a smile. “About thirty years ago, the city had a huge crime problem. They didn’t want to lose jobs and people to the suburbs, so they put in the monorail a hundred feet off the ground. Developers built up—higher buildings, better views, enclosed access to the monorail. If you have enough money, you can spend your whole life a hundred feet above everything.
“And if you don’t . . .” He shrugs and gestures around us. “You live in the underground.”
04:19:32:58
We’ve barely gone a block and a half when a siren goes off.
The screech of it is almost deafening.
But Barclay’s reaction is worse.
He grabs my arm, fingers biting into my skin, and his voice comes out low but urgent. Above him, I hear something that sounds like a helicopter in the distance. “I need you to run,” Barclay says.
And I do. We both take off, Barclay with his death grip still on my arm as he pulls me to keep up with him. I match him step for step, running at full speed, my lungs and muscles burning from the strain, as the sirens wail and spotlights flood the alleyways around us.
I don’t know what I’m running from—what we’re running from—but I can guess. Either someone has seen us, which is unlikely, or someone has reported something else. It doesn’t matter, though—if we’re caught by law enforcement, we’ll be turned over to IA and we’re as good as dead.
But I’ll be damned if we’re going to get caught by accident. Not when so many people need us.
We take a left, then a right, and then two more lefts in a row. We run behind a building and across a lawn. I’m concentrating so hard on keeping up with Barclay that I can’t be sure at all where we’re going. I’m just hoping we can get somewhere before I collapse from exhaustion.
When we’re about to turn down an alley, Barclay grabs me and pulls me against him, and we crouch behind a Dumpster. A split second later, a floodlight shines down on the alley in front of us. We’re still surrounded by the darkness, but only an inch or two separates us from the light.
I scrunch my knees closer to my body, and my chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, to rest while I have the chance. I count the seconds as the light moves up the alley and then back toward us. Next to me, Barclay’s breaths are as heavy as mine, and he’s close enough that I can feel the pumping of his heart through the warmth of his skin.
Barclay leans into my ear, his lips tickling my skin. “There’s a diner with good coffee two streets over,” he says, and I manage to hear him despite the continued wailing of the sirens and the motor of the helicopter.
04:18:47:12
We wait almost fifteen more seconds, then the spotlight moves on. Barclay darts up and runs down the alley. I follow on his heels.
When we make it into the diner, we slow down like two normal people. There’s a handful of patrons inside. None of them look over when we come in. As the door jingles shut, I’ve never been so happy to be inside a crumbling diner in a shady part of town. Barclay heads up to the counter to order and I hang back.
Standing still, with the sirens muffled, all I can feel is my pulse pounding through my body. I’ve never run from the cops before, not even because a party got busted up or anything. It’s not exactly something I want to ever experience again.
But I can’t help feeling like this is what I have to look forward to.
It makes me wonder where Ben is, what he’s doing right now, if he’s running constantly, if he’s hiding in the shadows, breathing quietly and looking over his shoulder to make sure that no one’s behind him.
I think of how we held each other the night Elijah got shot—the night it rained and Ben came to my house with blood on his clothes. The world might have been ending, but it didn’t feel that bad because we had each other. It doesn’t feel right that this time we’re alone. It almost makes me mad, not at Ben, but just . . . mad at the world. Ben, my dad, Alex—it isn’t fair how much I miss them or that they’ve left me here to carry this burden alone.
Dizziness makes me sway. If I don’t sit down soon,