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“Hurry up!” Lila hissed at the senato
r’s laptop.
As if it understood her, the computer finally shut down. Lila slammed the lid closed and returned it to Serrano’s desk, exactly as she found it.
Slipping on her coat, Lila broke for the window and yanked back the velvet drapes. She pulled her thermal hood over her curls and thrust her newsboy cap into her pocket, thumbing the coin-sized pendant inside. The jammer would scramble any cameras nearby.
Tugging her thermal gloves higher on her wrist, she snatched up the bottle of Saveur, opened the senator’s window with a dull creak, and crawled onto the second-story ledge. She took care to replace the drapes behind her so that they hung straight once more and then closed the window. It sealed electronically behind her with a little beep.
Luckily, Bullstow did not keep logs of such things. Not yet.
Lila dangled her legs over the granite ledge and pressed her back into the glass. The stone leeched heat from her body, causing another shiver to flow up her spine. Her breath smoked in the cold autumn darkness. The floodlights on the roof flashed across the compound, highlighting the garden and marble statuary below.
Lila squinted through the patchy fog. The boys’ school buildings and university, the private cafés and restaurants, the government buildings full of administrators, social workers, and the militia, all hid from her sight. Even Falcon Home and the stone wall surrounding the compound played coy, hidden by swirls of gray.
Lila drained the rest of her beer and scanned the area for a means of escape. The searchlights should have been on a program. Tristan had captured their movements on camera days ago. The program was supposed to make it impossible to avoid detection, but Lila had found a way. Unfortunately, the fire alarm had kicked the beams off their program. Guards now aimed them manually, swinging the beams so erratically that she could hardly find a pattern at all. What should have been easy had turned into a tripwire attached to a thousand kilograms of dynamite.
Lila stowed the empty bottle of Saveur in her coat pocket and lowered herself off the ledge. Swinging her body away from the first-floor window, she dropped to the cement below, stamping loudly as her boots hit. The impact jarred the knife she kept inside.
Crouching behind a shrub, Lila tensed to sprint away.
She heard voices around the corner of the building.
Lila circled behind the nearest marble statue and peeked around its pedestal, narrowly avoiding the domain of a floodlight that butted up against the back of the building.
Two men appeared, clad in the gray and black uniforms of Bullstow security. Their leather blackcoats had been hemmed only a dozen centimeters above the ground. The golden piping on their uniforms matched the rose stitched on their breast. The cut and style would have been at home in the Allied Lands three hundred years before: the style of Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France before the alliance. A Weberly revolver hung on their right hips. On their left, the hilt of a short sword peeked out. A German Shepherd trotted beside them, unfazed by the floodlights, the fire alarm, and the shouts of its masters.
“I’m telling you, this is a test,” the shorter guard hollered over the alarm, his voice imbued with a nasal tone. He scanned the statuary as if they might suddenly hop off their marble bases and run away. “Sergeant Bates told me all about them. Someone’s out here, Nic. Someone sneaking around.”
Lila ducked down, making herself as small as possible.
“Sergeant Bates is an idiot. ’Bout time you learned that. The fire department never shows up at tests. Chief Shaw always warns them.”
“If it’s really a fire, why hasn’t anyone seen or smelled any smoke, huh? Sergeant Bates says if we catch the snoop, we get the bonus.”
“I’m going to bonus your face in a minute, rookie. We just had a test this summer. Mark my words, it’s the wiring.”
“No one caught the snoop. We’re having another test.”
Lila rolled her eyes. It would be two men who shouted privileged information to anyone who might be near.
Sloppy. Very sloppy.
When the voices finally disappeared around the corner, Lila didn’t pause to check the searchlights. She merely sprinted toward the tree line as soon as the beams turned away, and hoped for the best.
One of the beams swung around instantly.
Lila sprinted faster, adrenaline taking over where her natural speed left off. Her worn boots scraped at her blistered heels until the sting shot throughout her body.
The beam edged closer, gaining, as if it spurred her toward the park.
It caught up before Lila reached the tree line. As it nudged against her heels, she launched herself the last few meters into the trees and dove behind a marble bench.
Lila froze where she landed, hissing as the beam lit up her boot. She didn’t move, not to scratch her wrist, not to settle into a more comfortable position, not even to hide herself more completely. Movement would only attract the attention of whomever aimed the light and squinted at where it was pointed. There was still a chance they had not yet noticed the outline of her boot.
The night was foggy, after all.
Lila panted, waiting. The lights would have blinded her if her head and torso hadn’t been hidden behind the bench. But she didn’t hear any voices. She didn’t hear any boots squelching in the mud, either. She didn’t even hear the expected croaks and chirps within the trees. The entire park listened, frightened at the light.
