Page 3 of His Puppet

I look over my shoulder and spot one of the men who must have been in the car sprinting toward me. Fanny Pack guy stays behind and rustles through the bag.

A gun fires and connects with a trash can beside me, and I shriek, my body hunching and my hands covering my head on instinct. It slows my pace for just a couple of moments before I come to my senses and straighten my spine, pumping my arms and legs as furiously as my body will let me.

A concrete wall is up ahead, and the alley splits in two. I jump over trash and nearly trip over a homeless person’s leg. A couple people scoot back beside a dumpster to make way for me and the man. I yell at them for help but get nothing in response. I can’t blame them.

“Fucking stop!” the man yells.

I turn right at the split in the alley and hope it’s a good direction. It’snot. The car from earlier is parked at the end of the alley, and the third guy must be at the wheel.

“No.” My running slows some, and full-fledged panic pounds my heart. There’s a ladder maybe ten feet away on my left, leading up to the roof of a brick building, and it looks like my only hope. I sprint to it and jump to grab the bottom rung without ever slowing. I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or if the spinach I ate last night turned me into Popeye, but I manage to pull myself up. A car door slams and another voice booms. They come from both ends of the alley.

Pieces of brick explode as I rush up the ladder, and this time, I don’t let the gunfire slow me down. I fling myself onto the rooftop and sprint to the other side. There’s a rooftop door, but I ignore it. If it isn’t locked, it’ll only lead to the building I’m standing on, and I’ll wind up trapped inside.

So instead, I make the jump to the next building. And then the next. There’s only about five feet of space between each one, but my heart stops each time I make the leap. After I reach the fourth building, I stop and look behind me, my lungs burning and breaths heavy.

The top of a man’s head pokes up from the ladder I climbed, and I drop down and press my back against the brick ledge. It shields me from the man, but that brings little comfort.

My hands shake while I listen for the sound of heavy weight hitting concrete as he hops buildings like I did.

A door slams, and I peek over the ledge to see the man gone.

He used the rooftop door. There’s no sign of the other two, so they must not have followed him up onto the roof. They’re probably inside the building.

I swipe the sweat off my forehead and let out a cry. It’s either from relief or fear; I can’t even say which. Probably both.

I jump two more buildings before I climb down a fire escape and take off in the opposite direction of that first building. I don’t stop running until I’ve made it sixteen blocks, and then I duck into an alley and weave my way through, hoping to make it out of Naked City.

I reach for my phone in my back pocket to call Ellison, but it’s empty.

“Fuck.” I pat my other pockets, but sure enough, it’s gone. It must’ve fallen out.

It’s just as well, I guess. I can’t go home.

That’s another rule. If you get caught, you must wait twenty-four hours before showing back up at the house. Just in case you’ve been followed.

I hunch over beside a dumpster and puke. Sweat drips from my forehead, and tears well in my eyes.

What the fuck was in that fanny pack?

2

Blade

“What do you mean she got away?”

Hester winces and shrinks back at the sharp tone of my voice. He holds up his hands as if to say ‘let me explain’. He fucking better explain. Fast.

“The girl had a set of legs on her, boss. I’m telling you, she was a professional.”

“Youare a professional.” I look between Hester and Tommy and curl my lip. “The both of you are. And you’re telling me you got outmatched by a babe?”

“We checked every inch of the building,” Tommy pipes up. “She wasn’t there. No one claimed to have even seen her. She’s like a ghost.”

“No onesaw her?” I ask, raising a brow.

“No one.”

“Then did it occur to you that maybe she never went in?” I enunciate each word as if I’m talking to a child. Right now, that wouldn’t be far off. All the trouble I go through to vet my men, and I still end up with incompetent fucking idiots.

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