to sink my fingers into. Nonetheless, I strain every muscle in my body to stay steady.
Above me, footsteps pound across the roof. A smoky voice rasps out in accented German, “She’s not up here!”
Another man answers, “I saw her run upstairs!”
“Are you certain it was her?”
I cling to the brick. The sinews in my fingertips burn with exertion. I push my soles onto the window ledge, anchoring my weight.
I hear muttering—a phone call perhaps—then the smoky voice says, “… recheck the other floors …”
Their footsteps retreat. The door shuts.
I stay put. What if it’s a trap? Are they waiting in the stairwell? Or on the third-floor landing? Others are guarding both ground floor exits …
I tilt my chin, examining the street below me. It’s my best option.
I take three long breaths and start my descent, feeling carefully for deep grooves in the mortar. With each movement, I fight to keep my balance. My arms shake. My fingertips scrape raw; the tender skin bleeds as I negotiate the brick wall.
Halfway down, I reach a wide window ledge. I turn carefully, backing against the wall of the building, and leap. I land on the lower roof of the adjacent building. I cross to the far side and jump over a narrow alley to another rooftop. I spot an iron fire-escape ladder. I scale it down to the last rung. It ends three meters above the walk.
I let go, landing nimbly on the sidewalk.
Easy, right?
In the distance, I hear the soft throbbing of the techno beat. I walk farther down the block, cut through an alley, turn the corner, and halt.
In front of me, leering appreciatively, as if he’s been expecting me, is the bald man.
I reverse, but two other men approach me from behind. They’ve stepped out of a dark alley to my left, and they’re not alone.
Between them is a girl with long, dark hair, and silver hoops in her ears. The girl who snapped Achtung! at me as she left the club.
Now, she stares at me, wide-eyed. Petrified.
Blood is coagulating around a cut in her eyebrow. Her bottom lip is swollen.
The man in the Munich Football jacket stands at her left, pushing an HK into her temple; the heavyset man twists her arms behind her back.
My FN 5-7 is in my backpack. Stupid move, Sophia. I can’t get to it, but my knife is in my boot. I reach down—
“Move and I kill her,” Munich Jacket says to me in German.
The heavyset man punches the girl in the stomach. She lurches forward, gasping. He pulls back to hit her again—
“Don’t!” I shout, holding up my hands.
“Hilfe,” the girl whimpers. Help.
Munich Jacket looks at the bald man prowling behind me. “Tell him we have her,” he orders. Then, to me, he calmly says, “We don’t want a scene.”
To my left is the dark alley; to my right is a row of dilapidated buildings. I have an exit. I can get out.
Click. Munich Jacket loads a bullet into the HK’s chamber. The girl struggles against his grip; her eyes flit between me and the men holding her. I know what it feels like—to have unfamiliar hands smothering you, holding you, touching you, terrifying you.
“Come with us and she lives,” Munich Jacket says. “I’m tired of chasing you.”
I glance down the alley. If I can reach my knife, I’m certain I can make it—
“Choose now.” Munich Jacket reaches forward, coils his hand around the girl’s throat, and squeezes. She moans, grasping desperately at his hands. Her fingernails claw his shirt. Her face goes red—
“Stop it!” I shout, looking between the girl and the alley.
He squeezes harder. The girl’s eyes bulge—
“I’ll come!” I gasp, focusing on Munich Jacket. “Let her go and I’ll come with you!”
Munich Jacket smiles malevolently. “I have your word?”
“Yes,” I answer.
Munich Jacket drops his hand and mutters something to the heavyset man, who releases the girl’s arms and shoves her so hard into the dark alley she stumbles to her knees.
Catching herself with the palms of her hands, the stunned girl flashes her eyes between me and Munich Jacket.
“Run!” I shout at her in German. “Get help!”
A meaty hand shoves me off-balance. Yanking my braid, he roughly pulls me back.
I watch the girl disappear into the shadows, then I elbow the man behind me in the gut and knock my head back into his jaw.
As I reach the handle of my knife, a Mercedes careens around the corner. Its tires skid into the curb before jerking to a stop. The