She could jump over too.
Lila dropped her helmet and satchel in the darkest corner of the roof and squinted across the alley. A man paced around the perimeter on the other building, his hands stuck in the pockets of his thick woolen coat, a coat too small for his frame. The guns he hid inside them peeked out, a secret to no one.
Lila consider his walk, his expression, his limp. A man like him might not load tranq darts into his revolver.
Lila thumbed her Colt, which had been tucked into her waistband at the small of her back. A sleep dart might be effective, but the thought of bring harm against another innocent appalled her.
She ducked as the man turned and stalked toward her position. Counting his steps as he clomped by, she poked her head back up after he passed, then replaced her weapon in the inside pocket of her coat.
Down below, a woman prowled across the alley. Squinting harder in the darkness, Lila recognized the black derby hat, adorned with a purple feather. Samantha would help her get into the shop undetected. She’d probably even wait with Lila in Tristan’s garage, either to escape guard duty or to keep watch over her quick fingers.
But where was the fun in that? Lila had an image of Tristan returning to find that she had slipped through his defenses. She wanted to watch the self-important look drop away from his face and change from surprise to irritation.
It would serve him right for how he’d acted.
She took out her palm and checked her messages.
None displayed on the screen.
Sticking the device back into her pocket, she waited for the guard to cross by her position again. When he slipped behind the greenhouse on the opposite side of the building, she hopped up, sprinted across the roof, and launched herself across the alley.
Blisters stinging, Lila’s ankle turned as she landed. She tripped. Rolled. Her head barely missed the row of heating units.
The guard’s footsteps stopped.
Lila didn’t wait. Ankle throbbing, she scrambled back to the ledge and threw her leg over it, letting herself dangle off the side with only the strength in her fingers holding her up.
The fire escape lay a meter to the right.
Lila had gravely misjudged her position.
“Fuck,” she mouthed, walking her hands toward the railing.
Lila slid along the roof until the rail was under her feet. She kept sight of Samantha, waiting until she passed under the fire escape and walked toward the end of the alley. Lila’s fingers cramped, and she began to sweat under her thick coat.
Waiting in Tristan’s room didn’t seem quite so funny anymore.
Once Samantha was out of earshot, Lila let herself drop to the handrail, then gently stepped down on to the fire escape, cringing when it squeaked softly under her weight.
Samantha did not turn around.
Lila breathed deeply and limped to the window, which opened into the fifth-floor hallway.
She tugged at the bottom.
The lock was still broken.
Lila ducked into the hallway on the top floor and slid her mesh hood over her face. Removing a set of lock-picking tools from her pocket, she knelt by Tristan’s door.
The door opened as soon as she touched the doorknob.
He’d left it unlocked, open to the world.
Sloppy. Tristan trusted his people far too much.
Lila slipped through the door, confused to find Dixon at the window. He peeked through a slit in the drapes, staring out over the front of the mechanic shop. Scars crossed his back as though a thin bicycle wheel had been dipped in silver ink and raked across it, backing over him again and again, scoring his body with thick furrows. She’d seen them before, wondered about them, but she could never bring herself to ask.
They never got any easier to see.