The sirens roared nearby, closing in.
“It’s safer for us all. Get back to the shop. I’ll meet you there.”
“You can’t be serious. Get in. I can’t keep you safe if—”
“I’m not one of your people, Tristan. I don’t need you to keep me safe.”
Dixon spun around, already halfway down the street. He sensed the trouble brewing between Lila and Tristan, and motioned for her to come with him instead.
Both men stared at her expectantly, as if they wanted her to choose.
Lila spun and jogged down the street, ripping off her mesh hood as she raced away.
Dixon shouted, emitting an incomprehensible noise, half word, half rebuke.
Lila had never heard him try to speak before.
She wheeled around, eyeing the frowning Dixon, his eyebrows low.
Lila could barely form words. “Go. Both of you. Now!” she shouted, before scrambling into an alley next to the garage. It would be just another getaway for her in a world of getaways. Just another night, hiding after a job.
“Fuck!” Tristan kicked the truck’s tires. He took several steps toward her, then glanced at the sleeping figures in the truck bed. Giving one last kick, he yelled for Dixon to get to his bike. He jumped back into the front seat, pulled out into traffic, and drove away.
A cruiser bounded along, narrowly missing Tristan’s escape. They turned the wrong way, barreling forward as though they had his location.
Lila hoped they didn’t.
Before she moved out, a motorcycle pulled out of the garage. Dixon circled the block several times before he too gave up. He finally rushed off in the opposite direction, bound for the shop.
Lila breathed easier, listening to the sirens, none of them nearby. She turned down a side street, thrust her newsboy cap on her head, and slid from shadow to shadow, just like any other workborn out for a solitary stroll.
Chapter 17
Lila spent the next hour walking from street to street, hiding among a thinning crowd of Thursday night revelers. Wrapped in scarves and warm coats, each stumbled back home from bars or their lovers’ embraces. Half the horde preyed on the other half, and she saw at lea
st a dozen pickpockets working the streets. The whores tipped their collars as they passed her, desperate for a last transaction or an hour away from the cold. They didn’t even notice the soft planes of her face. That inattention was likely why they were still on the street so late.
Others noticed her too, or at least her limp, thinking she was an easy mark until they saw the gun in her front coat pocket. Once the adrenaline had left her, her ankle had begun to throb, still sore after her misguided leap across the alleyway and all the running after. In addition, her heels had rubbed against the leather in her cheap boots and scraped against her blisters.
It beat a holding cell, though. If she had been caught, her mother would not spare a moment’s thought at distancing her from the family. Chairwoman Wilson had exiled Alex out of anger, but Beatrice would do it out of preservation, out of necessity. It would be the most efficient solution to a new liability. One must think of the family before the individual.
Lila checked the time on her palm. A quarter to two. Her fingers twitched once again, keen to summon a taxi. Several had passed already that night, but she hadn’t bothered to flag one down. She didn’t have enough cash. She couldn’t call for one of her people to pick her up, either. Too many questions.
She slipped her palm back into her pocket and continued on, stretching her sore ankle, wrapping her coat more tightly to fight the cold. She’d just have to make it to the shop on her own. It was only another one or two kilometers away.
The familiar purr of a Firefly turned the corner. A silver Firefly. Her silver Firefly. A helmet obscured the rider’s face. Was it Tristan? Dixon? Someone else?
Did she care?
The bike sidled up next to her on the abandoned street. Its rider cut the engine, and Lila gratefully stopped beside it.
The rider took off his helmet.
“Why are you limping again?” Tristan frowned.
“It’s nothing,” she answered, grabbing on to a streetlight for support. “I just walked on it funny.”
“You should have holed up somewhere and called me.”