Creak. Creak. Creak. Clunk.
Grainy video fizzes back in as Taylor crawls out and brushes herself off. With a click, her palm-sized flashlight shines a bright blue light across a dank basement stacked with furniture and other abandoned home décor draped in white cloth. Ghosts of furniture past.
“Gee, wonder what she’s looking for. Maybe the big, honking safe in the middle of the room?” I say, shaking my head.
Static rumbles in our headsets as Taylor spins the lock. Mason perks up in his seat. “Eos, got voices on our channel. Make it quick.”
Deft hands spring the safe open, unveiling a shocking amount of currency. Papa always says it’s poor form to keep your money in one place. Of course, he does exactly that by keeping the lion’s share of our fortune in the Bank of New York to prove no one steals from the leader. The bank is protected by Flashmen, the human-sized version of Lightbringers. They require ID to enter the bank or any other protected building, and if the ID is not presented, they are programmed to shoot to kill. Few of them remain operational, because they’re known to malfunction.
In any case, it’s ballsy and stupid to keep your money in your house. Taylor wastes no time stuffing as many green stacks as possible into the duffel bag until it’s practically bursting at the seams. She zips it up and hustles toward the dumbwaiter, engulfing herself and the screen in darkness with a flick of her flashlight.
Suddenly, footsteps stomp down the stairs.
Video is dark, but the audio of Taylor grunting and struggling is clear. My heart batters my ribs. “Mason, what’s happening?”
Mason puts his fingers to his lips and stares intently at the screen. Silence drags on for an eternity when, finally, Taylor’s flashlight flicks on and off twice. Mason smiles and exhales heavily. “She’s all right.”
Bounding up the stairs, Taylor is garish and exposed in the main room to which she hastily returns. Across the parlor room and up the second flight of stairs, the camera sees it before she does: a man leaning out the window, finger on his earpiece. Taylor raises her arm, steadies it with her other hand beneath her wrist, and fires off a tranquilizer dart. It strikes him in the neck, and the guard has only enough time to grab the dart before he hits the floor with a loud, boneless thump.
The doors next to us burst open and Alisa and Javier scramble inside. “Guards are hot,” Javier whispers urgently.
Mason nods and chucks down his headset, hurrying out of the van to return to the driver’s seat. My eyes dart frantically between everyone, totally bewildered. In a panic, I throw off my headset and snatch his, yanking it over my head. “Hey, you there?”
“Where’s Hel?” Taylor leans out the window and peers down at armed men patrolling the grass. The camera spins around and looks up. With a sigh Taylor slides herself out of the window and climbs toward the roof. “Did he give you his headset?”
“No, I killed and ate him for it,” I snap. “He’s driving. Guards are hot. Not Force, COs by the look of it.”
“Good eye,” Taylor replies, grunting with effort as she scales to the top of the building. “Tell Hel to meet me at rendezvous point C.”
She vaults onto the roof where the camera reveals the backs of two men scouring the roof opposite her. Behind her, COs snoop the top of the neighboring building.
She’s trapped.
A whisper comes through the headset. “Well, that is not ideal.”
“She says to meet her at rendezvous point C,” I repeat dumbly to Mason through the minuscule window behind his seat.
Sticking to shadows, she manages to creep behind the two nearby guards unheard. Swiftly, she grabs the back of one of them by the shirt and plunges a syringe into his neck. His companion is not fast enough. Taylor kicks in the back of his legs to force him to his knees, and then chokes him. There is no struggle. His presumably superior strength is rendered useless by his panic as he claws at her hands, which press on his artery with calm precision. Within seconds he’s asleep, as easy as throwing a blanket over a birdcage.
Turning on her heels, Taylor takes off in the direction of the adjoining building. She vaults the space between them and tucks into a roll upon landing. Snatching her gun from a calf holster, she picks off CO after CO while maintaining a steady jog until she halts at the roof’s edge. She skips back a few steps, pausing only a split second before breaking into a run to launch herself onto the next rooftop.
She lands on her feet but the noise gives her away and she keeps running, full tilt. COs fire at her and my heart skips as the camera pans forward and backward, showing enemies on all sides. Taylor leaps to the next building. She whirls around midair and shoots back, taking down two more guards before landing on her back on the next roof. Bullets pop and whiz past her as she breaks into another run, feet pounding against the cement.
I don’t know how much longer she thinks she can dodge bullets. These agents are professionally trained and they’re not going to miss forever. Her luck is bound to run out and it dawns on me, quite strikingly, that I’m genuinely frightened for her. She jumps the next gap, arms out, grappling. Time is as suspended as she is. Slow, sluggish, like running in a dream.
Her body slams into the side of the building, barely gripping the roof edge. Swears fill my earpiece as she dangles precariously, sneakers desperately trying to gain traction against the smooth brick. The camera swivels and reveals three more COs gunning for her from behind. Just as they reach the edge of the roof, she swings her right leg up and propels her body onto the other side with a yelp.
“Are you okay?”
Taylor gets up, either maiming or killing the three guards pursuing her. It must be important to her to get the bag to its destination, considering what a huge disadvantage it is to be carrying around pounds of stolen money. Mason brings thecar to a screeching halt, causing me to nearly fall on the floor. Javier opens the back doors and reveals a desolate street. The hummingbird camera returns to its original position, showing me a full view of where a bullet grazed her back and tore open her clothes.
Suddenly Taylor’s voice crackles in. “Ah, nuts.”
Her voice isn’t the only harbinger of bad news. The piercing whine of feedback ominously cuts in on the radios. Faint at first, but the noise rises at a steady clip until it’s almost unbearable. It ceases abruptly when the tremors in the street start. Out of the darkness at the end of the block, a Lightbringer steps into view.
“You…you have to get out of there,” I say in a desperate, trembling whisper.
Taylor’s voice contradicts mine with a low, even confidence. “Miss Piccolo, stay calm. Repeat these instructions out loud, exactly as I say them.”
