“And what happens when she starts killing more people?” asks Piper quietly.
A fair question. And one I don’t have an answer to. Sooner or later, Vale is going to get desperate enough to start killing hostages.
“I won’t let her hurt anyone else,” I say.
“How?” asks Piper.
I pinch the corners of my mouth into a smile. “However I have to.”
That sounds better than “I have no idea.”
Piper doesn’t look convinced. “Isn’t there anything I can do to help?”
I open my mouth to say no, but then I close it again. A half-formed plan comes to me in an instant, and this time, my grin is entirely unforced. “Actually, I think there is.”
Ten minutes later, Eames and I are preparing to leave the apartment.
I press Matthew’s ringware to the door. At once, the holographic menu appears in my vision and I swipe theUNLOCKbutton. “Where did you get that?” asks Consul, frowning.
I flick the ring through my fingers, magician-style. “I have my ways.”
That only makes her frown deepen.
“All right,” I say, turning to face Piper and Consul. “I’m going to leave the door unlocked. Just in case something goes wrong.”
A shadow crosses Piper’s face, but she nods.
Eames steps through after me. He takes a moment to glance back, then he wrenches his gaze away. He shuts the door as though it’s far heavier than its physical weight.
The hallway is even darker than before. The late afternoon sun is angled for shadow rather than illumination. Only one hour of the blackout remains. Vale chose this time deliberately, using the reduced security and lack ofelectricity to slip through the city unseen. When that’s taken away, what will she do?
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
Eames and I walk quietly down the hall. Another flick of my fingers brings up the schematics of the building. I can see the layout—each apartment’s number, the curve of the hallway, the expanse of space that opens up into the pool below. But most importantly, I see the location of each and every storage closet.
“Okay,” I whisper. “This is risky. But if we time it right…”
Eames nods. “This is the best plan,” he agrees.
His approval shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does. It feels good to have him on my side.
There are no signs of Vale or her crew. They must have moved on from this floor and gone up to the next one.
I use Matthew’s ring to unlock a closet and we shuffle inside. It’s cluttered with a rolling mop bucket, several brooms, and an empty cart. A red-tinged emergency light glows softly overhead. There’s also a garbage chute that I assume leads into the basement bins.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s get started.”
Most visors are equipped with a small speaker and projector. They’re not great, and mostly it’s used by older people who take video calls in public and annoy everyone around them. But now, I’m grateful for that function.
I slide off my visor and glance at Eames.
It’s the second time he’s seen me unmasked. His gaze flicks over my broken nose, at the bruises forming beneath my eyes, and, finally, settles on my hair.
“It’s not normally that color, is it?” He reaches out to touch one of the strands—brown fading into hot pink. “That’s smart-dye.”
“Insta-disguise,” I admit. “Combine that with the visor and you’d be surprised how hard it is to recognize me.”
“You’ve been doing this a long time.” It isn’t a question.
