's car included. Keeping my hand in the pocket of my coat, I sent him a frantic text.

Wait in the back.

There were two other security guards sitting in front of the TV's, eating take out and people watching. The security guard from outside pointed to a young man with red hair that was seated in the corner of the room.

I turned to the guard, looking at him with wide eyes. ''Well done, the station has been trying to catch this kid for weeks. He jumps from city to city, stealing new pieces. You guys just unveiled a new collection, correct?"

He nodded eagerly. ''Yeah.''

I went through the standards, reading Eric his rights, and walking him out the back door alone so we wouldn't 'disturb the showing'. When we were safely in the car with the twins in the back, Logan gunned the accelerator, and I flung the badge at Eric. ''You idiots!"

Lee shrugged carelessly. ''It was an accident.''

Logan was fuming. ''An accident?"

I twisted around to glare at the both of them. ''How the hell do you accidentally plan to rob a museum? I was caught on camera! When they realize something went wrong, we're dead."

''Don't worry. Your father is a super lawyer,'' Eric said.

Lee nodded quickly. ''And those three guards combined would form half a brain. No worries.''

Logan caught my eye, deflating. Neither of us was convinced that leaving the security tapes untouched would be a wise idea. ''Cancel?"

I stared out the window, watching the city whiz by. ''Cancel.'' Leaning back, I shut my eyes. ''So much for keeping a low profile. We need to break in and wipe the tapes tonight.''