Chapter 14
The supermarket lot looks so damn ordinary.
I guess that’s exactly what makes it so unnerving. When you daydream about some epic, life-saving moment, you picture an equally epic setting. Airplanes. Underground dungeons. You get the idea.
But this? This is just cracked asphalt and a scatter of cars. A tired-looking teenager corralling carts. A woman juggling grocery bags while her toddler drags a plush dinosaur behind him.
It doesn’t match my headspace at all.
But what choice do I have?
Fate brought me here, so here I am.
I cope the only way I can. I don’t look at anyone. Instead, I keep my eyes locked on Cassian’s back and take inventory of everything I’m carrying. A baton. A switchblade. A gun. That’s a lot of weaponry for someone like me. I could do serious damage. I know it.
And I’m not alone.
I’ve got two men with me, and a third waiting in the car, ready to pull up so we can jump in and peel out at any moment.
It’s okay.
We’ve got this.
Cassian turns right, and Nathaniel and I follow toward the entrance, keeping a few steps between us so we don’t look like a group.
We slip through the revolving doors. Once we’re inside, we move off to the side together.
“Not good,” Cassian mutters.
“What?” I ask.
“He’s got a camera built into the rear end.”
“What?” I ask again, craning my neck toward the window. Cassian grips my shoulders, holding me in place.
“It’s there,” he says. “Trust me.”
“Okay.” I shift my weight.
“I’ll need to create a diversion,” Cassian continues. “We can’t go for the girls right away. I think opening those doors will take something extra, and if we push too hard, he might just drive off.”
“Then what do we do?” I ask.
Cassian thinks for a moment. It’s brief, but it stretches, because we’re on the clock and the killer’s wife still hasn’t returned to the car.
We need to move, now.
“Alright,” he says. “You two slash the front tire. I’ll come in from the driver’s side and try to get him out of the car.”
My pulse spikes.
“I don’t like it,” I say. “What if he realizes something’s wrong?”
“I’m betting he will,” Cassian replies. “But we knew this would be a shitty situation from the start. We’re out of time, and this is our best option.”
I don’t answer.
I want a second to let the plan settle, to react like a normal person for once, but there’s no room for that. All I can do is swallow the fear and do what needs to be done.
Talon would be better at this than me. He knows cars. He’s faster, stronger, and he’s done things like this before. But we need him as the getaway driver.
Nathaniel will cover me while Cassian goes in first.
“Alright,” Nathaniel says. “Let’s go.”
“Front tire,” Cassian repeats. “Passenger side.”
I nod.
“Got it,” I say.
His eyes flick briefly to my lips, then he pulls them away like he’s caught himself doing it. Before I can even process it, he steps back and pushes through the sliding doors into the parking lot.
Nathaniel jerks his chin. “Come on, Skye.”
We move with the flow of people, weaving between carts and end-cap displays.
Everything is bright and ordinary and full of life.
The people here have no idea what’s about to happen.
They don’t know there are two girls locked inside one of these cars, and they can’t even cry for help because they’re sedated.
Cassian crosses the painted lines toward the white van. He stops near the front passenger side, far enough away to look casual, and fixes his attention on the tire.
Deliberately.
He holds the look long enough that anyone in the driver’s seat would notice. Then, like it means nothing, he keeps walking. Two steps past the van. Casual. Unbothered. Then he shakes his head, lets out a quiet sigh, and turns back.
When he reaches the window, he raises his hand to knock.
At the same time, Nathaniel tugs me along the row, and we cut behind the car parked beside the van. It’s a gray sedan with a faded sticker on the rear window. We drop into a squat behind it, knees bent, bodies tucked low.
Like thieves.
My heart is pounding so loudly it’s almost humiliating.
Cassian’s boots come into view beside the van, planted beneath the lower edge of the white panel door, next to a hubcap streaked with winter salt.
Okay.
This is happening.
I scan the lot. Just once. And that’s my mistake, because there are way, way too many people around.
Cassian raises his fist and knocks on the window, hard enough that Nathaniel and I hear it. My focus snaps back.
For half a second, nothing happens, and my stomach drops.
If the man doesn’t react, if he doesn’t even look, then what?
What choice do we have besides grabbing the goddamn gun, shooting out a tire, then firing into the sky to make everyone scatter, and praying, and I mean praying, we can get away before the police show up?
But then, luckily, or maybe unluckily, there’s movement up there. Delayed, like he had to think about it first.
Cassian shifts his weight, leaning in. This time I can’t hear what he says. I can see it in his posture, though. He goes a little tighter. A little more circumspect.
Nathaniel squeezes my hand once, and we crab-walk out from behind the gray sedan. We slide along the narrow lane between the parked cars and the van, heads low, shoulders tucked.
I catch Nathaniel’s eyes.
“Switchblade,” he mouths.
Right.
I take a breath so shallow it barely counts and slip my hand under the hem of my oversized jacket. My fingers find the switchblade, and I ease it free without looking.
Above us, Cassian’s voice drifts down through the gap between the van and the car beside it.
And it isn’t Cassian’s voice. Not the Cassian I know, anyway.
This one is softer around the edges. Big warm hug energy without the cheerfulness. I didn’t even know he had a voice like that in him.
“Hey,” he says, like he’s apologizing for taking up space in the man’s day. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to startle you. You’ve got a flat up front.”
A pause.
The driver answers too low for me to catch, but I hear the shape of it in Cassian’s response.
“Yeah,” Cassian goes on. “Front passenger. It’s nasty, too. You run a van this heavy on that, you’ll chew the rim.”
I swallow so hard my throat hurts.
I glance at Nathaniel. He’s watching my hands.
I flip the switchblade open as silently as I can. The click is microscopic, but it sounds like thunder to me.
“I do construction,” Cassian says. “I’m in and out of job sites all day. Nails, screws, rebar scraps, you name it. I can show you where to jack it without bending the skirt. These vans are a pain. They hide the spare under the belly, and half the time the crank tool’s missing.”
What the fuck? I don’t even wonder how the hell he just created this entire speech on the fly.
I press the blade against the tire. I know I can’t afford to actually stab the damn thing.
That would make too much noise, and we can’t have that.
So I work it in slowly, and the rubber fights me like it’s alive.
Nathaniel’s hand slides over mine and we press together.
Slowly, the blade gives, and the hiss is so quiet I feel it more than I hear it.
Above us, Cassian keeps talking.
“Yeah, I’m not trying to be dramatic, man,” he says. “It’s just, you don’t wanna run a flat on a cargo van. Not with the weight in the back. Trust me.”
The driver says something, muffled by the glass.
“Nah, I get it. Your dash is probably telling you everything’s fine, right? Those tire sensors lag. Especially when it’s cold. Sometimes they don’t even register until the wheel starts moving.”
My stomach flips because this time the man answers louder, irritated.
“It says it’s fine. And take a hint, man. I’m busy.”
The hiss grows a fraction louder.
Then, from inside the van, a bright, sterile ding.
The driver’s voice jumps, sharper now. “What the fuck?”
Cassian doesn’t miss a beat.
“There,” he says. “That’s what I mean.”
Another ding. Then another, faster.
I ease the blade back and slide it away from the tire. Nathaniel pulls the syringe of tranquilizer from his pocket.
My heart tries to claw its way out of my ribs.
“I can help you with this,” Cassian says. “Five minutes, tops, and we’re done.”
There it is. The bait. All that’s left is for this asshole to take it. Then we get him out of the car, Cassian sedates him, we get access to all his equipment, open the back, and get the girls out.
I tilt my head, listening for his response. It doesn’t come yet.
What does come is a toddler. A little girl stands between the two cars opposite the van’s rear doors, staring straight at me and Nathaniel. She’s holding a plush toy in one hand.
Alone.
“Um, Nathaniel,” I whisper. “We have an audience.”
He follows my gaze.
Nathaniel’s expression doesn’t change, which is impressive, because mine is trying to climb off my skull and sprint away. He lowers the syringe toward his thigh, keeping it hidden under his jacket, then shifts his posture like we’re just hanging out behind cars in a parking lot, like people do.
I paste on a smile that probably looks like I’m about to eat her.
“Hey,” I mouth. “Hi, sweetie.”
The girl blinks. Doesn’t move.
Nathaniel lifts a hand in a slow wave.
I angle my body so the switchblade disappears behind my hip. Then I do the first thing my panicking brain offers: I pretend to tie my shoe.
Except I’m not wearing shoes with laces.
I fumble at my boot anyway.
The girl tilts her head, plushie dangling from one hand. Her little eyebrows pinch together. Then her gaze flicks to Cassian at the driver’s window.
And just like that, she turns and bolts.
My stomach drops through the pavement.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
We can’t run after a kid in the middle of a parking lot without turning into a headline.
Two weirdos seen chasing child near supermarket.
No. Absolutely not.
So I just… sit there. Breathing through my teeth. Staring at the gap she vanished into.
Okay. Great.