Page 51 of Magic or Madness

We parked the box truck outside of town limits a few days ago, and once I’m situated, I follow the route Lex planned out, avoiding major roadways where both vehicles could be tracked on the same street cameras.

“How far out are you, Oz?” Journey asks, indicating they’re already at the location.

“Ten out.”

“Taking the entrance,” Max says, and the chatter begins.

I listen as they make their way through the shop, cutting out cameras and moving at a rapid pace. Lex begins to work on the computer, attempting to hack the code that Fallon generated this afternoon when she went to work.

It’s not as clear-cut as Max thought, and I can hear them both struggling to figure out a loophole in the software.

“In position,” I say, parking at the loading dock behind the building.

It’s a quiet night, and as I look around the alley, there’s not a soul in sight.

“Fuck!” Max yells, his frustration echoing in my ear, boiling over, and my body tenses.

“What is it?” I reluctantly ask, and he sighs loudly, like he doesn’t want to say what we all knew was a possibility.

“If I try to hack into this software unsuccessfully one more time it triggers an alarm,” he confesses, and even with Lex on the technical side of things from his own laptop, this sounds nearly impossible.

My blood turns to ice because there is only one way we can do this job, and we need the only person who knows the code. She warned me this would happen, and even the thought of asking her to step foot into this side of my business has me terrified of the consequences.

“Ozzy, we need help,” Max says, basically waving the white flag, and I shake my head in defeat.

Involving Fallon is exactly what I wanted to avoid. When we met, I promised her that she wouldn’t need to become a part of my world, and I’m terrified this will affect our relationship.

“There’s no chance you can do this without her?”

“I wouldn’t ask if there was,” he replies, and I slam my fist against the steering wheel.

“I can’t drive this huge truck by her apartment. Oliver, go get Fallon,” I say, and everyone agrees it’s the right move.

I also can’t call her on this burner, as it’s linked to the client, so Oliver is going in blind, and she’ll be terrified.

“Olly, keep her calm. She needs to know I’m alright before she’ll go anywhere with you,” I warn, and he promises that he’ll take care of her.

Now, we’re all sitting on our hands, weathering through an unforeseen detour and praying that nothing else goes wrong while we wait for Fallon.

The minutes feel like hours, and I’m wracked with guilt.

I’m inviting her in, but it almost feels like forcing, and I don’t know how this will ever be something I go back from. She’s either all the way in, or this is the straw that pushes her all the way out, but no matter what happens, I feel like I’m losing.

Not to mention, we’re all crossing a boundary that none of us are comfortable with after what happened to Masha. It feels eerily similar, and I’ll be damned if I let fate take her life into its hands.

“How’s it look outside?” Max breaks me out of my thoughts, and I shake off the negativity long enough to calm everyone’s nerves inside the building.

“Clear and quiet.”

“Oliver is too far out of range to hear us, yet” Journey adds, and I roll my eyes in disgust.

Every time I hear his voice, I’m reminded of his creepy obsession with Fallon, and I want to take out my abrupt aggression on his calm demeanor. I’m positive that he’s enjoying this, secretly hoping it’s something that’ll tear us apart so he can swoop in on his white horse to save her.

I’m anxious and feeling sick completely to my stomach when finally, Oliver reconnects to our channel.

“Got the package, five out,” he says, and I sigh in relief.

The longer we sit here, the higher chance we have of getting caught, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I allow Fallon to go down for something that we’re doing. Assisting in a robbery at her place of employment is fucking insane, and I shouldn’t have let them pull her into this.

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