I look over and crouch, fingers going to the base. There’s a wet sheen under the cylinder. Hydraulic fluid.
Great.
Vito pumps again out of sheer spite, and the jack answers with a soft, pathetic hiss, then a sharp little spit of fluid that glints in the strip light.
The forks sag a fraction and drop back down with a quiet clunk that feels way too loud in here.
Vito’s eyes cut to me.
I hold up my hand. Stop. Listen.
Because now we have a problem.
Vito points to the first pallet jack we didn’t take.
I shake my head. He nods.
I shake my head again.
Too loud, I mouth.
We’ll run, he mouths back and uses two fingers to indicate running.
“We still have to load the pallets into the van,” I snap quietly. “We can’t run.”
Vito’s eyes narrow like he hates that I’m right.
“Stay here,” he says. “I’ll go find another one.”
“Vito, no,” I hiss, but he’s already slipped down another aisle, gone.
He disappears like a shadow, and the second he’s out of my sight, the warehouse feels twice as big.
My teeth grind.
“Fucking—” I bite it off before it becomes loud.
I slide closer to the pallet, hand on the cardboard sleeve, eyes sweeping the aisles the way I was taught to. The busted jack sits there like a dead animal, fluid glistening under it.
I hold still and listen hard.
A soft scrape answers from somewhere to my left.
I shift my weight slowly, easing my hand off the sleeve.
Could be rats.
Could be my idiot brother, but he’s never been that quiet in his life.
I reach under my shirt and pull my gun.
I angle my head to see down the nearest aisle; nothing there.
There’s another shuffling sound, and another.
Two different directions.
Fuck.
