26. Chapter 26 #2
A view of choppy water touched the horizon. She hopped onto the curb and drove down a wide sidewalk.
“What the hell,” a man yelled.
A dog barked vigorously.
That night at the lake really was our last goodbye.
She wobbled. Her back tire caught on gravel, and she fell over.
Pain shot down her side from elbow to calf.
Sparks flew as metal scraped against the cement.
She released the bike, and it crashed into rocks along the shore as she rolled to a stop.
With her lungs burning for air, she kicked her bike and screamed.
“It’s as clear as it’s going to get,” June, Kate’s young contact on Chicago’s streets, said into the phone line.
“You sure?” Kate asked, leaving her hotel room a few blocks from the Dusted Tuck. Three days had passed since she’d broken down at the lake, and she was still trying to verify Caige was okay. Raz…as much as she hated to admit it…was a casualty she had expected. But she couldn’t stomach it if Caige…
She had to make sure he was all right.
Sid left yesterday and Raz…
“The cop left twenty minutes ago. The owner is heading to the garage…and he just pulled the ambulance out of the back.”
She still didn’t understand why Lewis had an ambulance in his underground garage. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that June had spotted a room with a medical setup on the fifth floor of the bar building.
She knew Caige wasn’t dead, but she needed to see him before she could do anything else.
“Good job.” Kate flew down the steps to the parking garage, limping as her knee gave a twinge. “Thank you.”
“Where’s the meet for my dough? I need to get back to my pod before the kids fight again.”
Just like any kid on the street, June only wanted her payment. Kate didn’t mind helping the girl out. She had been more than helpful during her research on the Wet’n-Wilder art show.
“Check the soles of the shoes I gave you.”
Shuffling echoed across the line. “Seriously? I’ve had the cash on me this whole time?”
Kate straddled her scraped-up bike, turned it on, and placed her sunglasses on her face. “Be careful out there, kid, and remember this line is always open.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” June ended the call.
Kate slid her phone into her rear pocket and backed out of her parking spot. You’d better be at the Dusted Tuck, Caige.
She could have walked, but time was of the essence.
Her dinged-up headlight barely illuminated the road as she shot through the Chicago streets.
A block down from the Dusted Tuck, she parked beside a dumpster in the alley.
The air stank of rotten food. Since no easy entrance existed into the Dusted Tuck that wouldn’t get the cops called on her, she’d have to make one.
She headed for the ladder on the building next to her, leading up to a fire escape.
She ran at the wall and kicked off to propel herself up.
Her hands hit the rungs, jarring her injured fingers.
Sweating, she gripped the metal railing, which felt cold and clammy under her grasp.
She yanked herself up, abs and arms protesting until she got her feet under her.
She raced to the top. Open windows blared music, a cat hissed, and a domestic dispute occurred.
On the roof, the wind chopped at her, springing tears into her eyes.
She peered over the building’s ledge. The Dusted Tuck sat on the opposite side of the alleyway, a few stories lower than the building she stood on. She swallowed.
The fire escape on Lewis’s building started from the top but stopped on the second floor. She counted up three stories from there. A light shone from the window—her target.
She stepped back from the edge. Licking her dry lips, she shook her hands and ran.
She jumped over the edge, heart in her throat. The railing came up quickly. Rusty pipe slapped against her palms, jamming her fingers. Fuck. She fell a story before she grasped the grated floor, metal digging into her uninjured fingers as she dangled.
“Ouch…” Her arm protested, shaking with pain. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself up onto the ledge. Rubbing her sore arm, she headed up the stairs to the window. A medical bed lay inside with a blue platform raising two wrapped legs into the air.
Caige? Her stomach dropped.
The unlocked window lifted without a sound and oddly didn’t have a screen.
She climbed inside. Mint and orange aromas wafted around the room.
Caige lay in the bed before her, one arm wrapped in a cast resting outside the covers.
He seemed to have broken both his legs and his arm.
His face was covered in shadow as if a shade had been drawn over him, but his sharply chiseled features didn’t shift; instead, they were a stagnant version of the striking man who had first walked into the bar. Was this his true face?
The interior was painted sea-foam green with a pastel pink accent wall. It didn’t match the resting man but seemed appropriate for Lewis’s taste.
Palms sweaty, she headed to Caige’s side.
The heart monitor gave a steady cadence, quiet except for the green peak pulsing on the screen.
He seemed at peace. Alive. A tear blurred her vision.
As she took the first moment to truly breathe since the mission, everything hit her at once.
She had taken responsibility for her actions, but this—