Finally, that convinced the man; he broke his gaze off from me, and focused on the young woman at his side. "Fine. What do you need?" he asked, giving me one last sidelong glance.
"It’s nothing much. Just a little favor, that’s all," she said softly. "And it’s not just for me, it’s for the Elise too."
"The Elise?" He blinked. "What’s going on?"
Lisa put on her best smile— I couldn’t even tell it was a fake smile this time— and began to explain. "Jack and I have a meeting with them tonight. It’s kind of supposed to be a secret meeting, but we need help getting there."
"A meeting? Wait— you don’t mean…"
"Yes." She leaned over, placing a finger over his lips and winked. "It’s a secret. But you should have heard rumors about it, right?"
"Uh, of course. We heard about it because it’s taking place in the distillery where we get our best whiskey." He gestured at large barrels of alcohol all around us. "It’s a profitable business."
Is that an euphemism? I thought, narrowing my eyes. It almost sounded like one, but why would they need to use code words here? It made no sense, and I was pretty sure he was being truthful with what he was saying. And that meant he was still doing criminal activities while he could live a lavish life doing perfectly legal things.
I felt a sudden surge of disgust as Lisa and the man continued their conversation; I almost wished that I hadn’t managed to stop the fight from breaking out, just so I could have a reason to fight these people.
It was not just the fact that they sold drugs— the drugs could be harmless for all I cared. It was the fact that they obviously partook in other criminal acts as evident by the weapons they carried with them, which made me revile them.
I had to live doing terrible things I never would ever wished to do out of necessity. And yet, these guys were— or perhaps just the man was— doing the exact same things just to get richer? It made me sick.
Lisa and the man finished their discussion as I glared daggers at him from the side.
"...and that’s all you need?" he asked, not noticing the look I was giving him.
"Yes," she said, nodding. "Just for you to lend us one of your official wagons so we can enter the distillery without a problem or raising suspicion. And maybe some documentation too in case a patrol of city guards stops us and we can’t bribe them to go away."
He scratched a scar on his cheek. "That won’t be too difficult to arrange. I’ll get my men on it. You just need it for tonight, right?"
"Oh, thank you so much." Lisa threw her arms around him. "Yes, we just need it for tonight. We’ll return it, I promise."
"Of course!" He puffed up his chest, and began barking out orders to do just that.
His men scurried around us to get everything prepared as he and Lisa socialized for just a little longer; finally, with everything ready we could leave.
"I’ll see you soon, promise." Lisa waved her fingers at him as she left.
He just grunted in affirmation. I ignored it, and followed after Lisa and the obviously disgruntled Jack as they left. Braz poked my shoulder as he walked alongside me.
"What’s wrong?" he said, peering into my mask’s eye slits.
I quickly turned away, choosing to stare at the floor instead so he could not get even a glimpse of my face. "I dislike him," I said slowly.
I expected Braz to prod further into my reason, or even defend the man. But instead, he just shrugged.
"Same."
An hour later, we arrived at the location. We were let into the distillery without a problem, and found ourselves in a mostly empty storage room full of barrels of whiskey. Jack, Lisa, myself, Braz, and Kai hopped out of the back of the wagon, while the two other pirates with us pulled off their disguises as wagon drivers.
"This is it," Kai said. "You all know your roles, right?"
I nodded, as did everybody else.
"We don’t expect there to be a large group from either the Elise or the Dark Crusaders. They’re just meeting up to begin their preparations. Nothing serious. However,"— his eyes darted over to me momentarily— "if there are more than we think we can take, or if this is some sort of… ambush, we pull out separately and reconvene in the docks. Got it?"
So he doesn’t trust me, alright.
Ginah might have appeared to trust me, but that seemed in line with her personality. She was the leader who inspired and earned trust— which meant she had to give others trust to do so— while Kai was her adviser who had to screen the people she worked with more thoroughly.
"However, the first thing we have to do is find where this meeting is at," he continued. "Scour the area. Find them. Meet back here in half an hour. Do not get caught, and stay hidden."
Lisa just threw Kai a thumbs up, and quickly jumped back into the wagon, putting on the same cap Elda had been wearing when we entered this place. That was her job, after all. She was a noncombatant, so all she could do now was leave and wait for us back at our boat.
Jack snorted at her cheerful departure, but straightened quickly after. Then, with just the six of us left, we all split up into our own groups and began our search.
Sneaking through the shadows, I quietly made my way through the building; I was with Kai, who might have seemed like he was a rather booksmart fellow with no other skills, but was proving to be rather diverse in his
