Taboo Sin System

Chapter 6 In Pursuit

[00:03]

Christina bent over the bed, hooked two fingers under the blanket at Lila's throat, and pulled. A thin gold chain lifted over Lila's head, the two cufflinks dangling from it.

"Hey!" Lila's earbud fell out. "Give that back! You can't do this without—"

"I am past asking. Stay in bed. It is where you do your best thinking."

With that, Christina spun on her heel and marched for the door.

[00:01]

[Invisibility expired] [Charges: 1/2]

The door opened just as the skill ran out. Pan came back into visible existence under the bed, sucking in a lungful of dust. His throat burned.

Relief and frustration hit him at once. The skill had worked. Christina was leaving, and that was the good news.

The bad news was in her fist. She had taken custody of the cufflinks the moment after Pan learned where they were.

Of course. Why would anything here be easy?

Pan stayed crouched in the dark a little longer, listening carefully. Lila's music thumped faintly through the fallen earbud. She swore once, put it back in, then pulled the blanket over her head.

She's not even going to chase her. Christina is younger but she is indeed the boss.

Lila had forgotten the whole thing. She was completely gone to the world, humming off-key, lost in whatever shallow thoughts usually occupied her.

The girl had the self-awareness of a brick wall and the survival instincts of a goldfish.

Pan considered his options with cold precision. A minute ago the plan had been simple. Burn the last charge and stand up. Lift the gold off her while she lay there distracted.

Taking it would not have been honorable. Then again, the two of them had stolen from their own father and fully intended to let him take the full beating for it.

That plan had just walked out the door.

Pan peered from under the bed just as Christina stepped fully into the hallway.

That was when he spotted it. She had stopped on the landing to shove the chain into the back pocket of her jeans, and the outline showed plain through the dark denim.

Goddammit.

The saintly bitch. Of course she would not leave something that valuable with Lila, and of course she had not hesitated for a breath.

Keying the Mercedes had been her idea, and framing him for it had been their joint operation.

A corridor and a flight of stairs now stood between Pan and that back pocket. He had twenty seconds of a skill that ran down whether he used it well or not.

Quiet settled over the room, broken only by the muffled music. Pan focused inward and called the menu with a thought.

[Invisibility Lvl 1: Ready] [Charges: 1/2] [Activate?]

Yes. It's time for an invisible pursuit.

The familiar cold tingle spread across his skin like liquid ice. Pan shimmered and vanished again.

[00:20]

Pan slid out from under the bed in complete silence. Lila did not even stir.

Pan was out in the hallway as Christina's footsteps reached the bottom step. The clock was running. It did not care how far he had to go.

A maid climbed the stairs with an armful of linen. Pan flattened against the banister and let her pass through the space, near enough to smell the starch.

Okay. Okay, it really works. Sorry, Marta.

[00:14]

Pan took the rest of the flight two at a time, keeping his weight on the edges where the wood stayed quiet. Christina was down and moving already, unhurried.

The foyer opened up below, with the ugly crystal vase that Gemina treated like a holy relic on its pedestal by the door.

For one deeply satisfying moment Pan imagined knocking it clean off, just to watch something of theirs finally break.

Later. Add it to the list.

Christina's footsteps led him past the dining room, where the breakfast plates still sat waiting for him. His heart was pounding in time with the countdown now. The numbers in his vision did not slow for any of it.

[00:07] [00:06] [00:03]

The kitchen door was the swinging kind. Pan went through it harder than he meant to. It swung wide and banged off the wall.

Christina sat perched on a stool at the marble island. She held herself like she owned the entire house and everyone unfortunate enough to live in it.

There was no maid in sight. Either Christina had sent them away, or the staff had learned to clear out when she walked in.

[Invisibility expired] [Charges: 0/2]

Shit.

Pan had missed the window by a single second. The shimmer faded from his skin. It left him standing on the tiles in plain sight, breathing too hard from the sprint.

Christina looked up from her phone at the noise. Those sharp green eyes narrowed into daggers the moment they landed on him.

Even through the sharp bite of failure, Pan took her in.

His sister wore a white blouse tucked into high-waisted blue jeans that hugged her hips hard. Lean runner's legs, crossed with practiced posture.

The denim stretched just enough over her ass to hint at the firm shape underneath. The chain made a small lump on the left side.

Christina's raven ponytail gleamed under the kitchen lights. It fell forward over her medium, perky tits. A mug of black coffee was steaming at her elbow.

Christina had the face of a governess, one who rapped knuckles with a ruler and felt righteous afterward. There was supermodel potential under the pearl-necklace attitude, and she kept it locked down.

That refusal was part of what made her dangerous.

Christina set her phone down with a soft click. Her lips curled into that patented bitch smirk, half pity and half pure poison.

"Well," she said. "If it isn't the Osborne embarrassment."

Christina looked him up and down slowly, the same way she had looked at the mess on Lila's bedroom floor.

"What is up with you, Pan? Still slinking around like a stray dog? Did you finish the scraps this morning, or was none of it left for you?"

Pan opened his mouth but had no replies to offer. His mind was reeling.

"Look at you. Sweating in Mother's kitchen like you ran here from the orphanage."

Christina turned on the stool to face him properly. The lump in the denim turned with her, six feet from his hand.

"Whatever you were running from, it is not half as bad as the horrors you'll face at six o'clock. Dad is furious enough to kill you this time."

Watching her speechless brother, Christina blew across the top of the mug in satisfaction. Her green eyes did not leave him. She really enjoyed bullying and humiliating him.

"Mom has been calling you for twenty minutes for a chore."

"I was… busy…" Pan stammered. He had missed his one window at the gold. He turned to leave, bracing mentally for Gregory's whip after six o'clock.

Christina scoffed. "Busy? How dare you ignore her calls?"

"Your own mother took one look at you and abandoned you. If you had died on those orphanage steps, it would have saved everybody a great deal of trouble."

Pan stopped and turned around.

You sanctimonious bitch.