Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Iwake in the night with a start, but it’s dark and quiet as I look around the room. York is beside me, still dressed and on top of the blanket, sleeping soundly.
Cradling my arm, I slip from the bed and stretch my legs before heading down the stairs.
This building isn’t very tall, a few stories, but we’re at the top.
The alleyway we parked in is below the living room windows, and I can see out across most of the buildings around us, which appear to be mostly commercial.
The orange glow of a streetlamp casts shadows across the living room as I make my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
A dull thud makes me pause, and I push my ear up against the freight elevator and wait.
Nothing.
I drink an entire glass of water and pour a second before I hear the sound again.
It doesn’t seem to be coming from inside, so I float back over to the window and look out at the other buildings.
When it sounds again, it’s a bit clearer, and I peer down at the alley below, but the angle is extreme, and I can’t even see the car parked in it.
These windows don’t seem to open, but I press and attempt to slide them anyway. They don’t budge.
Another thud, but this time louder . . . It echoes slightly. It has to be coming from the alley. I press my cheek to the window and look down, but it’s no use.
I hurry up the stairs and grab his arm. “York.”
He jolts beneath my touch. “What?”
“I keep hearing something outside.”
When he sits up, he draws a gun out from under his pillow and slips off the bed. Tensing, I head back down the stairs behind him, ripping open his bag and shuffling through the contents.
The clothing I bought is there, so I pull out the pair of black pants, a shirt and sweater, and get dressed as quickly as I can without aggravating my arm too much. He hasn’t said anything, so I just keep going, pulling out another gun, checking it, and then getting my shoes on.
“I don’t hear anything,” he murmurs.
“Yeah.” I look around, spooked. “Any other way out of here?”
“You need to rest.” He crosses the room and tilts my head back. “Paranoia is normal after something like this.”
“After something like what? Seeing a bunch of people get their heads blown off, being used as a human shield, and then being shot by someone I was dumb enough to put even the slightest amount of trust in?”
“Theresa—”
“I think—”
There is a slight creak from the elevator, and I turn my head.
“I think they're already in the building,” I whisper.
York gets his shoes on, then closes the bag and throws it onto his back. Calmly, he leads us back up to the bedroom and down the hall toward the bathroom.
At the end of it, he stops and laces his fingers together. “Up.”
I look at his hands and up at the ceiling where there is a two-by-two-foot inset square that resembles an attic opening. Nodding, I step onto his hands and place my knee on his shoulder as I reach up and pop the entrance open.
Getting myself up hurts, even with York pressing half my weight for me.
“Shit,” I gasp out as I pull my legs up behind me.
The bag comes up next, and I yank it through the opening, my arm protesting the entire time. As I push the bag aside, I look around. It’s not an attic but rather a crawlspace specifically designed for exactly this—escape.
Before I can look back down to the apartment, hands appear on the lip of the opening, and he muscles himself up and slides the cover back in place.
It’s already rigged with something, and I watch him stretch out retractable wires from a box fastened to the backside of the cover.
He hooks them to the lip of the opening and flips a switch.
A screen glows, and he backs away from it.
“Is that a bomb?”
“Mm.” He slides the bag down the crawlspace. “It will only go off if the tension on the wires changes.”
We crawl a few yards, and then he pushes a grate open and climbs through it.
I stuff the bag out and follow, finding York’s hand helping me up on the other side.
Looking out over a town I don’t recognize from a grated catwalk at the edge of the roof, the only thought that passes through my head is, Great, another fire escape.
“We don’t want to be up here if they trigger that device,” he says in passing, moving around me. “It’s incendiary.”
“For the love of God, blowing them up wasn’t enough?”
He leads me down the catwalk, but instead of following it down to the fire escape, he goes over the rail, and we dart across the tar paper roof.
On the other side, we peer over the edge of the roof and find two black vehicles, one parked across the back of York’s car and the other parked in the alley in front of it, boxing us in.
Great.
“This way,” he says, unfazed.
I follow him around a vent stack and across the roof where he hops down onto a ledge that can’t be more than a foot wide. The black duffel is tossed, and I watch it sail through the air, tracking it until it lands on the roof of the building beside us.
The alleyway where the car is parked is ten or twelve feet wide, but on this side it’s much less, permitting just foot traffic. The problem is the building is shorter than this one, requiring us to make what looks like a five- or six-foot drop.
“I got shot less than six hours ago,” I point out.
“Want to get shot again?”
He jumps across.
Motherfucker. I slip down onto the ledge and tell myself it will be fine. Am I going to hit hard and roll? Probably. Am I going to roll right over this bullet wound? Most definitely.
I jump across the narrow alley and drop to the roof with York stepping in front of me to catch me around the waist as I pitch forward.
We don’t make it off the second roof before the bomb goes off, and I drop, covering my ears as I twist back. The entire corner of the building where the catwalk and crawlspace were is now just a flaming hole.
We scramble down a ladder and an old pipe that takes us down the last story to the ground. York pulls out a phone, makes a hushed call, and throws the bag down and pulls stuff out.
He stands, fixing a ballcap on his head while palming a metal disk in one hand. “Stay here.”
Sirens sound in the distance as he walks around the corner, and a couple of cars pull over on the side of the nearby road. My thumb is bouncing rapidly on my thigh as I wait for him. The sound of another boom makes me jump out of my skin before I run around the corner without a second thought.
I bounce right off him.
“Worried?”
I brush off the self-satisfaction in his tone. “What else did you blow up?”
“My car.” He scoops up the bag and starts walking.
No car and nowhere to sleep. This night took a turn very quickly. A firetruck screams by us as we round the corner and head up the street. Looking back, the fire is lighting up the block, and the smoke is billowing heavily. This will be visible at quite a distance.
A police car flies by next, with a second close on its tail. We cross the street and cut down another alley.
“Did anyone else live in that building?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“No, just another warehouse.”
“What was stored there?”
“Mostly flammable shit.”
There is a concussive blast, and we both stop to glance back, catching a massive new plume of smoke rising like a mushroom cloud over the shops that now block our view.
We share a quick look and pick up our pace, coming out of the alley and crossing another road before we slow again to head up a sidewalk.
Twisting and turning through the town, we reach the edge where the businesses stop, and a long road leads up to what appears to be a school alongside a large park.
A ringing breaks through the silence, and York pulls out the phone, answering in single words and checking his watch before hanging up.
“Almost there.” He puts his hand on my back, and we cross the road into the park.
On the other side, a car flashes its headlights, and we jog down the footpath toward it. As we approach, the passenger door opens, and Carter’s head appears above the car, but he doesn’t say anything. He just nods and pulls the rear door open.
I rush around the car and climb in. Carter closes my door, and York piles in beside me. The car pulls away from the curb in no particular rush, and that’s when I realize William is driving. Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror, but I keep quiet and look out my window instead.
“How’d they find you so fast?” Carter turns in his seat.
“No idea,” York says. “Maybe the car.”
“Maybe they tagged their girl, and she doesn’t know it,” William counters, and our eyes meet in the mirror again. “Or maybe she does.”
“Watch it,” I growl. “I owe you a bullet still, and trust me, I’m not a shit shot like you.”
“I hit your arm on purpose.” His eyes shift back to the road.
“So, you’re a coward, then? I can work with that.”
William’s nostrils flare, but he doesn’t say anything else as York squeezes my knee. I can’t tell if it’s a gesture of understanding or a bid for me to shut up.
There is no merit to William’s claim though. If I was tagged as part of Raven, I’d know it, and Russel wouldn’t have been surprised to see me at the gala. Besides, I have no devices aside from a burner phone on occasion.
“Everyone will be swept for bugs when we get back, just to be safe,” Carter says diplomatically.
“Back where?” I ask.
Carter snorts. “Unabomber paradise.”
Fuck. The woods are not where I want to be with this group again. I’m not a wimp; I can rough it if I have to. I don’t need much to survive . . . but Jesus, the woods stress me out. They’re supposed to have the opposite effect, I think.
Come to think of it, I don’t like the ocean either. Too much unknown beneath the surface. The moon is calming though. I lean against the window, but there is broken cloud cover, and I can’t see the moon regardless, not even its glow.
It’s only twenty minutes before we turn onto a winding road lined with trees, and about five minutes later, we turn onto a gravel driveway.
Well, at least it’s not the hunting cabin I expected.
The large house tucked into the trees looks like something you see on a lake, but there isn’t any water around here from the looks of it.
Carter takes me inside as William hangs back with York. August is nowhere in sight, and I’m led straight upstairs.
He points, “Bathroom,” as we pass by it.
“Will and I are in the last two rooms.” He gestures down the hall.
“You’re here.” He flips the switch on the room beside the bathroom.
“And August has the bedroom on the main floor . . . Sorry about the state. This was just meant for York if he needed it. He never needs it, though.”
The room has a bunch of gear stowed in the corner at the end of the twin bed. The only other thing in the room is a dresser and a nightstand.
“He can manage with the pullout in the den.” Carter scratches his head and smiles faintly. “I’m sure he won’t mind giving up his room.”
“How do you feel about all this?” I slowly cross my arms. “Because so far, all I know is William wants me dead, and about fifty percent of the time I can’t tell what York is thinking.”
“Better than me. I don’t know what’s going through that guy’s head a hundred percent of the time.” He smiles, but it fades. “I’m reserving judgment until all your cards are down.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” I slap the switch off and head back to the stairs.