I slip through the doors just as they’re closing.
The men don’t make it.
I exhale heavily, watching them through the scratched plexiglass as the train lurches forward, their faces tight with frustration, already reaching for phones to call it in. They’ll have people at the next station. They’ll have people everywhere.This whole train is filled with surveillance that Global Dynamix probably supplies to the city.
But I’ve bought myself a few minutes.
I ride two stops, then transfer, then transfer again, zigzagging through the system like a rat in a maze. At 50th Street I surface, climbing back into the rain, and the cold hits me fresh all over again. My jacket is soaked through. My boots squelch with every step. The grief I’ve been holding at bay keeps trying to claw its way up my throat and I keep shoving it back down because I can’t, Ican’t, not now, not yet.
Cal is dead.
I know.
Nate killed him.
I know.
And you’re next if you don’t keep moving.
I hail a cab.
The driver is an older guy with a Mets cap and a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Where to?” he asks tiredly.
“To 48th and 10th. Fast as you can, please.”
He pulls into traffic. The wipers beat a steady rhythm against the windshield, smearing the city lights into watercolor streaks. I twist in my seat to check the rear window.
Black SUV. Three cars back.
It could be nothing. Could be coincidence. New York is full of black SUVs and not all of them are hunting me.
But as I keep watching, it’s not changing lanes. Not passing. Just following behind us, block after block, still three cars back.
“Shit.”
The driver glances at me in the mirror. “You okay back there?”
“Fine. Just—can you speed up?”
“Lady, I get that you’re from England, or something, but this is Midtown. Nobody speeds up in Midtown.”
He’s right. The traffic has thickened into something approaching gridlock, brake lights stretching ahead like a river of red, and we’re barely crawling. I check the mirror again. The SUV is closer now. Two cars back.
“Pull over.”
“What? We’re not even?—”
I tap my mobile against the screen behind his seat to pay and wrench open the door before he’s fully stopped, stumbling out into the rain, into the honking chaos of stalled traffic, my shins brushing against a car’s bumper. Horns blare. Someone shouts. I don’t look back, just run.
The sidewalk is packed but I shoulder through, using elbows when I have to, not caring anymore about attracting attention because they already know where I am, they’re already coming, and the only thing that matters now is putting distance between me and that SUV.
I cut down a side street. Then an alley. The rain is relentless, streaming down my face, plastering my hair to my skull, and every breath burns in my lungs but I keep going, keep pushing, because stopping means I would have to fight and I’m not sure what the people working for Global Dynamix have up their sleeve, but it’s going to be bad. It would be a fight I can’t win and I’m not ready to die. Not tonight. Not like this.
Hell’s Kitchen opens up around me, narrow streets, walk-up apartments, fire escapes zigzagging down brick facades. Thanks to my mapping and old habits, I know this neighborhood well by now. I know which alleys connect, which doors are usually unlocked, which rooftops you can access…if you’re desperate enough.
I’m desperate enough.
