Chapter Six
Callum
Tom. Callum had expected the man to have a more exotic name. Like… like Conan, or James Bond. Tom was the guy who made sandwiches in the deli, or weighed packages at the post office. Tom wasn’t the guy who raced down dark streets in the middle of the night, a gun tucked into his waistband, to break into a Syndicate factory and rescue a kidnapped child.
And a guy named Tom definitely shouldn’t have a body like that, or hair that caught the moonlight, or a scent of musk and wood polish that made Callum respond in unnerving ways. A guy named Tom should be pudgy and balding, with too much chest hair.
Not that any of this mattered. Not what the man next to him in the car was named; definitely not the way he smelled. He was only trying to distract himself with thoughts like this because he knew there was a good chance he would die in the next few minutes. He didn’t know why he had agreed to come—not when he knew he wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing. He should have given the information to Tom and then run while he had the chance.
Except that if he had run, Tom might not have been able to save his daughter on his own.
And when he closed his eyes, he could still see the contempt on Tom’s face when Tom had found out what his father did, and that Callum worked for him. He hadn’t wanted to see the way Tom would have looked at him if he had refused to help.
They parked along the street about a block away from the factory. Tom paused with his fingers on the door handle. “Do you remember what to do?”
Callum nodded. With the way he was shaking, he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Good.” Tom got out of the car. “We’ll meet back here when it’s over.” He walked away without a backward glance. Callum watched him go, marveling at the utter lack of fear in the way he held himself. Trying desperately not to stare at the shape of his buttocks, or the ways the muscles in his legs moved as he walked.
He forced his eyes away and walked in the opposite direction, down an alley that he knew would take him to the factory if he followed it to the end. These streets had been his world when he was growing up, and he could have found his way to the factory from here with his eyes closed. If he stopped to look, he would even be able to find the loose brick in this very alley where he had scratched his name with a sharp stone one day.
But he didn’t stop. He followed the alley to the factory, and crept along the fence until he found the blind spot, the place where no one on the inside of the fence could see unless they were standing at the exact right angle. He used to hide here when he and his brother were playing hide-and-seek and he wanted to annoy Alec by just barely breaking the “no hiding outside the fence” rule. Now he had to crouch to fit behind the stack of bricks that made the hiding place possible, but no one yelled an alarm, and the guards’ flashlights didn’t point in his direction.
For another moment, the night was silent. Then a gunshot broke the stillness. A guard yelled; flashlights bobbed, hurrying toward the noise. It was time.
Callum grabbed the bars of the fence and strained to pull himself higher. Instead, he collapsed to the ground, biting his lip to suppress a yelp as he hit the pavement.
If he didn’t climb this fence, he wouldn’t be able to get to the basement and reach Tom’s daughter. If he didn’t get her out tonight, they would lose their chance, and she would disappear.
He tried again. And fell again.
He pictured Leila—the sounds she had made from the other side of the wall, the hope in her eyes when he had told her he was there to help her. He imagined the look of heartbreak on Tom’s face if he returned to the car empty-handed.
He gripped the bars again.
In his mind, he heard a younger version of Alec, giving him tips on how to climb the fence when they were young. Brace your feet on the bars, Alec had told him. Don’t think about climbing all the way to the top—think about getting six inches higher, and then another six inches. When you get to the top, throw yourself like you’re throwing a ball, but not too hard. Like you’re throwing a ball for a really stupid dog. And they had both laughed, thinking of the stray golden retriever who used to hang around the factory, and who would look at them with his head tilted in confusion if they threw the ball too far.
He had never made it over the fence back then. But now he looked down and saw the pavement far below him. He pictured that dog from his childhood and used his arms to propel himself forward, just enough to get him the extra distance to throw one leg over and then the other. The descent was laughably easy compared to the climb—and then he was on the ground, keeping a wary eye out for the guards as he ran for the back entrance to the basement.
No one spotted him on his way there, and the guard by the basement door was gone. Tom had promised he would be able to lure the right guards away; he was right. Callum heard another shot, and tried not to think about what would happen if one of those bullets hit Tom. He had a girl to rescue.
He punched in the code with shaking hands and threw the door open. He ran down the empty hallway and threw open the door at the end. For a second he imagined an empty room, Tom’s daughter already gone—but there she was, looking up at him with raw relief, tears already drying on her cheeks.
“Your father is waiting for you,” Callum told her, praying that it was true, that Tom wasn’t bleeding out somewhere. “We have to move fast.”
She didn’t need any encouragement. She hurried after him as he retraced his steps.
As they left the building, he touched a finger to his lips. Leila nodded to tell him she understood. The guards still hadn’t made it back as Callum retraced his steps with Leila silently shadowing him. Maybe they were still chasing Tom. Maybe they were the ones bleeding out. Either way, their absence made it more likely that Tom would be waiting for them when they got back to the car. At least that was what Callum hoped.
“If I lift you up, can you make it over to the other side?” Callum asked.
Leila nodded.
Callum hoisted her up in his arms. She grabbed the bars and swung herself to the other side, then started shimmying down. She lost her grip and landed hard on her back, and Callum’s breath caught for a second, until she stood and brushed herself off with nothing more than a slight wince of pain.
Now it was his turn. He started clambering up the fence. This time he didn’t need his brother’s advice in his ears, or the memory of that dog. Seeing Leila on the other side of the fence, and imagining how Tom’s face would light up when he saw her, was all the motivation he needed. He made it up and over, and together they raced for the car.
Nobody was there.
“Where is he?” Leila whispered.
Callum’s throat had clenched shut. He couldn’t answer.
Leila reached for his hand. He took her hand in his, and squeezed, and wished what little comfort he had to offer could be enough.
He opened the door to the backseat for her, and climbed into the driver’s seat himself. If Tom wasn’t back in five minutes, he would go. That was what Tom had told him to do. As Leila silently stared out the window behind him, he watched the clock.
If Tom wasn’t back in four minutes, he would leave.
Three minutes.
Two minutes.
One minute.
He turned the key in the ignition.
The door beside him opened, and Tom flung himself into the seat. Callum looked him over, fearing the worst, but the dark spots on his shirt were sweat and dirt, not blood.
“Did you get her?” Tom managed through labored breaths.
“She’s right there in the backseat,” said Callum.
Tom looked over his shoulder. He went suddenly still as his eyes met Leila’s, and although neither of them spoke, something shifted in the atmosphere. The moment felt almost religious, like something deserving of reverence. Tom drew in his breath softly.
“Hi,” said Leila, her voice matter-of-fact even now. “You must be my dad.”
Then Tom seemed to remember where they were. “Go,” he urged Callum. “Before they find us.”
Callum drove.