My breath is too dry in my throat and I swallow, hoping with every step that Goldie Glocks will not look back.Don’t look, just don’t look—
People react differently to mortal danger.
Some people freeze; others panic; some get violent. But for me, the world gets a little quiet. A little muffled. As if I’munderwater—
I reach the stairs.
The moment there is a wall between myself and Goldie Glocks, I breathe a little easier. Eames stops beside me, his back to the stairwell.
I flick my fingers, switching my visor’s view to Edgar’s perspective again. He has landed on one of the succulents, his bumblebee gaze fixed on the intruders.
I can see Goldie Glocks and her crew clearly for the first time.
Her blond hair is held at the nape of her neck in a simple braid. She has the striking cold beauty of an ice sculpture.
The others are dressed like shadows—grays and blacks and browns that will blend into darkness.
One pale, reedy man claps Goldie Glocks on the shoulder as he ambles by. A Black woman has ringware on each hand and a slender visor over one eye. Her fingers are a blur as she types commands that only she can see. A second man—white, built like a workhorse with a golfer’s tan—gives the dead security guard a professional glance. There’s a third woman I can only see from the back. She has startlingly dyed red-orange hair and carries a golf bag—although I seriously doubt she came here to golf.
As I watch, the workhorse man pulls a backpack from his shoulders and unloads several chains and heavy padlocks. He goes to the front doors and begins securing them. The orange-haired woman takes more chains and heads toward the back of the building, presumably to do the same on the other entrances.
They’re locking down the building.
Which meanswhateverthis is—a robbery, a kidnapping, something else entirely—it isn’t over. Not even close.
“Orders?” Edgar’s voice sounds in my ear.
“Follow them,” I whisper. “Then report back.”
“Acknowledged,” said Edgar. “Be safe.”
My throat tightens with unexpected emotion. It isn’t like Edgar to show concern.
Then he adds, “If you’re killed, I could be recycled by accident.”
Now that sounds more like Edgar.
Eames and his sister stare at me with increasing alarm, and I can’t blame them. They just witnessed a murder and now they’re hiding in a stairwell with a pink-haired girl who talks to herself. “Giving commands to a drone,” I whisper. That’s as good an explanation as any. “What floor is your apartment on?”
I can see Eames doing some kind of mental math, probably deciding whether or not to trust me. “The eleventh.”
Eleven floors—and it’s not like they can use the elevator in the lobby. I can’t leave them like this, not with a kid dripping pool water and Eames looking as though he would take on the world for her.
My heart’s mostly machine, but even I’m not that cold.
“Mine’s on the third,” I say. “We should go there.”
Emotions flit across his face in quick succession. He clearly doesn’t like the suggestion, but his thoughts follow the same line as my own. We need to get to safety and then we can call for help.
He nods.
My heart throbs as we jog up the stairs. Every step is too slow with my adrenaline-sharp senses screaming atme to go faster, to just sprint and leave my charges behind. Instead, I try to focus on the rhythm of my breathing.
At 310, I hold up the back of my hand. The sensor wakes and scans my tattoo.
I duck inside, waiting for Eames and the kid to pass me before I shove the door shut.
I lean against the door, my breath coming in ragged little bursts.
