Chapter 1 #3
My boots hit the pavement, clunky and heavy but I don't slow down. I forget about skipping cardio at the gym and let my legs take over. Funny how the fear of death can make you move like lightning.
Cold air burns my lungs with every ragged inhale I can manage.
I don't look back. I push harder, calves screaming, chest burning.
“Come here, you stupid bitch.”
Snarled curses tangle around me and threaten to trip me up. I make a hard left just as a minivan filled with kids and soccer moms comes to a stop at a red light.
Muffled screams peal out of the closed windows and the two tanks chasing me either have to plow through or stop.
I check which it is as I haul ass down another alley and come out onto a side street that spills onto a main road, but I don't hear footsteps anymore. I head for another alley and then another. Before long the city swallows me. People. Headlights. Traffic. A bus pulling away from a stop, exhaust curling into the cold air. The blessed, beautiful anonymity of a crowd who doesn’t care about the stranger next to them or how close death sits and waits for all of us.
I make a right down another alley. This one is less welcoming than the last with its nonexistent light and stale air.
I duck into the first open door I find. A convenience store. Fluorescent light buzzes overhead. The air smells like floor cleaner and the day-old hot dogs I spot turning on their metal rollers.
I wedge myself behind a shelf, press my back against a cold metal rack used to hold stacks of chips. I stand there shaking so hard my teeth click together.
The shaking starts in my hands. It rolls inward, moving through my arms and into my chest then down through my legs until my whole body vibrates with an energy my nervous system has no idea how to process. My knees feel like they've recently been informed that holding me up is optional, too. Great.
I try to shove away the nerves, but they are not going anywhere.
Sweat cools on the back of my neck and my shirt sticks between my shoulder blades. The adrenaline that saved me converts from fuel to poison in my bloodstream, the rush turning thick and toxic now that there's nowhere left to run.
The metallic bite of the alley clings to the inside of my nostrils, mixing with the convenience stench until my stomach rolls. I have to swallow hard to keep from being sick behind the Doritos.
My hand goes to the locket at my throat. I press it flat against my collarbone hard enough to feel the chain bite into the back of my neck. Raine and I bought matching chains with our first paychecks, and I've been reaching for mine every time my world falls sideways ever since.
I grab at the front pocket of my apron, holding my breath.
“Oh, thank God.”
I drag my phone out with fingers that barely cooperate. It takes three tries to unlock it, my thumb sliding on the glass, smearing sweat across the screen.
I pull up my contacts and tap my sister’s name.
“Come on, pick up.”
But I only get her voicemail.
I call again, pressing the phone so hard to my ear the speaker digs into the sensitive cartilage.
Voicemail again.
“Ugh. Come on, sis.”
I try a third time, my jaw clenched so tight my molars protest with sharp stabbing pains.
Her recorded voice fills my ear and the polished, professional tone she uses for work makes knots of fear twist behind my ribs so hard I gasp. "You've reached Raine Vale. Please leave a message."
“Hey Raine. I need you to call me, okay? It’s an emergency.
I’m in trouble.” I leave it at that. What else can I say?
Hey, Raine. Quick update for when you get this.
I watched a man get murdered behind the shop tonight and Nikolai was standing there like he was checking inventory.
By the way, think you can jump in your rich boss’s plane and come mist the orchids for me? Okay, miss you. Call me back.
Yeah, no. I pocket my cellphone and stay behind the shelf until my legs stop shaking.
Until my breath evens out into something that resembles a pattern instead of the ragged, hiccupping gasps that have been coming out of me for the past five minutes.
The convenience store clerk keeps glancing at me over the register, his eyebrows raised.
I’ve got about forty-five seconds before he comes over here. A minute tops.
I look at the paper in my hand, but I can’t seem to bring myself to unfold it. I’m not a psychic or anything but my gut says he died for what is written on this paper. I can’t bring myself to read it right now, but I don’t want to throw it away either.
Since my jeans don’t have pockets—a real crime against humanity—I shove the paper into my boot where it presses against my ankle, the edge digging into the skin above my sock.
I wipe my eyes and force myself to stand tall despite the bone-deep exhaustion that follows a full-body panic.
Using my hair as a shield, I let the silver stream hang around my face as I walk out into the Chicago night.
The cold wraps around me. A couple walks past me laughing about something, their breath visible between them, and the normalcy of it is so far from where I am right now that they might as well be on a different planet.
I look up in time to see the two thugs hunting me head down a side street.
Shit. I hook around the corner in the opposite direction and head for the only other place I know to go.