He stood just inside the center doors in dark jeans and a black coat, more casual than the businesspeople around, but he looked like he belonged, polished and sharp. A young exec.
Ronwae, the girl with the red hair, and Malaphar, the pock-faced guy in the oversized suit, were covering the two other exits to the front of the building. There was also a new addition to the posse, a young guy, maybe sixteen, seventeen, wearing a red beanie and slouched skater clothes, who strode up to Samrael’s side just as Samrael spotted us.
“Sebastian, you better follow me,” I said.
That time, he did.
CHAPTER 19
In the Army, you don’t say you retreat. You withdraw. That was what we did. We were outnumbered, underprepared, and uninformed, so. We withdrew like the wind.
I pushed back into the stairwell with Sebastian right on my heels. Moments ago I’d seen two doors on the first-floor landing—lobby and emergency exit—and emergency was this. Now.
I exploded through it, setting off an alarm, and ran into bright, eye-spanking daylight. First and foremost I wanted to see Daryn in my Jeep, ready to burn rubber, but she wasn’t anywhere.
We’d come out onto a street with no traffic. To my right were low-slung buildings with red-tile roofs, stucco walls. Sidewalks lined with huge pots of red flowers. Parked cars, all of the luxury, six-figure variety. Down the street, there was a guardhouse, but not like at Benning. This had flower boxes. Fancy trim around the windows and doors. To my left were massive gray warehouses, STUDIO 5 painted in huge red letters across the top of the nearest one.
I’d already figured where we were when Sebastian said, “It’s the back lot.”
The studio looked buttoned up tight, with high concrete walls bordering the perimeter. I didn’t want to get stuck in there with Samrael. But the guardhouse was a hundred meters away, with nothing for cover except flowers and Porsches. We’d be seen before we could get outside. Leaving the studio would also take us further away from the parking garage, where Daryn was. I changed plans and led Sebastian deeper into the lot, hoping for better options.
The alarm from the high-rise had faded when the door closed behind us. Now it spiked, cutting through the quiet of the studio lot. Looking back, I saw Samrael and his buddies.
With no one else on the street, they spotted us right away, but Sebastian and I had reached the sound stages and if we could just get around the corner, a little farther, we’d be in … New York City?
We’d run into a street lined with brownstones on both sides. Steam tumbled out of the gutters. A yellow cab was parked along the curb farther down the street. The front page of the New York Times floated in the puddle I’d just passed.
I’d slowed down, and Sebastian came even with me. “What do we do? It’s Gideon, right? Where do we go?”
I couldn’t even answer him. Real fear was spreading through me as I remembered Samrael mentally beating me down. We needed cover now.
I turned it back up, sprinting to the nearest building—a corner market with crates full of plastic produce and silk flowers. The windows were actually paintings of scenes you’d expect to see inside, like a woman working behind a cash register. A grinning butcher holding up a ham hock. This was a fa?ade, but I yanked the door open anyway just in case. Plywood.
Sebastian breathed hard at my side. “What do they want with us?”
“Daryn.”
“Who?”
I firmed my grip on the chains. “The girl who isn’t my sister. Get behind that cab and stay there.” As I jogged to the middle of the street, I thought about how I’d been trained to do exactly this—fight. Partially trained. With actual firearms, not nunchuk-disk-things. But so be it. A fight was a fight.
Samrael came around the corner first. Two others jogged up next. Ronwae and the new guy, the skater with the red beanie, who went by the name Pyro, I’d learn later. They stopped on either side of Samrael. I kept expecting Malaphar, but he didn’t show up.
“Did you get tired of running, Gideon?” Samrael stopped at the top of the street, but it was so quiet he spoke without raising his voice. “Or tired of being a coward?”
“Just tired of you.” I brought my hand out slightly, my pre-throw position. The disks unlocked, separating by some miracle, but it must’ve looked like I knew what I was doing.
“What do you have there?” Samrael asked.
“Nothing,” said Sebastian, coming to my side. “We don’t even know you, so why—”
He gasped and folded like he’d taken a gut shot, grabbing his head with both hands.