"Are ya crazy or are ya just stupid?"
"There are several possible answers to that question," Kota told the shopkeeper, who had him by the front of the shirt and pulled up onto his tip-toes. Somehow, he managed to keep a grim, deadpan expression while he said it, too. The shopkeeper was tall. Really tall. And beefy. It would be just his luck that the first vendor he decided to steal from today would be the tallest, beefiest Serenian he'd had the displeasure of meeting in a long while.
And alert as a sheepdog in wolf country. Figured, considering Cerenis was a city of sailors and, inevitably, pirates.
"Well, ain't that just fancy. Now ya better be plannin' on givin' back what ya swiped, or I'm gonna take that back and more."
"I have no idea what you're talkin' about," Kota said automatically, and tried to pry the man's fingers off of him. He may as well have been trying to wriggle out of the jaws of a shark. Honestly, he didn't even know why he said that; the guy had caught him in the act, but even caught red-handed his instinct was to deny, deny, deny.
Because the truth, in all things criminal, rarely set you free. Quite the opposite, from his experience!
The shopkeeper's eyes narrowed to ominous slits. He was not buying it.
Kota wouldn't, either.
Problem was, he no longer had the guy's stuff. Because in what was probably the most ridiculous, most unfortunate series of events ever, some little street rat of an opportunistic brat had zipped on by and snatched it right out of Kota's pocket as soon as the shopkeeper had grabbed him, and the guy didn't believe him when he said he no longer had it.
Kota wouldn't, either.
There was a metallic hiss, and Kota realized he'd drawn a blade. "I oughta cut out your lyin' tongue," he growled. "Now where's my money? I know ya took it! So ya better cough it up 'fore I slit ya open and look myself!"
The blade flashed in front of his nose and Kota leaned away from it, as far back as the fabric of his shirt would let him, the first beads of sweat slicking his skin.
He was so, so unbelievably screwed.