Page 114 of Icarus

“I don’t know! He just tells me what to take from here and he stopped doing that a month ago. I don’t even get any of the money. He never said anything about any attorney. Didn’t warn me about this,” Icarus confessed desperately. “I even brought back your stupid disc when he didn’t want me to. I’m just . . . I’m just . . . his delivery boy!” Icarus shrieked.

Mr. Black’s eyes widened and the pressure let up enough for Icarus to get in a breath. Icarus used it to scream.

“Do you have any idea how that feels?”

Helios’s dad reeled. He made the mistake of backing up.

Just enough for Icarus to jerk out of his grasp and again he ran.

Delos and Paros

Icarus darted into the laundry room. Helios was waiting for him, open window at his back, ready. Icarus flung himself out the window and opened his backpack. He didn’t know why Mr. Black had stopped following him and he didn’t have time to find out. He pulled out the hinges that attached to the roof, nails, and his mallet and started pounding a hinge into the shingle.

This would be able to hold their weight as they swung down. It wasn’t meant for two people, but the maximum weight limit was 350 pounds, and they had to be less than that together.

“Let go!”

Icarus looked up and found Mr. Black trying to tug Helios back inside. He left the hinge half hammered and leaped up to pull Helios away.

“Don’t touch him, you broke his ribs!” Icarus ducked under Mr. Black’s arms and pushed him back hard. “Leave us alone!”

“You can’t handle him! He’s mine to take care of!” Mr. Black hissed.

“You’re really bad at it!” Helios yelled back and Icarus was too scared and angry to laugh.

“Helios, buckle yourself in,” he commanded instead and turned back to Mr. Black. “We’ll take care of each other. We’re going to figure out how to be happy.”

For as long as we can, Icarus thought in despair. While we are on the run from the FBI.

Mr. Black put his leg through the window and started to climb out. Icarus skidded down the incline and snapped his straps together with Helios’s. The hinge wasn’t nearly as secure as it could be. He picked up another nail, but Mr. Black’s feet landed on the roof.

Fuck.

Icarus turned around, closed his eyes, and with a groan of effort lifted Helios clean off the ground. He turned to face the diner across the street.

“Wait, don’t—” Mr. Black screamed.

They jumped anyway.

Lebynthos and Kalymnos

The ground reached up to catch them and for a moment, Icarus thought they were about to die.

But the cord did its job. They sailed down ten feet, then slammed against the resistance of it.

“Helios, pull the silver lock and let us down easy,” Icarus commanded.

He was facing the ground and he could tell they were at least twenty feet up. They jerked down another three feet sharply and Helios screeched.

“Can you do it gentler? Slowly wind us to the ground,” Icarus asked politely. His heart was in his throat and terror tasted like metal in his mouth.

“That wasn’t me!” Helios shrieked.

There was a sound above them that sounded like hammering. “Oh god, oh god,” Mr. Black was yelling.

“Icarus!”

Celestina and Luca were running out of the diner and across the street. A man was following behind them. But Icarus couldn’t turn his head well enough to see. The blood was rushing to his eyes. He hoped to God it wasn’t a cop.