vulnerability. My clothes were already worn and singed in several spots. Even without the damage from the bombing and the fire I'd wanted to make sure that I would blend in with the rest of the grubbers, so I'd made sure to tear both the shirt and pants before I'd left home. I picked a couple of likely rips and strategically lengthened them to show some upper thigh and a healthy chunk of shoulder.
Then I took a deep breath and walked into the nearest building with the confident stride of someone who belonged there. I should have known that the doorway would have a guard on it, but my ruse worked. The guard flinched at the bruising and swelling easily visible all over my face, but he didn't ask me who I was going up to see. I walked past him with a gait that was part shame and part strut, and then once I was out of sight I hurried up the closest stairwell.
At some point this had been an office building. That meant a plethora of windows, but I knew that Piter wouldn't have left the first two floors unsecured—not as paranoid as he seemed to be about security, not for a building that bordered the territory of one of his rivals.
I ducked out of the stairs on the third floor and bit back a curse as soon as I got to where I could see the closest window. Metal plating had been welded across the space that had once contained a window. As I headed back towards the stairs, arm pressed against my ribs, I heard yelling. The odds of anyone having tracked me to this building already were astronomical, but I had to assume that was what had happened.
Maybe Piter's men had access to radios and someone had seen Bash pull me off into the alley. If so, the guard downstairs had probably alerted his fellows to my presence in his building just based on my height, build and gender. I hurried up to the fourth floor, but the first window I checked was blocked off by a steel mesh that would take equipment I didn't have to cut through.
I debated going up one more floor. There was a limit to how much metal even a psychopath like Piter would be willing to dedicate towards sealing off egress from this particular building, but the paracord I'd brought with me hadn't been measured with a hundred-foot drop in mind. I had to find an exit from this floor or I wasn't going to survive the drop.
At least the fact that they'd used steel mesh rather than welded sheet metal was a good sign. I could hear a group of people running up the stairs as I crashed through the plywood separating the next-door office.
This room wasn't abandoned, but I subdued the two occupants—a guy and girl roughly my own age—with a pair of carefully targeted blows that left them unconscious. I turned to look at the window and felt a surge of relief. There was nothing more than plywood sealing the room off from the elements.
The relief lasted only as long as it took to rip the plywood down and see the bars that had been welded across the opening. It was a patchwork mess, but there weren't any spaces big enough even for someone as small as me to slip through…unless…I checked a suspicious-looking bar and confirmed that the weld to the rest of the framework was corroded.
I gritted my teeth and then lashed out with a kick that sent a jolt of pain shooting through my foot. I'd just fractured the reinforced bones in my foot, but the blow had succeeded in breaking the top of the bar loose. I grabbed the free end and started working it back and forth in the hopes that I could fatigue the bottom weld. It wouldn't have worked if not for the kick that had broken the top free, but between my first blow and the corrosion, the bottom weld gave just a few seconds later.
I pulled the paracord out of the pack wrapped around my waist and tied one end to the most secure part of the remaining framework. The other end went around the metal bar I'd just finished tearing free, and then it was time.
More screams rang out from the third floor as Piter's enforcers went room to room looking for me. I
Then I took a deep breath and walked into the nearest building with the confident stride of someone who belonged there. I should have known that the doorway would have a guard on it, but my ruse worked. The guard flinched at the bruising and swelling easily visible all over my face, but he didn't ask me who I was going up to see. I walked past him with a gait that was part shame and part strut, and then once I was out of sight I hurried up the closest stairwell.
At some point this had been an office building. That meant a plethora of windows, but I knew that Piter wouldn't have left the first two floors unsecured—not as paranoid as he seemed to be about security, not for a building that bordered the territory of one of his rivals.
I ducked out of the stairs on the third floor and bit back a curse as soon as I got to where I could see the closest window. Metal plating had been welded across the space that had once contained a window. As I headed back towards the stairs, arm pressed against my ribs, I heard yelling. The odds of anyone having tracked me to this building already were astronomical, but I had to assume that was what had happened.
Maybe Piter's men had access to radios and someone had seen Bash pull me off into the alley. If so, the guard downstairs had probably alerted his fellows to my presence in his building just based on my height, build and gender. I hurried up to the fourth floor, but the first window I checked was blocked off by a steel mesh that would take equipment I didn't have to cut through.
I debated going up one more floor. There was a limit to how much metal even a psychopath like Piter would be willing to dedicate towards sealing off egress from this particular building, but the paracord I'd brought with me hadn't been measured with a hundred-foot drop in mind. I had to find an exit from this floor or I wasn't going to survive the drop.
At least the fact that they'd used steel mesh rather than welded sheet metal was a good sign. I could hear a group of people running up the stairs as I crashed through the plywood separating the next-door office.
This room wasn't abandoned, but I subdued the two occupants—a guy and girl roughly my own age—with a pair of carefully targeted blows that left them unconscious. I turned to look at the window and felt a surge of relief. There was nothing more than plywood sealing the room off from the elements.
The relief lasted only as long as it took to rip the plywood down and see the bars that had been welded across the opening. It was a patchwork mess, but there weren't any spaces big enough even for someone as small as me to slip through…unless…I checked a suspicious-looking bar and confirmed that the weld to the rest of the framework was corroded.
I gritted my teeth and then lashed out with a kick that sent a jolt of pain shooting through my foot. I'd just fractured the reinforced bones in my foot, but the blow had succeeded in breaking the top of the bar loose. I grabbed the free end and started working it back and forth in the hopes that I could fatigue the bottom weld. It wouldn't have worked if not for the kick that had broken the top free, but between my first blow and the corrosion, the bottom weld gave just a few seconds later.
I pulled the paracord out of the pack wrapped around my waist and tied one end to the most secure part of the remaining framework. The other end went around the metal bar I'd just finished tearing free, and then it was time.
More screams rang out from the third floor as Piter's enforcers went room to room looking for me. I
Similar Books
