Chapter Thirty-Five

Eli

My hands were chapped from the cold by the time I reached Redman Corporation Headquarters on the outskirts of the city. My bike coasted with a purr to a patch of snow-coated evergreens, and I shut her off and propped her there. I needed the element of surprise with me tonight.

I pried my helmet off and shook out my hair, then knotted it back with a hair tie.

I glanced up at the dark night sky overhead. I was far enough from the city that the stars were twinkling again, and I took one moment to gaze up at them and pull a breath of crisp winter air deep into my lungs. It’s okay, I promised myself, even though the world around me seemed to be going up in flames more and more each day. Compared to those stars, everything that will happen here tonight is tiny. Relax. Focus. Now go.

I treaded through the snow toward the silhouette of the brick building in the distance. Lights were on in the third-story office window. At the front of the building, a man stood. He looked tiny from this distance, and I could only see him because his silhouette was stark against the surrounding white snow.

As I closed the space between us, his bright green hair became more and more evident to me.

Ah. Mikey. I had been wanting another dance with him. Our fights were always so short-lived, and never as satisfying as they could’ve been.

I flexed my cold knuckles and crept around toward the back of the building, using the surrounding trees as coverage. My instinct about Mikey was that he never paid close attention.

I slid Linden’s night vision goggles over my eyes and belly-crawled beneath the first-story windows, doubling back toward the stoop where Mikey idly roamed back and forth. It took several minutes, as every crawl forward had to be followed by silence and waiting to see if anyone had heard me and was coming to check. No one came. What a shitty sentry this kid was.

I didn’t even think about my knives or my gun. I wouldn’t need anything so barbaric to take out a man like Mikey. Sheer instinct would do it for me.

I lingered at the brick corner of the front of the building, no more than ten feet away from Mikey. He drifted back and forth, eyes fastened to the road, and then it happened. A bzzz in the immaculate silence of this night.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

With a grunt, Mikey fished out his cell phone and scrolled through the new messages. His face was illuminated by the eerie white light, temporarily blinded. I still wore my night vision goggles, though I wouldn’t need them for this. I peeled them off and drew my gun from its hiding place. The snow was my most formidable adversary here… It would give him fair warning.

But would he comprehend it quickly enough to do anything about it?

I burst forward, and in two leaps, I reached him.

Mikey twisted to face me with a dumb, shocked look in his eyes, but it was too late.

The clip of my gun met his temple, and he crumpled with a groan into the snow.

I almost left him there, but then I thought better of it and hooked my hands beneath his shoulders, dragging him onto the stoop and out of the snow. I didn’t want a man to freeze to death because of me, even this one.

I twisted the doorknob on the front door and let it open by one inch, listening carefully.

There were only three vehicles in the driveway at headquarters, and one of them was JP’s Jaguar. This made me think there weren’t many people here. Of course, you didn’t need all hands on deck if you were going to jump ship anyway.

I didn’t hear anything at first, and I wondered what the hell Mikey was guarding. Then: “W-w-we c-can’t get rid of the c-c-computers, Marv.” I recognized that stammer. It was Freak Will, the one who worked with Nina at the bookstore. The one who wore the glasses and trashed her place when she fired him. “It’s t-t-too suspicious.”

Ah. Moving out. Their voices were far away, but the fighting helped them to carry. I slid into the foyer and then crept to the stairwell, ducking beneath the stairs. The lights were off, and this space was pure shadow. The voices came from the bank of computers to my left.

“I don’t want any data left behind for anyone, in case that tatted-up kid with the hair gets somebody who cares to come by here,” Marvin explained in a hiss.

“We’ll wipe the computers,” a third voice said. I didn’t think that I recognized this one. “I’ll get a jump drive from upstairs.”

“N-n-no!” Will cried. “You c-can’t do that. It’s too s-suspicious!”

Will was actually right. If these computers were in any condition to be checked once this building was vacated, to find a bank of blank computers in the lobby of a complex business would make no sense without evident tampering.

I wondered how quickly those FBI tips received action. If they didn’t move fast, it would be too late, and it would be too late soon. I was right. They were moving out. Wiping off all the fingerprints.

“It’s better than leaving them as they are,” the third voice said. “If we’re wiping the hard copies, we’ve got to wipe the digital ones, too.”

“Yes,” Marvin agreed. They were all idiots. The only smart thing to do in this situation was leave and never look back.

“F-f-fine,” Will sneered. “B-better ask the boss f-first.”

“I’ll go,” the third voice said. “Be right back.”

As he crossed the foyer toward the stairs, his eyes naturally never flicked to mine, but when I caught a glimpse of his face in a splash of moonlight from the window, I recognized him immediately as the tan, thick-haired fortysomething from Paper Treasure. The suit.

His polished shoes pounded the staircase overhead as he ventured to ask the boss.

By the computers, Marvin and Will continued to bicker about whether to alter the computers. How were they going to move out without taking the computers? And why? What business—

Then it dawned on me. It was going to look like an accident.

A door opened upstairs, and for one second, I caught a snatch of a familiar female voice. My ears pricked. My eyes brightened. Nina was up there. Shit! Nina was here. All right, all right. My entire body was on fire with purpose. She was here. She was safe. I had to get to her.

I pulled my night vision goggles over my eyes and crept through the shadows along the wall until I was closer to Marvin and Will. They were too intent in their debate to notice me at all. The beard and the goggles and my love for black T-shirts all helped out, too. Most of me blended fully into the darkness.

I would need to take out Will first. He was the youngest, the smartest, and he had the most fire. That was dangerous. I couldn’t give him a chance to fight with me. I would surprise him, and then overtake horrified Marvin easily.

Upstairs, there came the sound of a scream. A woman’s scream. Nina’s scream.

It raced through my blood like the tip of a match racing down a stream of gasoline. I burst into fucking flame at the sound. It was muffled, but the cadence of the word “no” was recognizable enough. Something deep inside me—something that had been resting ever since my mother died—came blossoming out of me again.

I wanted to go to her now, but I couldn’t face four men at once, particularly if they were likely armed. I wouldn’t get the element of surprise back. They were distracted by Nina’s screams. This was the time. Quick. Quiet.

“What the hell?” Marvin whispered, twisting toward the sound of Nina’s screams. Both men were baffled, but none of them were corded in a tight rage like I was.

“Wh-wh-why—” Will began, turning toward the stairs with Marvin. He never got the chance to finish that sentence. I couldn’t wait any longer, and he was focused on the stairs.

I pounced and wrapped my arms around his neck, biceps bulging like a pit of pythons. His windpipe sank in, and it didn’t expand again. Will thrashed and clawed, but didn’t make a sound that Marvin could hear.

Nina screamed again, and my soul cried out to her. I had to go. I had to go.

Will dropped into an unconscious heap at my feet, and that was the sound that drew Marvin’s attention back to me.

He opened his mouth to scream, but I punched him swiftly across the jaw, then grabbed a phone from the computer desk, ripped it clean, and bashed him once with it. The man folded and didn’t rise again.

Even if he wasn’t unconscious, I was strangely confident that he wouldn’t actually fight or even help his own side to fight. He couldn’t stand getting his hands dirty. When he awoke, he would crawl away. I could smell the weakness in him.

That left three more in the building, by my count. The suit, Nina, and JP.

I pounded up the stairs, ready to die for her if I had to.