The man rolls his eyes, then jerks his chin at the screen. “Call him. No—write him. Don’t want him hearing anything unusual in your voice. Cancel your date. I’ll just stand behind you and make sure you don’t make any errors.”
I force my face to fall, my expression to crumble, even as a tiny flicker of hope kindles, my first since I realized I wasn’t alone in my apartment. Two of them follow me into the office, and as I move across to sit in front of the screen, Roving Eyes stands so close behind me I can feel his body heat. With a swipe of my trembling hand, I select the name—Jake Cheshire—from the list.
Then in a shaking voice, I dictate my message.
“Hi, babe.” I swallow, watching the letters pop up on the screen as the computer reads my voice. “No need to come over tonight after all. My father and some of his friends stopped by, so I’m going to go out to dinner with them. I’ll see you this weekend though—we’re still on for the park where we met last time, right? I’m dying to see you. Love, Alice.”
“Wait,” Roving Eyes says, his voice sharpening. “Let me read it before you send it.”
I hold my breath. I’ve tried every hint I can think of: mentioning my father, who Gideon knows is dead; telling him who has me by mentioning the holopark at LRI Headquarters; using a name from the same work of fiction from which his boss—the Knave of Hearts—takes his nom de guerre. I pray it’s enough. I pray he’s checking that inbox regularly. I pray—
The man grunts. “Fine. Send it and let’s go.”
I force my eyes to blink regularly for the screen’s eye-trackers, when all I want to do is squeeze them shut, to block out everything like an animal hiding its head in the sand. The message swishes off with a chime. At least if they end up killing me, someone might know. Someone, somewhere, will know what happened to me.
“Move!” shouts the man, when I sit frozen in the desk chair.
My gaze sweeps the apartment as I jerk to my feet, looking for something, anything I can use. Once they get me out of the apartment, my odds of getting out of this alive dwindle to almost nothing. Just think. Just breathe. Then a jolt flashes through me—my plas-pistol is still in my handbag from the day I was at LRI. It’s in my closet. “My shoes are in my bedroom,” I say, my voice shaking more violently now that I know what I have to do. Now that I know I have to try to fight. “In my closet.”
“You don’t need shoes,” he snaps, impatient—I’m running out of ways to stall him. He knows I’m trying to stall him.
“You don’t think manhandling a barefoot girl through the lobby will look suspicious?” I gasp for air, trying to regulate my voice—trying to sound like I’m calm.
“Fine.” The man’s getting angrier by the second. But he steps aside so that he can follow me into the bedroom, his companion heading out to the living room. “Make it quick. First pair you find.”
I nod, dropping to one knee in the closet, blessing the fact that I’ve been just tossing stuff onto the floor—the bags and shoes and items of clothing are all jumbled together. I keep one foot under me so I can move when I need to. My hands are shaking so much I almost can’t work the clasp of my handbag, and when I do, the plas-pistol falls out onto the floor. I catch my breath, grabbing at it with one hand and using the other to toss a scarf over it, making sure it’s not visible from where the man’s standing.
The plastene pistol is beyond illegal—its sole purpose is to beat the cutting-edge security nets that test for energy signatures, for metal alloys, for anything that might betray the presence of a weapon. It fires an old-fashioned bullet, it’s nearly impossible to aim straight, and it’s only good for one shot—firing it makes the chamber melt, and half the time it explodes upon firing, seriously injuring its user.
But I got it inside LRI Headquarters without causing so much as a blip on their state-of-the-art security scanners. After all, even though I didn’t plan on meeting LaRoux himself there yet, I might’ve gotten lucky—and I’d regret it forever if I was unprepared. An ordinary weapon, even a low-tech military gun like the Gleidels they used on Avon, would’ve brought every security guard in the place down on my head. But this little beauty of a weapon is my constant companion.
Now, I curl my hand around it so tightly my arm cramps, sending fire shooting up my shoulder. The pain cuts through my fear, a white-hot ribbon of clarity steadying my thoughts. My mind runs through the steps, over and over, rehearsing them like a recipe, like one of my memorized floor plans.
Shift weight. Turn. Aim for his chest. Fire. Grab his gun. Wait for the others to come through. Fire. Use bed for cover. Fire. Fire. Run.
“Time’s up, we’re leaving now,” orders the man, his voice rising in volume as he comes toward me.
Shift weight. Turn. Aim for his chest.…