Scratch Your Name: Part 3
Jun. 18th, 2009 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
harborshoreMaster Post | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Epilogue
--
The initial phase goes well. Too well, Lindsey thinks, and the tense line of Amanda's back says she agrees. Chantal met the Assistant Superintendent of the jail in the front office, and they shook hands amicably and made a series of offensive jokes about how these prisoners would finally do some honest work. Ha. Lindsey knows for a fact that this commander is the son of the State Governor, way too young for his post and, uh, not someone who had done a whole lot of work in his life.
They are all left waiting around until someone comes to show Amanda and the rest of them around (Amanda is playing the role of Supervisory Designer here, and as such she must naturally inspect the kind of people she can expect to be working with). Mikey and Lindsey are following along, trying to look dangerous and like they might have something to do with a clothing company at the same time. The monochromatic outfits they both ended up in help--like uniforms, but not; gray and simple but of an unusual cut, collar slanting differently than it does most of the time on these kinds of jackets (sometimes Lindsey just misses color so much; sometimes she thinks that’s why she started doing art at night).
While they’re walking around the jail, Lindsey notices how small the staff is right now. It's easy to see that the recent uprising in Chicago has decimated the staff of the jail--normally there'd be one guard per hallway at least, but now there's about one guard per ward.
They're almost taken past a door when Lindsey sees Mikey look up, very, very intent, and oh. “What sort of prisoners are held in there?” she says brightly.
The guard looks up. “Oh, just politicals, ma'am; you don't want those, they won't do you any good. They'd go on strike because of their 'rights,' or something.”
Amanda laughs cynically. “I know the type, man,” she says, “but couldn't you take us through anyway? Some of these revolutionary types are quite intelligent, and if there are one or two who could be persuaded to be trained further, then I can employ them as supervisors.”
The guard shrugs. “Sure, I suppose,” and opens the door, closing it behind them once they've all walked through. As soon as the door slams shut, Amanda is on him, twisting his arms behind his back.
“Sound the alarm and I'll slit your throat really, really slowly,” she says and the guard shakes his head frantically while Lindsey gets his weapons. She knows the uniform, remembers Ann practicing putting on her weapons. Lindsey even remembers to thumb along the hidden seams.
There are no cameras on this ward; she knows what that means, knows that's because they don't want any feeds of what they do here to leak, but right now she's glad for it.
They handcuff the guard and gag him, and Amanda holds him against the wall as they stare down the hallway which branches off into three different sections, white white white doors with numbers to the left of them. Mikey's coordinating the triggering of the lock mechanisms in a fast phone conversation with Vienna, who's giving him today's code.
Then there's a really, really loud ringing noise which goes on for fifteen seconds, then pauses for ten. Amanda pulls the guard's gag down and looks at him.
“The greater alarm,” he says, talking so fast he's stammering, tripping over his own words. The only reason he’s even audible over the dim is that they're standing so close. “It means someone in the front office sounded the greater alarm.”
“Kitty,” Lindsey says, but whatever Kitty answers sounds more like static than actual words. Mikey slips his earpiece off and pushes in a three-button-sequence on it, then opens his actual phone that he'd apparently brought even though they weren't supposed to. He slides the earpiece apart into two and slips one of the pieces into one of the outlets on the phone. Quickly, he’s done, and Lindsey has no idea what the hell he just did, but now he's typing in a message and waiting for an answer.
She tries not to yell at him to hurry, she knows that he knows they have to move. He looks up. “Kitty says I'm an idiot for using my phone like this and that we have about ten minutes if we're lucky and twenty-one cells to get through.”
“We have to split up,” Amanda says, then looks at the guard consideringly. “Close your eyes,” she says, almost gently. When he does, she taps him in the back of the head with the hilt of her gun, and he crumples so easily to the floor.
Amanda looks down at him, dusting off her hands, then looks back up and points them off in two directions, then looks at Mikey, waiting for the lull in the alarm.
“Type in 2-0-7-9 on all the keypads,” Mikey says, and sets off determinedly down one of the hallways, and Lindsey does the same down hers.
It's the procedure they practiced: get the door open and determine whether the prisoner inside can walk or not; if they can, take them along to the next cell where they can take on any prisoners who can’t walk by themselves. Lindsey gets two tall women to half-drag, half-carry a tall gangly man. They're strong, the women, so it works out, even if the redhead is almost deathly pale and the man is hunched over, obviously in pain.
Three doors from the end, she looks into the cell and sees a dark-haired, pale guy sitting on the cot, and she just knows--that's him, that's Mikey's brother, and she feels herself grinning, because fuck yes, Mikeyway gets something back.
She opens the door and he scrambles closer to the wall, eyes widening. She shakes her head quickly. “No, no,” she says, in the lull between the outbursts of the alarm, “I'm here with Mikey.” And his entire face changes, then sets again.
“If you're lying,” he says, voice scratchy.
She shakes her head again, willing him to believe her. The hallway is so fucking short, he'll see Mikey if he just-- “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” he says, getting up and moving toward her.
“Come on, then you can help,” she says impatiently.
He shakes his head minutely and holds up his hands as she backs out of the doorway, beckoning him to follow. His fingers are--they've obviously been broken and not reset at all. She wants to throw up, because last night, she found out last night where Mikey learned so much about paints and composition. Eyes down and fingers twisting, Mikey told her that his brother Gerard was an artist, and pointed out some of the stuff on the walls (Joan and her horse, for one) as Gerard’s.
“Come on,” she says, smiling as brightly as she fucking can, the smile Steve used to call her sunshine and suck it up-smile. It had worked on nearly every case of stage fright, maybe it’ll work now too
The last two doors are opened fast. One of them is a girl, dark eyes, shorn dark hair with roots showing. “Come on,” Lindsey says and the girl gets up immediately.
“You're not a guard,” she mumbles when she gets close.
“We're getting you the fuck out of here,” Lindsey says, as firmly as she can.
The last room is another obscenely tall man, who smiles like he's never seen anything better when he sees Gerard. Gerard is smiling back, tired but it's there. “Come on, motherfucker,” he says, voice stronger than when he talked to Lindsey. “There's some fucking miracle rescue going down, and you know you want to get in on that shit.”
“Always, always,” the man says, unfolding long legs to get off his cot. “If I could just trouble one of you for some support, though, that'd be smashing.”
The dark-eyed girl walks past both Lindsey and Gerard to offer her shoulder. “Alicia,” the man says.
“Gabe,” she responds, mouth quirking. “Not dead yet?”
“Nine lives, you know. Useful shit.”
Lindsey slides in on Gabe’s other side, and her strange little caravan starts moving toward the exit, where Mikey and Amanda are waiting, along with a number of other prisoners. Amanda is paler than ever but Lindsey thinks she's never seen Amanda this happy. She’s not smiling, just, her eyes, they're shining.
Mikey's standing with his back toward them, texting. Gerard starts, next to Lindsey, and his eyes well up. She shoves at him carefully with the hand that's not supporting Gabe.
“Come on,” she says between the ringing noises. “Fucking go.” And he smiles at her, bright and wide, and she can't breathe with how joyful he looks; it's a look so foreign to this place that it's almost hard to see.
He half-runs, half-hops, his right leg obviously a little problematic, up to Mikey and wraps his arms around him from behind. Mikey just turns, one hand hanging on to his phone (whatever he's getting from Kitty right now Lindsey knows must be important) and buries his face in Gerard's hair.
Lindsey's little group catches up to the big one just when the alarm goes silent. Amanda taps her ear piece. “Yeah? Yeah, that’s it, it just shut off. Open the doors.”
This is the most dangerous part of their plan. If everything has gone as planned, the majority of the few guards who were still here should have been sent off before the alarm rang to deal with Frank and Bert in Uptown and Matt's bombs. Or with one of the other, minor diversions they’ve set up. If the inevitable chaos that’ll happen when they release all the prisoners in the Tombs will be enough to cover their escape. If, if, if. And if the Chicago movement came through on their promise to escalate their efforts today, because otherwise their chances of getting away with this are slim to none. Amanda's passing out the knives she had on her, first to the two women, then to Gabe and Alicia.
Mikey and Gerard are both crying, but Mikey's still typing his message and whispering what Lindsey thinks must be updates into his brother's hair. Then he straightens up, and, right. This part.
“You get Gee out,” Mikey tells Gabe and Amanda. “You know he's a fucking hopeless fighter, especially now. Just--get him out.”
“Where are you going?” Gerard asks, sounding frantic. “No, Mikey--”
Lindsey cuts them off. She knows Gerard was some kind of leader, but he didn't plan this. “Me n' Mikey are wiping their database. In the basement. It's the computer for the whole city, you gotta know that. We're getting Kitty and Vienna into the system first, though, so they can fuck with the tracing capabilities. In case anyone else has trackers, in case of other shit.”
Gerard draws a breath as if he’s about to say something, but Lindsey stares him down and continues, “If we're all going to get away, we need to do this.”
“Just make sure you get out,” he says intently, looking at them both.
“Don't worry, Gee,” Mikey grins, a little, the first time Lindsey's ever seen a smile of his reach his eyes, “I'm better at sneaking than you are, and Lindsey's fucking fierce.”
Gerard nods, “Okay,” and hugs Mikey again.
Amanda nods at Alicia. “Go with them. You know your shit, and you're faster than Mikey, at least. Lindsey's not bad, she’ll watch your back if you need it.”
Alicia nods. “'Kay,” she says.
When the door opens, they walk right into chaos. Lindsey can't believe how soundproofed the ward they just left must have been, because fuck, this is insane. Screams and flying chairs and a guard going down right in front of them, five prisoners on top; it feels noisier than the alarm before. That was just one loud sound, she could filter that out, this is just--they're practically tearing down the walls of the prison but she doesn't understand why the guards aren't using their guns--oh, because they'd hit their own, and because they can't see, the lights are flashing so bad in here.
Amanda taps her shoulder and points to the left-hand stairs. Right. Lindsey beckons at Mikey and Alicia to follow her--she's the one who knows the floor plans.
Three steps down the stairs and it quickly becomes real fucking evident that they're going to have to hold onto each other and move fast. Alicia picks up the rear behind Mikey, and she holds her knife like she loves it, Lindsey notices when she glances back.
It's elbows and ducking and, shit, pushing back when someone pushes into her and she tries to count steps because she knows how many steps there are down, Ray drilled her, seventy-seven, seventy-seven, then the second door to the right, break the lock with this, the little automatic explosive he gave her, let Mikey do his thing at the computer, then get back out, get back up, through the front door is the easiest. But if it's impossible, the front office has a shitload of windows, and unless the guards are all holed up in there, Lindsey and Mikey and Alicia will be able to use those windows as backup exits.
She repeats that in her head all the way down, all the way through the flying fists and ducking for the gunshots that are coming now, like she knew they would (she's so glad Amanda insisted on the vests) and she just wants to get there. The stairs are black with dirt, what a weird thing to notice, and there's someone screaming next to her because he's dying, Lindsey thinks: he's bleeding a lot. Her arm hurts but it's not bad.
They do make it to the basement, and Lindsey attaches the little thing Ray gave her to the lock by pushing it so its suction cup (she thinks it came from a shower caddy) makes it stick. 1-7-1 set on the dial and the contained explosion sounds like someone puncturing a balloon. It doesn’t seem like it should be able to break the lock on what is a sturdy door, all things considered. But it swings open.
Mikey makes straight for the computer, which is on and whirring, images flickering past in a weird, sluggish-switching-to-fast tempo. “They need an upgrade,” Lindsey quips, knowing the old computers in the jails are left from before the takeover. There hasn't been that much new tech since--the equipment she's seen the group use is weirdly cobbled together, a mix of innovation and recycling.
“Work fast,” Alicia says, standing in the doorway and watching the staircase.
“Anyone coming?” Lindsey asks.
“Not yet, I just don't want to get stuck in the basement,” Alicia responds, gaze still locked on the stairs.
“Yeah,” Lindsey says. “How's it looking, Mikey?”
“It's weird,” he says absently. “It's like there's two systems competing with each other--oh.” He doesn't continue, staring at the screen and typing faster.
Lindsey bites her lip, restraining herself from yelling. Mikey's always, always vague, but when he's working with tech it's the fucking worst, and she would like to know when they can get out. Fuck it. “How long?”
He types some more, then sighs. “I can't get Kitty in.”
“What's the problem?” Alicia says from her spot at the door.
“The system's only half-open, I guess? There's some encryption shit.”
“Unless you have a program to figure it out, you're fucked,” Alicia says dryly.
Lindsey looks at her. “You were a tech, huh?”
“I built viruses,” Alicia grins, eyes lighting up. “Viruses with super-specific purposes.”
Lindsey smiles back. “That, now that is awesome. Did you take out--Mikey was telling me about the Academy registration program?”
Alicia nods, still smiling. “That was the one that got me caught,” she says ruefully, “But I still think it was pretty fucking cool.”
They both turn at Mikey's emphatic “Fuck!” He turns to look back at them. “It's fucking--it won't work, I can't make it work.” He runs his hand through his hair, looking helpless.
“Right,” Lindsey says, “but what about wiping the database? Just do that, Mikey. We have to get back to your brother.”
Mikey makes a frustrated noise but nods, focusing back on the screen. About three minutes later, he slams the keyboard down, grins and says, “Done! What say you we get out of here?”
“Excellent plan, Master Way,” she responds and gets back to her feet, tapping her comm.
“Front office,” Kitty says tersely in her ear through a burst of static. “Chantal and Brian aren't out. I've got Amanda, she'll be out of there in a second, she's fighting her way through with a lot of people, but you need to get Chantal and Brian.”
“On it,” Lindsey promises. “Front office,” she repeats for the others' benefit. “Chantal and Brian aren't out.”
Alicia swears. “Rescue mission, is it?” she asks, sounding tired.
Mikey sags against the wall he's leaning on. “Fucking fantastic.” He waves a hand at Lindsey. “You realize the three of us are a ridiculous rescue force?”
“Speak for yourself, Mikeyway,” she retorts. “I personally am a fantastic rescuer. Practically a fucking professional. You have no idea how many times Steve and I bailed each other out of situations much stickier than this one. Once there was a whole gaggle of nuns involved. Dangerous stuff.”
“Well then,” Alicia grins. “Let's do this shit.”
They open the door and it's fucking madness, again. Lindsey can smell gasoline and hopes fervently that no one got at the burner, because while she would like nothing more than to blow this place sky-high, she'd like it to happen when she's not actually in it. Or anyone else, for preference. Except whoever did that to Gee's hands. And whoever made Alicia's eyes that dark. And Bob's leg, that fucking tracker.
Her hand tightens on her knife as they struggle through the crowd, which has apparently discovered the prison's food stores and are tearing up packages and throwing stuff all over and eating as much as they can (fuck, they're all so goddamned skinny).
It's like she sees in flashes. One: intern with a snake tattoo half burned off, hitting someone else over the head to get the loaf of bread he's holding. Two: the stairs beneath her feet, dark and getting darker with food stains and probably blood. Three: Mikey's hand tight on her arm. Four: Alicia's knife moving fast, fast to stab at someone going for her throat. Seven: the top of the stairs, the top of the stairs. Her knife is bloody and her knee is hurting. The top of the stairs.
The front office door has been blown off its hinges, or torn off: it's on the floor in front of the doorway, one corner blackened and bullet holes riddling it.
They're all pressed against the wall, huddled together, keeping Mikey in the middle and both Alicia and Lindsey looking in all directions for attacks.
Lindsey taps her comm again. “Still not out, and they're not responding,” Kitty says.
“We're going in,” Lindsey answers. “Keep the line open, will you?”
“Will do,” Kitty responds. “Get the fuck out of there as fast as you can, okay?”
“Will do,” Lindsey parrots sardonically, and looks at the other two.
“I'll go first,” Alicia says. “Don't argue, okay? I've done this.”
Lindsey nods at her. “Sounds fine to me.”
And it’s easy to tell that, yeah, Alicia has done this before. Her left side looks stiff, and Lindsey thinks there's something wrong there, and if they get out, when they get out, she's going to make Alicia gets it looked at. But she doesn't move like it bothers her much, eyes flickering, posture tense and relaxed in that weird way Amanda was moving all morning. She uses her knife like Amanda does, too--Lindsey's own style is more hack-and-slash, learned from Steve and Ann and in her own school of trial and error. (Let’s just say walking home from school was sometimes an adventure, let's just put it that way. And people are perverts when you're fourteen and wear a school uniform, but Lindsey always moved fast. Ann taught her how.)
The front room is empty. Alicia points at the Assistant Superintendent's door with her knife, and slides up next to it to listen, waving at Mikey and Lindsey to follow.
“--to give up yet?” That's Chantal, tired but defiant.
“Reinforcements should be arriving momentarily.” That's the Assistant Intendent, a quiver in his voice that he’s not doing all that good of a job covering up.
“You're a stupid motherfucker,” Brian's voice comes in. “The reinforcements you need aren’t even in the city. Just put down the fucking gun and let us get out of here, and we'll even leave you alive, how's that?”
“Don't move! I have three shots left in this gun and that's more than enough to kill the both of you. I'm a good shot, you know?”
“You certainly hit my arm just fine,” Chantal says agreeably.
“Stupid bitch, I did that on purpose, I was trying to stop you going for your gun.”
“You were, were you?”
“Yeah, but if you don't shut up I'll kill you for real. Don't move!”
That last must have been to Brian, because he responds, “Backing off, chill the fuck out.”
Lindsey taps Alicia's shoulder. The office is very quiet. They can hear the riot going on behind them, but in here she can only hear a fan whirring as a background to the loud conversation rising and falling on the other side of the door. She doesn't exactly feel like waiting any longer.
Alicia seems to agree: she kneels down carefully and checks through the keyhole, then nods and slides her hand slowly around the doorhandle, starting to turn it in minimal increments. Luckily, it seems to be well-oiled.
Alicia has it all the way turned before she looks at both Mikey and Lindsey. She points to herself with the hand she’s holding the knife in, and mouths, Me first. Then she motions at the floor, mouthing go low, and both Mikey and Lindsey nod. Lindsey's knife feels really comfortable in her hand right now.
Leaning her shoulder against the door, Alicia listens and then nods again, pushing the door wide open. A shot is fired immediately, and Lindsey rolls to avoid it, has no idea if he hit anything, sees the pair of uniformed legs and curls up, pretending like she got hit, then lunges at those legs, taking him down. There's yelling, so much yelling, Alicia is with her, she can see the dark hair in the corner of her vision, and she's hacking at him, they're both hacking at him, and her hands are slipping, there's another shot but it's wild, hits the light (which doesn't matter, this office has fucking windows), and she buries her knife as deeply as she can in his stomach, turning and twisting it and holding him down.
He kicks and twitches and screams and bleeds so much, Lindsey can feel his guts under her hands. She just keeps holding, Alicia's hands next to hers, her knife deep between his ribs, blood up to both their elbows and Lindsey thinks she probably has some in her mouth.
And then he stops.
Both of them just stay. Lindsey's eyes are closed, she knows, but it doesn't feel like they are; image after image is flickering behind her eyelids.
Mikey's hand on her shoulder. It's so weird how she knows the way he touches now. “Hey,” he says. “I think he's kinda dead.” She giggles at that.
“We have to get the fuck out,” Brian starts, halfway between gentle and furious, which she also knows is the way he sounds most of the time. Except for when he’s talking to Bob.
“We do have to get out,” Chantal agrees, mildly. “That is, if we feel like completing the plan and leaving the city? Mikey, is your comm on?”
Mikey nods, looking sheepish.
Chantal raises an eyebrows. “Of course you did. Motherfucker, I told you not to use your phone.”
“You know I don’t get traced, give me some fucking credit,” Mikey says, ignoring Chantal’s frustrated exclamation that of course she knows that, of course she does.
Lindsey listens to Mikey tapping at keys for a while before she remembers to check her own comm. It’s weirdly quiet, so probably it broke at some point during the chaos.
“Kitty's on the move,” Mikey says, “Vienna's out of the mayor's office, she asked for a bathroom break and climbed out the back window.”
“Lucky she's so fucking skinny and short,” says Brian.
“Just us, then,” Chantal adds, “so, ladies, do you think we can move now? He’s dead, I promise, and my arm fucking hurts.”
Lindsey opens her eyes slowly. There's a lot of light in here, even though that last shot hit the overhead. She pulls at her knife and gags a little when it won't budge. Alicia wrenches her own knife out and gets her hand around Lindsey's.
“We can pull together,” she says, voice scratchy.
Lindsey nods, focusing. They get the knife out; there's a squelching noise and she turns to find Mikey holding out a trash can for her to throw up into.
She feels so embarrassed when she's done. It's not like that was the most--the guy was, he deserved it, and she just. God, why does she have to be such a fucking coward?
Brian clears his throat. “After we get the fuck out of here, I'm going to tell you about the first time I killed someone and then peed my pants. I mean, that's pretty much the whole story, but there are some fun humiliating details. But let's fucking go now, yeah?”
Lindsey laughs weakly and Mikey helps her to her feet. “You were fucking awesome,” he whispers.
“Technicolor vomit,” she whispers back. “Gets all the boys hot.”
He grins at her, and they both turn to Chantal and Brian to find out what the fuck is supposed to happen next.
Turns out the secret ending to this crazy plan, which Chantal had refused to divulge before, is to steal a boat at West 39th. No, really.
“Last I checked, they had four Patrol pairs stationed in that are,” Mikey says skeptically.
Brian shrugs. “Half the force is in Chicago, you know that, and I have word from Ashlee that she and Patrick are kicking things up another notch, which should make the reinforcements stick around up there instead of coming home.”
Lindsey has a different issue with this plan. “Does anyone actually know how to deal with boats?”
Chantal smiles and says they know “enough”, whatever that's supposed to mean, and Lindsey guesses she'll have to be content with that. Alicia doesn’t look worried about the boats, for some reason, which does help Lindsey calm down.
For now, though, they laboriously climb out of the window. The room is on the first floor, but Chantal's arm complicates this adventure, as does the various injuries that Alicia is stubbornly ignoring. Also, Lindsey finds herself having to think hard about not looking at her hands. Or her clothes.
--
They reunite with the rest of the group at one of Chantal’s old hideouts, and wait there for word from the sabotage crews they sent out into the city and for Kitty and Vienna to check in again. It's a dingy basement with the distinct advantage of not being known to the authorities.
“It's a family secret,” Chantal says as they move down the stairs behind the hidden door Chantal managed to unearth behind the wallpaper. “This, my aunt used to live in this building, and when the takeover happened, they had this made so they could hide books and shit.”
“How the fuck did they manage to build that without being noticed?” Alicia says incredulously.
“They were good at the whole contraband business thing,” Chantal grins. “Plus, technically they didn't dig anything, they just expanded on the room that was there. This is an old building.”
Even if it was expanded, the basement is still tiny and now it's crowded, too. As well it should be, with over twenty people down there.
When they get in there, Gerard rises from where he's huddled next to Gabe, and runs at Mikey. “Fucker,” he says, “don't ever fucking leave me for fucking suicide missions again, okay?”
Mikey's just shaking his head and Lindsey's about to let go of Mikey and move away from them both (she and Mikey had been holding hands down the last part of the stairs) when Gerard pulls her into their hug. “You got him back,” he says, voice thick, hand petting clumsily at her hair. She swallows, wants to tell him it wasn't a big deal, that anyone would have--when Mikey breaks in.
“Helped get you out, too, you know.”
“Yeah, I do know,” Gerard says and looks at her intensely. “I can't ever fucking thank you enough.”
She finally finds her words. “No need,” she says, looking back at him, probably equally intensely. Steve used to call it her Earnest and Fierce look, which had always made her throw something at him. “I mean,” she continues, “I just couldn't not fucking do anything, you know?”
“Yeah, I fucking do.”
Mikey's grinning a little at them both. “What?” Lindsey says, quirking an eyebrow at him but not letting go of either of them. She should wash up, but she can't see any water, so she's not taking a step back to actually look at her arms, no thanks, that's not quite what she feels like doing right now.
“You're just so fucking alike, is all.”
Alicia tugs at Lindsey's sleeve and she half-turns. “They have extra clothes,” Alicia tells her, touching at her elbow.
“That's--yeah.”
They scrub off what they can in the bucket Alicia got from Amanda and change clothes, and then they go back to the main group. Lindsey almost sits down by herself but returns to Mikey's side when he gives her a look. He's a bony fucker but it feels pretty good to lean on him right now.
There's a lot of semi-urgent medical care going, people patching each other up as well as they can, using what limited supplies are available. Chantal, for one, is getting her arm looked at, but it's pretty clear she needs an actual doctor, which they don’t have. So they're wrapping it while she grimaces and curses and looks over at the group gathered in the room.
“Right,'“ Brian starts, looking around at them all to get their attention. “This here’s the situation as it stands. Chantal has explained the plan to some of you, and I’m just adding some details here. Ray and Bob should be in Jersey by now, we have no word of anything going wrong and they left before any of the roadblocks were in effect. Yeah, Ryland?”
One of the tall men takes his hand down. “Uh, won’t Ray be recognizable anywhere, pretty much? That’s a mighty special hairdo he’s got going on.”
Brian nods. “Well, he promised me he’d be unrecognizable when he left, and he was driving to Jersey with his sick mom wrapped in blankets in the back seat.”
That prompts some laugher, and a few comments about Bryar being anyone’s mom.
Waiting out the jokes, Brian continues. “Cortez hasn’t checked in, but he’s the best of all of us at knowing when to get the fuck out, so here’s hoping. Frank, Bert, Vienna and Kitty are supposedly waiting for us at the docks. Kitty’s last message to Mikey is an hour old; wanna repeat it for the rest of the class, Mikeyway?”
Mikey shrugs. “She said Vienna got out, and she said Frank and Bert should be on their way to the harbor. Apparently Frank had faceplanted and broken a couple of toes, too, but they sounded happy, Kitty said.”
“Thanks, Mikey,” says Brian. “Any other questions?”
The tall man who is not Gabe raises his hand. “How are we getting out? Not that I don’t feel at home in this basement, but I’m not a fan of this city right now.” The redhead next to Amanda nods in agreement.
So Brian explains the boat-stealing plan again, and how they’re going to Jersey because, as he puts it, “They hide their own.”
Lindsey's not listening. She's heard it already. There's blood under her nails, still, and some on her skin, faint residues dusting her wrists. She wants to draw her hand like this, with scratches and cuts and blood under her nails. She wants to draw her hand holding a knife, or maybe writing. No, she should draw her hand the way it looks right now but holding a brush. A painting in a painting; protest inside protest inside protest.
She feels a little nauseous, again, thinking about what'll happen to the warehouse, the paintings she left there and the ones that were on the walls, and--
“What about everyone else?” she finds herself saying. “The people who came to see Kitty sometimes, or the people who worked for Chantal.”
“They've gone underground or gotten out,” says Chantal. “We warned them—when Bob came back and we decided we were going to do this and then get out of New York, we warned them. We couldn't give them specifics, but they did know they basically had no time. It was a get the fuck out kind of deal.”
Most of the discussion after that is figuring out how much time they still have to wait, and logistics of how many people are badly hurt (most people--certainly nearly all the rescued prisoners they rescued--Alicia, for instance, has a stiff left side because her ribs are only half-healed, and there's definitely something wrong with her hip.)
After the meeting, a short, scrawny guy that Lindsey's never seen before comes up to Brian. “I know you said Bert's okay, but I want to know where the fuck he is and who's with him. You people, you don’t get him.”
Chantal hears them and walks over. “Calm the fuck down, Quinn” she says, looking between Brian and said Quinn. “Bert is with Frank, honey, and however terrible you think the rest of us are, I know you trust Frank.”
The guy nods, still looking fidgety but a little calmer now. “Fuck, those two little fuckers. I can't believe you have them working together.”
“Well, without you around, we had to have someone match Bert,” Brian says ruefully.
After that, it’s just waiting. They have no idea if Chicago managed to be loud enough today that there could be no reinforcements sent back to NYC. DC wouldn't send anybody here, they're busy pretending to run the country and presenting a pretty face to the world. Lindsey never thought she'd be grateful for the way Boston was looted and burned, but she doesn't want any big cities with their attention on them right now, she just doesn't.
--
They leave at dusk. The city’s gone quiet, curfew in operation as always. Chantal is making pained faces over her arm but manages to raise her voice over the general babbling to remind them all that “There’ll be guards out, chickadees, they’ll have sent ‘em out to get us. So we’re taking back streets, which means keeping up, helping those who can’t keep up, and staying the fuck with the group, okay?”
There are general little noises or shrugs of agreement; it’s pretty clear they know the group has to stay together, or none of them will make it out of the city. It’s also pretty clear that everyone is terrified. Gerard--Gee, he said to call him--is pale as fuck, eyes tracking Mikey whenever he wanders off a little. Brian is looking even sterner than before, and Amanda leads them, the two women from the prison, Katie Kay and the redhead, following just half a step behind.
Lindsey and Alicia bring up the rear with Brian, so the injured people can walk in the middle. Gabe keeps cracking dirty jokes under his breath, and Chantal keeps thwapping him with her uninjured arm and making even dirtier comments right back at him. Lindsey listens as hard as she can for noises outside the group, but New York is quiet. Distant sirens tell her there’s at least something going on somewhere; she hopes it’s one of the fires Frank and Bert set, still keeping the guards busy. She hopes they and Vienna and Kitty will meet the group at the docks, like they’re supposed to. Also, that Alicia doesn’t fall over, because it seems like she might, with how pale she is and how stiffly she’s moving.
Lindsey pokes her in the side. “Why aren’t you walking with the injured group?”
Alicia shakes her head. “I’m barely--it’s nothing, really. They, like, broke all Gee’s fingers and shattered Gabe’s kneecap. Me, I’m a girl. They always do the same thing to girls. But I didn’t, like, say anything, so they got bored.”
Swallowing down bile, Lindsey manages, “Don’t call it nothing. And you’re fucking braver than me, than everyone, okay?” She wants to set something, or some people, maybe, on fire, oh, does she ever want to. Dance in the flames, too. Alicia squeezes her wrist, quickly.
“I’d help,” she says. Apparently Lindsey has said that last part out loud. Well, okay. Help works. In fact, she’d hand Alicia the whole goddamn matchbox if she wanted it.
She grins at Alicia in a way she hopes conveys just that, and then Brian touches her elbow.
“We’re there,” he says quietly.
So they are. The docks spread out before them, sheds and containers and cranes rising in the dark. Chantal points down toward one of the boats, smaller than most of the others but still bigger than any ship Lindsey’s been on before.
“Are you sure we can drive that?” she asks Brian in an undertone.
He shrugs. “If things have gone off like they were supposed to, Kitty and Vienna should be meeting us, and between the two of them, they can work the ship’s computer.”
Alicia makes a gesture, implying, well, what if they aren’t here?
Brian scratches at his neck, looking apologetic. “If not, our back-up plan is sort of iffy, but if we get partway across the river with the boat, I figure we can swim the rest of the way, right?”
“That’s a great plan,” Lindsey says, “Great.” She rolls her eyes at Alicia.
“It’s too bad Bob isn’t here, or Matt,” Alicia says absently, as they watch Brian walk over to Mikey and, well, Lindsey assumes they’re discussing when to start hacking city communications if Kitty and Vienna or Bert and Frank or Matt, for that matter, don’t get here soon.
“Why?” she replies. “They good at boats?”
“They’re, well, we’re all tech experts. Boats are that weird mix of old tech and new tech and tech that doesn’t work at all anymore. They’re both good at that.”
“So couldn’t you do it, then, if you’re all tech experts?”
Alicia shrugs. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t like vehicles, though. Never had much use for them. I could maybe get us across the river, possibly.”
Lindsey rolls her eyes. “You should maybe go tell them that.”
“I’d be surprised if I’m haven’t become the backup plan already.” Alicia grins a little, nodding at how Chantal is gesturing at her. “Chantal knows what I can do.”
That’s when the shots are fired. Lindsey’s got both herself and Alicia on the ground in three seconds, and she twists around to look back, scrabbling for the gun Amanda gave her in the basement. Alicia’s swearing next to her, face pale in the dark, hand gripping at her hip.
“Sorry,” says Lindsey, “sorry.”
Alicia waves her off, getting her own gun out. The shots are coming from behind a container; Lindsey can see a couple of someones, guards, she assumes, poking their heads out-and-back. She wishes she could turn and see if anyone’s hit, but mostly she wants the guards to stay still for a bit, there. One of them grabs at their shoulder, drops their gun and pulls back.
Then, there are shots from somewhere else. Shit, they haven’t just sent a Patrol pair. Chantal must have been right about the search parties. Shit fuck shit. Taking a deep breath, Lindsey rolls so she ends up behind the nearest shed. Thank fuck she has good night vision, really. Ann used to complain about the unfairness of that, how Lindsey was the one they should have recruited.
Standing up carefully so she’s still hidden, Lindsey can see that Chantal and Brian have gotten most of the group onto the boat. Amanda’s scrambling up onto the top of the nearest container; she must be aiming for visibility.
Then there’s an explosion followed by screaming and a laugh Lindsey hasn’t heard before, but she’s betting it’s that tall guy Chantal had been leaning on, Jimmy-good-at-explosions Urine. Lindsey likes that in a man. She wishes she had some booze or oil or something; she’s standing at a good angle for hitting the guard shack, built to be part museum, which is why it’s made in wood. To look like an old building.
Someone touches at her elbow and she only just suppresses her immediate reaction (to get at her knife) when she sees Bert’s standing at her side. Fuck, what a fucking relief it is to look down at his grin.
“You want this?” he says, holding out his flask.
“Hell yes,” she says, digging the lighter she’d found in the basement out of her pocket. “Gimme a strip of your t-shirt, too.” Fuck, but she loves molotovs. She’s going to need something to put it in, but she can see some empties not too far off. Nudging at Bert, she slides down and grabs them, avoiding getting shot by half an inch or so.
“I got a couple of bottles, too” Bert offers when she’s back at his side. “Frank and I had a beer while we watched the last guard office burn, and I thought of you and saved them. I had a backpack, like.”
“You’re such a fucking moron,” she says fondly, and together they portion the vodka left in Bert’s flask into the four bottles, as fast as they can. Beer bottles make wimpy Molotovs, but really, it’s all in the aim.
Amanda and Alicia and Frank, now, are holding down the fort goddamn well, Amanda shooting at the guards from the top of her container and drawing the fire to her while Alicia and Frank slide through shadows, doing what they’re so good at. There are a couple of more people on their side in fighting shape, but they’re on the boat, keeping the guards off. Lindsey wishes she knew how many officers are here, or whether Mikey’s managing to block their calling for reinforcements.
There, the bottles are done. She gives two to Bert. “Lighter?” she asks. He nods and sneaks off, uncannily quiet like he always is doing this, but never otherwise.
Lindsey stays where she is, waiting until Bert gets his first bottle thrown: a wooden pier goes up in flames and she grins, aims and throws. The fire is really, really satisfying, flames licking high and bright. She’s about to throw her second one when she hears someone behind her.
Whirling and grabbing for her knife, she knows she won’t be fast enough, but then she sees the guard facing her has frozen, hand on her gun. There’s no mistaking those eyes, that face, not even in the dark of the docks. Oh Ann, oh, Ann, Lindsey can’t breathe.
She steels herself, picks up her second bottle, and loops it high over Ann’s head, hitting the shed behind her. Ann stumbles backwards, then sideways, away from the fire. She’s bitten her lip bloody and Lindsey aches to sit her down, ice it, smooth the creases out of her forehead (patrol wrinkles, they’d called them, patrol wrinkles from the things Ann had to do that made her face twist).
Instead, she lifts an arm in a half-wave, mouths, love you, and backs away, turning to run towards the boat.
Halfway there, she almost trips over Amanda, who’s lying so goddamn still and Lindsey goes cold. Not now, not her. Carefully, she bends down, ignoring the way she feels like a big fat target, rolls Amanda over gently and sees she’s breathing, thank fuck, breathing and apparently half-conscious, because she grabs for Lindsey’s hand and tries to say something.
“That’s it, come on,” Lindsey coaxes, and sees Kitty and Vienna out of the corner of her eye. Kitty’s practically carrying Vienna, but they’re alive. The docks are so warm from the fires, but the guns have gone quiet, she realizes. The redhead, Dusty, that’s right, Dusty, is running at them from the boat. First, she helps Lindsey get Amanda on her feet, and together they make it down the pier.
The whole situation is so frantic, Lindsey forgets to notice when the ship actually starts. She only figures out that they’re moving when the fires become smaller and she doesn’t feel their heat anymore. Little fireflies, reflected in the dark water.
Mikey comes over to her and hands her a blanket, silently. They turn around and listen to Chantal telling them that yeah, she’s pretty sure they managed to blow up enough boats plus the guard shed, which housed the transmitters for the harbor, and so backup shouldn’t arrive until they’ve managed to cross the river. For a second, Lindsey considers saying something about the guard that got away, but she can’t. She hopes Ann will wait to call for help until it’ll be too late to catch them.
Her knee hurts, and she thinks about that first night in the warehouse, when she’d gone to sleep thinking she’d go back home in the morning, that her life would keep being the same.
“Any regrets?” says Mikey, not looking at her.
She thinks about it. “You know I used to wish I’d died in that venue, too? Not all the time, just, some days, when I was stuck in the warehouse and couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t do anything, I just wondered if maybe I wasn’t supposed to have died too, like the rest of them.”
He nods, circling her wrist with his hand. “Do you still?” he asks.
“No--not anymore. This is it, Mikeway. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
--
Part 2 | Epilogue
--
The initial phase goes well. Too well, Lindsey thinks, and the tense line of Amanda's back says she agrees. Chantal met the Assistant Superintendent of the jail in the front office, and they shook hands amicably and made a series of offensive jokes about how these prisoners would finally do some honest work. Ha. Lindsey knows for a fact that this commander is the son of the State Governor, way too young for his post and, uh, not someone who had done a whole lot of work in his life.
They are all left waiting around until someone comes to show Amanda and the rest of them around (Amanda is playing the role of Supervisory Designer here, and as such she must naturally inspect the kind of people she can expect to be working with). Mikey and Lindsey are following along, trying to look dangerous and like they might have something to do with a clothing company at the same time. The monochromatic outfits they both ended up in help--like uniforms, but not; gray and simple but of an unusual cut, collar slanting differently than it does most of the time on these kinds of jackets (sometimes Lindsey just misses color so much; sometimes she thinks that’s why she started doing art at night).
While they’re walking around the jail, Lindsey notices how small the staff is right now. It's easy to see that the recent uprising in Chicago has decimated the staff of the jail--normally there'd be one guard per hallway at least, but now there's about one guard per ward.
They're almost taken past a door when Lindsey sees Mikey look up, very, very intent, and oh. “What sort of prisoners are held in there?” she says brightly.
The guard looks up. “Oh, just politicals, ma'am; you don't want those, they won't do you any good. They'd go on strike because of their 'rights,' or something.”
Amanda laughs cynically. “I know the type, man,” she says, “but couldn't you take us through anyway? Some of these revolutionary types are quite intelligent, and if there are one or two who could be persuaded to be trained further, then I can employ them as supervisors.”
The guard shrugs. “Sure, I suppose,” and opens the door, closing it behind them once they've all walked through. As soon as the door slams shut, Amanda is on him, twisting his arms behind his back.
“Sound the alarm and I'll slit your throat really, really slowly,” she says and the guard shakes his head frantically while Lindsey gets his weapons. She knows the uniform, remembers Ann practicing putting on her weapons. Lindsey even remembers to thumb along the hidden seams.
There are no cameras on this ward; she knows what that means, knows that's because they don't want any feeds of what they do here to leak, but right now she's glad for it.
They handcuff the guard and gag him, and Amanda holds him against the wall as they stare down the hallway which branches off into three different sections, white white white doors with numbers to the left of them. Mikey's coordinating the triggering of the lock mechanisms in a fast phone conversation with Vienna, who's giving him today's code.
Then there's a really, really loud ringing noise which goes on for fifteen seconds, then pauses for ten. Amanda pulls the guard's gag down and looks at him.
“The greater alarm,” he says, talking so fast he's stammering, tripping over his own words. The only reason he’s even audible over the dim is that they're standing so close. “It means someone in the front office sounded the greater alarm.”
“Kitty,” Lindsey says, but whatever Kitty answers sounds more like static than actual words. Mikey slips his earpiece off and pushes in a three-button-sequence on it, then opens his actual phone that he'd apparently brought even though they weren't supposed to. He slides the earpiece apart into two and slips one of the pieces into one of the outlets on the phone. Quickly, he’s done, and Lindsey has no idea what the hell he just did, but now he's typing in a message and waiting for an answer.
She tries not to yell at him to hurry, she knows that he knows they have to move. He looks up. “Kitty says I'm an idiot for using my phone like this and that we have about ten minutes if we're lucky and twenty-one cells to get through.”
“We have to split up,” Amanda says, then looks at the guard consideringly. “Close your eyes,” she says, almost gently. When he does, she taps him in the back of the head with the hilt of her gun, and he crumples so easily to the floor.
Amanda looks down at him, dusting off her hands, then looks back up and points them off in two directions, then looks at Mikey, waiting for the lull in the alarm.
“Type in 2-0-7-9 on all the keypads,” Mikey says, and sets off determinedly down one of the hallways, and Lindsey does the same down hers.
It's the procedure they practiced: get the door open and determine whether the prisoner inside can walk or not; if they can, take them along to the next cell where they can take on any prisoners who can’t walk by themselves. Lindsey gets two tall women to half-drag, half-carry a tall gangly man. They're strong, the women, so it works out, even if the redhead is almost deathly pale and the man is hunched over, obviously in pain.
Three doors from the end, she looks into the cell and sees a dark-haired, pale guy sitting on the cot, and she just knows--that's him, that's Mikey's brother, and she feels herself grinning, because fuck yes, Mikeyway gets something back.
She opens the door and he scrambles closer to the wall, eyes widening. She shakes her head quickly. “No, no,” she says, in the lull between the outbursts of the alarm, “I'm here with Mikey.” And his entire face changes, then sets again.
“If you're lying,” he says, voice scratchy.
She shakes her head again, willing him to believe her. The hallway is so fucking short, he'll see Mikey if he just-- “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” he says, getting up and moving toward her.
“Come on, then you can help,” she says impatiently.
He shakes his head minutely and holds up his hands as she backs out of the doorway, beckoning him to follow. His fingers are--they've obviously been broken and not reset at all. She wants to throw up, because last night, she found out last night where Mikey learned so much about paints and composition. Eyes down and fingers twisting, Mikey told her that his brother Gerard was an artist, and pointed out some of the stuff on the walls (Joan and her horse, for one) as Gerard’s.
“Come on,” she says, smiling as brightly as she fucking can, the smile Steve used to call her sunshine and suck it up-smile. It had worked on nearly every case of stage fright, maybe it’ll work now too
The last two doors are opened fast. One of them is a girl, dark eyes, shorn dark hair with roots showing. “Come on,” Lindsey says and the girl gets up immediately.
“You're not a guard,” she mumbles when she gets close.
“We're getting you the fuck out of here,” Lindsey says, as firmly as she can.
The last room is another obscenely tall man, who smiles like he's never seen anything better when he sees Gerard. Gerard is smiling back, tired but it's there. “Come on, motherfucker,” he says, voice stronger than when he talked to Lindsey. “There's some fucking miracle rescue going down, and you know you want to get in on that shit.”
“Always, always,” the man says, unfolding long legs to get off his cot. “If I could just trouble one of you for some support, though, that'd be smashing.”
The dark-eyed girl walks past both Lindsey and Gerard to offer her shoulder. “Alicia,” the man says.
“Gabe,” she responds, mouth quirking. “Not dead yet?”
“Nine lives, you know. Useful shit.”
Lindsey slides in on Gabe’s other side, and her strange little caravan starts moving toward the exit, where Mikey and Amanda are waiting, along with a number of other prisoners. Amanda is paler than ever but Lindsey thinks she's never seen Amanda this happy. She’s not smiling, just, her eyes, they're shining.
Mikey's standing with his back toward them, texting. Gerard starts, next to Lindsey, and his eyes well up. She shoves at him carefully with the hand that's not supporting Gabe.
“Come on,” she says between the ringing noises. “Fucking go.” And he smiles at her, bright and wide, and she can't breathe with how joyful he looks; it's a look so foreign to this place that it's almost hard to see.
He half-runs, half-hops, his right leg obviously a little problematic, up to Mikey and wraps his arms around him from behind. Mikey just turns, one hand hanging on to his phone (whatever he's getting from Kitty right now Lindsey knows must be important) and buries his face in Gerard's hair.
Lindsey's little group catches up to the big one just when the alarm goes silent. Amanda taps her ear piece. “Yeah? Yeah, that’s it, it just shut off. Open the doors.”
This is the most dangerous part of their plan. If everything has gone as planned, the majority of the few guards who were still here should have been sent off before the alarm rang to deal with Frank and Bert in Uptown and Matt's bombs. Or with one of the other, minor diversions they’ve set up. If the inevitable chaos that’ll happen when they release all the prisoners in the Tombs will be enough to cover their escape. If, if, if. And if the Chicago movement came through on their promise to escalate their efforts today, because otherwise their chances of getting away with this are slim to none. Amanda's passing out the knives she had on her, first to the two women, then to Gabe and Alicia.
Mikey and Gerard are both crying, but Mikey's still typing his message and whispering what Lindsey thinks must be updates into his brother's hair. Then he straightens up, and, right. This part.
“You get Gee out,” Mikey tells Gabe and Amanda. “You know he's a fucking hopeless fighter, especially now. Just--get him out.”
“Where are you going?” Gerard asks, sounding frantic. “No, Mikey--”
Lindsey cuts them off. She knows Gerard was some kind of leader, but he didn't plan this. “Me n' Mikey are wiping their database. In the basement. It's the computer for the whole city, you gotta know that. We're getting Kitty and Vienna into the system first, though, so they can fuck with the tracing capabilities. In case anyone else has trackers, in case of other shit.”
Gerard draws a breath as if he’s about to say something, but Lindsey stares him down and continues, “If we're all going to get away, we need to do this.”
“Just make sure you get out,” he says intently, looking at them both.
“Don't worry, Gee,” Mikey grins, a little, the first time Lindsey's ever seen a smile of his reach his eyes, “I'm better at sneaking than you are, and Lindsey's fucking fierce.”
Gerard nods, “Okay,” and hugs Mikey again.
Amanda nods at Alicia. “Go with them. You know your shit, and you're faster than Mikey, at least. Lindsey's not bad, she’ll watch your back if you need it.”
Alicia nods. “'Kay,” she says.
When the door opens, they walk right into chaos. Lindsey can't believe how soundproofed the ward they just left must have been, because fuck, this is insane. Screams and flying chairs and a guard going down right in front of them, five prisoners on top; it feels noisier than the alarm before. That was just one loud sound, she could filter that out, this is just--they're practically tearing down the walls of the prison but she doesn't understand why the guards aren't using their guns--oh, because they'd hit their own, and because they can't see, the lights are flashing so bad in here.
Amanda taps her shoulder and points to the left-hand stairs. Right. Lindsey beckons at Mikey and Alicia to follow her--she's the one who knows the floor plans.
Three steps down the stairs and it quickly becomes real fucking evident that they're going to have to hold onto each other and move fast. Alicia picks up the rear behind Mikey, and she holds her knife like she loves it, Lindsey notices when she glances back.
It's elbows and ducking and, shit, pushing back when someone pushes into her and she tries to count steps because she knows how many steps there are down, Ray drilled her, seventy-seven, seventy-seven, then the second door to the right, break the lock with this, the little automatic explosive he gave her, let Mikey do his thing at the computer, then get back out, get back up, through the front door is the easiest. But if it's impossible, the front office has a shitload of windows, and unless the guards are all holed up in there, Lindsey and Mikey and Alicia will be able to use those windows as backup exits.
She repeats that in her head all the way down, all the way through the flying fists and ducking for the gunshots that are coming now, like she knew they would (she's so glad Amanda insisted on the vests) and she just wants to get there. The stairs are black with dirt, what a weird thing to notice, and there's someone screaming next to her because he's dying, Lindsey thinks: he's bleeding a lot. Her arm hurts but it's not bad.
They do make it to the basement, and Lindsey attaches the little thing Ray gave her to the lock by pushing it so its suction cup (she thinks it came from a shower caddy) makes it stick. 1-7-1 set on the dial and the contained explosion sounds like someone puncturing a balloon. It doesn’t seem like it should be able to break the lock on what is a sturdy door, all things considered. But it swings open.
Mikey makes straight for the computer, which is on and whirring, images flickering past in a weird, sluggish-switching-to-fast tempo. “They need an upgrade,” Lindsey quips, knowing the old computers in the jails are left from before the takeover. There hasn't been that much new tech since--the equipment she's seen the group use is weirdly cobbled together, a mix of innovation and recycling.
“Work fast,” Alicia says, standing in the doorway and watching the staircase.
“Anyone coming?” Lindsey asks.
“Not yet, I just don't want to get stuck in the basement,” Alicia responds, gaze still locked on the stairs.
“Yeah,” Lindsey says. “How's it looking, Mikey?”
“It's weird,” he says absently. “It's like there's two systems competing with each other--oh.” He doesn't continue, staring at the screen and typing faster.
Lindsey bites her lip, restraining herself from yelling. Mikey's always, always vague, but when he's working with tech it's the fucking worst, and she would like to know when they can get out. Fuck it. “How long?”
He types some more, then sighs. “I can't get Kitty in.”
“What's the problem?” Alicia says from her spot at the door.
“The system's only half-open, I guess? There's some encryption shit.”
“Unless you have a program to figure it out, you're fucked,” Alicia says dryly.
Lindsey looks at her. “You were a tech, huh?”
“I built viruses,” Alicia grins, eyes lighting up. “Viruses with super-specific purposes.”
Lindsey smiles back. “That, now that is awesome. Did you take out--Mikey was telling me about the Academy registration program?”
Alicia nods, still smiling. “That was the one that got me caught,” she says ruefully, “But I still think it was pretty fucking cool.”
They both turn at Mikey's emphatic “Fuck!” He turns to look back at them. “It's fucking--it won't work, I can't make it work.” He runs his hand through his hair, looking helpless.
“Right,” Lindsey says, “but what about wiping the database? Just do that, Mikey. We have to get back to your brother.”
Mikey makes a frustrated noise but nods, focusing back on the screen. About three minutes later, he slams the keyboard down, grins and says, “Done! What say you we get out of here?”
“Excellent plan, Master Way,” she responds and gets back to her feet, tapping her comm.
“Front office,” Kitty says tersely in her ear through a burst of static. “Chantal and Brian aren't out. I've got Amanda, she'll be out of there in a second, she's fighting her way through with a lot of people, but you need to get Chantal and Brian.”
“On it,” Lindsey promises. “Front office,” she repeats for the others' benefit. “Chantal and Brian aren't out.”
Alicia swears. “Rescue mission, is it?” she asks, sounding tired.
Mikey sags against the wall he's leaning on. “Fucking fantastic.” He waves a hand at Lindsey. “You realize the three of us are a ridiculous rescue force?”
“Speak for yourself, Mikeyway,” she retorts. “I personally am a fantastic rescuer. Practically a fucking professional. You have no idea how many times Steve and I bailed each other out of situations much stickier than this one. Once there was a whole gaggle of nuns involved. Dangerous stuff.”
“Well then,” Alicia grins. “Let's do this shit.”
They open the door and it's fucking madness, again. Lindsey can smell gasoline and hopes fervently that no one got at the burner, because while she would like nothing more than to blow this place sky-high, she'd like it to happen when she's not actually in it. Or anyone else, for preference. Except whoever did that to Gee's hands. And whoever made Alicia's eyes that dark. And Bob's leg, that fucking tracker.
Her hand tightens on her knife as they struggle through the crowd, which has apparently discovered the prison's food stores and are tearing up packages and throwing stuff all over and eating as much as they can (fuck, they're all so goddamned skinny).
It's like she sees in flashes. One: intern with a snake tattoo half burned off, hitting someone else over the head to get the loaf of bread he's holding. Two: the stairs beneath her feet, dark and getting darker with food stains and probably blood. Three: Mikey's hand tight on her arm. Four: Alicia's knife moving fast, fast to stab at someone going for her throat. Seven: the top of the stairs, the top of the stairs. Her knife is bloody and her knee is hurting. The top of the stairs.
The front office door has been blown off its hinges, or torn off: it's on the floor in front of the doorway, one corner blackened and bullet holes riddling it.
They're all pressed against the wall, huddled together, keeping Mikey in the middle and both Alicia and Lindsey looking in all directions for attacks.
Lindsey taps her comm again. “Still not out, and they're not responding,” Kitty says.
“We're going in,” Lindsey answers. “Keep the line open, will you?”
“Will do,” Kitty responds. “Get the fuck out of there as fast as you can, okay?”
“Will do,” Lindsey parrots sardonically, and looks at the other two.
“I'll go first,” Alicia says. “Don't argue, okay? I've done this.”
Lindsey nods at her. “Sounds fine to me.”
And it’s easy to tell that, yeah, Alicia has done this before. Her left side looks stiff, and Lindsey thinks there's something wrong there, and if they get out, when they get out, she's going to make Alicia gets it looked at. But she doesn't move like it bothers her much, eyes flickering, posture tense and relaxed in that weird way Amanda was moving all morning. She uses her knife like Amanda does, too--Lindsey's own style is more hack-and-slash, learned from Steve and Ann and in her own school of trial and error. (Let’s just say walking home from school was sometimes an adventure, let's just put it that way. And people are perverts when you're fourteen and wear a school uniform, but Lindsey always moved fast. Ann taught her how.)
The front room is empty. Alicia points at the Assistant Superintendent's door with her knife, and slides up next to it to listen, waving at Mikey and Lindsey to follow.
“--to give up yet?” That's Chantal, tired but defiant.
“Reinforcements should be arriving momentarily.” That's the Assistant Intendent, a quiver in his voice that he’s not doing all that good of a job covering up.
“You're a stupid motherfucker,” Brian's voice comes in. “The reinforcements you need aren’t even in the city. Just put down the fucking gun and let us get out of here, and we'll even leave you alive, how's that?”
“Don't move! I have three shots left in this gun and that's more than enough to kill the both of you. I'm a good shot, you know?”
“You certainly hit my arm just fine,” Chantal says agreeably.
“Stupid bitch, I did that on purpose, I was trying to stop you going for your gun.”
“You were, were you?”
“Yeah, but if you don't shut up I'll kill you for real. Don't move!”
That last must have been to Brian, because he responds, “Backing off, chill the fuck out.”
Lindsey taps Alicia's shoulder. The office is very quiet. They can hear the riot going on behind them, but in here she can only hear a fan whirring as a background to the loud conversation rising and falling on the other side of the door. She doesn't exactly feel like waiting any longer.
Alicia seems to agree: she kneels down carefully and checks through the keyhole, then nods and slides her hand slowly around the doorhandle, starting to turn it in minimal increments. Luckily, it seems to be well-oiled.
Alicia has it all the way turned before she looks at both Mikey and Lindsey. She points to herself with the hand she’s holding the knife in, and mouths, Me first. Then she motions at the floor, mouthing go low, and both Mikey and Lindsey nod. Lindsey's knife feels really comfortable in her hand right now.
Leaning her shoulder against the door, Alicia listens and then nods again, pushing the door wide open. A shot is fired immediately, and Lindsey rolls to avoid it, has no idea if he hit anything, sees the pair of uniformed legs and curls up, pretending like she got hit, then lunges at those legs, taking him down. There's yelling, so much yelling, Alicia is with her, she can see the dark hair in the corner of her vision, and she's hacking at him, they're both hacking at him, and her hands are slipping, there's another shot but it's wild, hits the light (which doesn't matter, this office has fucking windows), and she buries her knife as deeply as she can in his stomach, turning and twisting it and holding him down.
He kicks and twitches and screams and bleeds so much, Lindsey can feel his guts under her hands. She just keeps holding, Alicia's hands next to hers, her knife deep between his ribs, blood up to both their elbows and Lindsey thinks she probably has some in her mouth.
And then he stops.
Both of them just stay. Lindsey's eyes are closed, she knows, but it doesn't feel like they are; image after image is flickering behind her eyelids.
Mikey's hand on her shoulder. It's so weird how she knows the way he touches now. “Hey,” he says. “I think he's kinda dead.” She giggles at that.
“We have to get the fuck out,” Brian starts, halfway between gentle and furious, which she also knows is the way he sounds most of the time. Except for when he’s talking to Bob.
“We do have to get out,” Chantal agrees, mildly. “That is, if we feel like completing the plan and leaving the city? Mikey, is your comm on?”
Mikey nods, looking sheepish.
Chantal raises an eyebrows. “Of course you did. Motherfucker, I told you not to use your phone.”
“You know I don’t get traced, give me some fucking credit,” Mikey says, ignoring Chantal’s frustrated exclamation that of course she knows that, of course she does.
Lindsey listens to Mikey tapping at keys for a while before she remembers to check her own comm. It’s weirdly quiet, so probably it broke at some point during the chaos.
“Kitty's on the move,” Mikey says, “Vienna's out of the mayor's office, she asked for a bathroom break and climbed out the back window.”
“Lucky she's so fucking skinny and short,” says Brian.
“Just us, then,” Chantal adds, “so, ladies, do you think we can move now? He’s dead, I promise, and my arm fucking hurts.”
Lindsey opens her eyes slowly. There's a lot of light in here, even though that last shot hit the overhead. She pulls at her knife and gags a little when it won't budge. Alicia wrenches her own knife out and gets her hand around Lindsey's.
“We can pull together,” she says, voice scratchy.
Lindsey nods, focusing. They get the knife out; there's a squelching noise and she turns to find Mikey holding out a trash can for her to throw up into.
She feels so embarrassed when she's done. It's not like that was the most--the guy was, he deserved it, and she just. God, why does she have to be such a fucking coward?
Brian clears his throat. “After we get the fuck out of here, I'm going to tell you about the first time I killed someone and then peed my pants. I mean, that's pretty much the whole story, but there are some fun humiliating details. But let's fucking go now, yeah?”
Lindsey laughs weakly and Mikey helps her to her feet. “You were fucking awesome,” he whispers.
“Technicolor vomit,” she whispers back. “Gets all the boys hot.”
He grins at her, and they both turn to Chantal and Brian to find out what the fuck is supposed to happen next.
Turns out the secret ending to this crazy plan, which Chantal had refused to divulge before, is to steal a boat at West 39th. No, really.
“Last I checked, they had four Patrol pairs stationed in that are,” Mikey says skeptically.
Brian shrugs. “Half the force is in Chicago, you know that, and I have word from Ashlee that she and Patrick are kicking things up another notch, which should make the reinforcements stick around up there instead of coming home.”
Lindsey has a different issue with this plan. “Does anyone actually know how to deal with boats?”
Chantal smiles and says they know “enough”, whatever that's supposed to mean, and Lindsey guesses she'll have to be content with that. Alicia doesn’t look worried about the boats, for some reason, which does help Lindsey calm down.
For now, though, they laboriously climb out of the window. The room is on the first floor, but Chantal's arm complicates this adventure, as does the various injuries that Alicia is stubbornly ignoring. Also, Lindsey finds herself having to think hard about not looking at her hands. Or her clothes.
--
They reunite with the rest of the group at one of Chantal’s old hideouts, and wait there for word from the sabotage crews they sent out into the city and for Kitty and Vienna to check in again. It's a dingy basement with the distinct advantage of not being known to the authorities.
“It's a family secret,” Chantal says as they move down the stairs behind the hidden door Chantal managed to unearth behind the wallpaper. “This, my aunt used to live in this building, and when the takeover happened, they had this made so they could hide books and shit.”
“How the fuck did they manage to build that without being noticed?” Alicia says incredulously.
“They were good at the whole contraband business thing,” Chantal grins. “Plus, technically they didn't dig anything, they just expanded on the room that was there. This is an old building.”
Even if it was expanded, the basement is still tiny and now it's crowded, too. As well it should be, with over twenty people down there.
When they get in there, Gerard rises from where he's huddled next to Gabe, and runs at Mikey. “Fucker,” he says, “don't ever fucking leave me for fucking suicide missions again, okay?”
Mikey's just shaking his head and Lindsey's about to let go of Mikey and move away from them both (she and Mikey had been holding hands down the last part of the stairs) when Gerard pulls her into their hug. “You got him back,” he says, voice thick, hand petting clumsily at her hair. She swallows, wants to tell him it wasn't a big deal, that anyone would have--when Mikey breaks in.
“Helped get you out, too, you know.”
“Yeah, I do know,” Gerard says and looks at her intensely. “I can't ever fucking thank you enough.”
She finally finds her words. “No need,” she says, looking back at him, probably equally intensely. Steve used to call it her Earnest and Fierce look, which had always made her throw something at him. “I mean,” she continues, “I just couldn't not fucking do anything, you know?”
“Yeah, I fucking do.”
Mikey's grinning a little at them both. “What?” Lindsey says, quirking an eyebrow at him but not letting go of either of them. She should wash up, but she can't see any water, so she's not taking a step back to actually look at her arms, no thanks, that's not quite what she feels like doing right now.
“You're just so fucking alike, is all.”
Alicia tugs at Lindsey's sleeve and she half-turns. “They have extra clothes,” Alicia tells her, touching at her elbow.
“That's--yeah.”
They scrub off what they can in the bucket Alicia got from Amanda and change clothes, and then they go back to the main group. Lindsey almost sits down by herself but returns to Mikey's side when he gives her a look. He's a bony fucker but it feels pretty good to lean on him right now.
There's a lot of semi-urgent medical care going, people patching each other up as well as they can, using what limited supplies are available. Chantal, for one, is getting her arm looked at, but it's pretty clear she needs an actual doctor, which they don’t have. So they're wrapping it while she grimaces and curses and looks over at the group gathered in the room.
“Right,'“ Brian starts, looking around at them all to get their attention. “This here’s the situation as it stands. Chantal has explained the plan to some of you, and I’m just adding some details here. Ray and Bob should be in Jersey by now, we have no word of anything going wrong and they left before any of the roadblocks were in effect. Yeah, Ryland?”
One of the tall men takes his hand down. “Uh, won’t Ray be recognizable anywhere, pretty much? That’s a mighty special hairdo he’s got going on.”
Brian nods. “Well, he promised me he’d be unrecognizable when he left, and he was driving to Jersey with his sick mom wrapped in blankets in the back seat.”
That prompts some laugher, and a few comments about Bryar being anyone’s mom.
Waiting out the jokes, Brian continues. “Cortez hasn’t checked in, but he’s the best of all of us at knowing when to get the fuck out, so here’s hoping. Frank, Bert, Vienna and Kitty are supposedly waiting for us at the docks. Kitty’s last message to Mikey is an hour old; wanna repeat it for the rest of the class, Mikeyway?”
Mikey shrugs. “She said Vienna got out, and she said Frank and Bert should be on their way to the harbor. Apparently Frank had faceplanted and broken a couple of toes, too, but they sounded happy, Kitty said.”
“Thanks, Mikey,” says Brian. “Any other questions?”
The tall man who is not Gabe raises his hand. “How are we getting out? Not that I don’t feel at home in this basement, but I’m not a fan of this city right now.” The redhead next to Amanda nods in agreement.
So Brian explains the boat-stealing plan again, and how they’re going to Jersey because, as he puts it, “They hide their own.”
Lindsey's not listening. She's heard it already. There's blood under her nails, still, and some on her skin, faint residues dusting her wrists. She wants to draw her hand like this, with scratches and cuts and blood under her nails. She wants to draw her hand holding a knife, or maybe writing. No, she should draw her hand the way it looks right now but holding a brush. A painting in a painting; protest inside protest inside protest.
She feels a little nauseous, again, thinking about what'll happen to the warehouse, the paintings she left there and the ones that were on the walls, and--
“What about everyone else?” she finds herself saying. “The people who came to see Kitty sometimes, or the people who worked for Chantal.”
“They've gone underground or gotten out,” says Chantal. “We warned them—when Bob came back and we decided we were going to do this and then get out of New York, we warned them. We couldn't give them specifics, but they did know they basically had no time. It was a get the fuck out kind of deal.”
Most of the discussion after that is figuring out how much time they still have to wait, and logistics of how many people are badly hurt (most people--certainly nearly all the rescued prisoners they rescued--Alicia, for instance, has a stiff left side because her ribs are only half-healed, and there's definitely something wrong with her hip.)
After the meeting, a short, scrawny guy that Lindsey's never seen before comes up to Brian. “I know you said Bert's okay, but I want to know where the fuck he is and who's with him. You people, you don’t get him.”
Chantal hears them and walks over. “Calm the fuck down, Quinn” she says, looking between Brian and said Quinn. “Bert is with Frank, honey, and however terrible you think the rest of us are, I know you trust Frank.”
The guy nods, still looking fidgety but a little calmer now. “Fuck, those two little fuckers. I can't believe you have them working together.”
“Well, without you around, we had to have someone match Bert,” Brian says ruefully.
After that, it’s just waiting. They have no idea if Chicago managed to be loud enough today that there could be no reinforcements sent back to NYC. DC wouldn't send anybody here, they're busy pretending to run the country and presenting a pretty face to the world. Lindsey never thought she'd be grateful for the way Boston was looted and burned, but she doesn't want any big cities with their attention on them right now, she just doesn't.
--
They leave at dusk. The city’s gone quiet, curfew in operation as always. Chantal is making pained faces over her arm but manages to raise her voice over the general babbling to remind them all that “There’ll be guards out, chickadees, they’ll have sent ‘em out to get us. So we’re taking back streets, which means keeping up, helping those who can’t keep up, and staying the fuck with the group, okay?”
There are general little noises or shrugs of agreement; it’s pretty clear they know the group has to stay together, or none of them will make it out of the city. It’s also pretty clear that everyone is terrified. Gerard--Gee, he said to call him--is pale as fuck, eyes tracking Mikey whenever he wanders off a little. Brian is looking even sterner than before, and Amanda leads them, the two women from the prison, Katie Kay and the redhead, following just half a step behind.
Lindsey and Alicia bring up the rear with Brian, so the injured people can walk in the middle. Gabe keeps cracking dirty jokes under his breath, and Chantal keeps thwapping him with her uninjured arm and making even dirtier comments right back at him. Lindsey listens as hard as she can for noises outside the group, but New York is quiet. Distant sirens tell her there’s at least something going on somewhere; she hopes it’s one of the fires Frank and Bert set, still keeping the guards busy. She hopes they and Vienna and Kitty will meet the group at the docks, like they’re supposed to. Also, that Alicia doesn’t fall over, because it seems like she might, with how pale she is and how stiffly she’s moving.
Lindsey pokes her in the side. “Why aren’t you walking with the injured group?”
Alicia shakes her head. “I’m barely--it’s nothing, really. They, like, broke all Gee’s fingers and shattered Gabe’s kneecap. Me, I’m a girl. They always do the same thing to girls. But I didn’t, like, say anything, so they got bored.”
Swallowing down bile, Lindsey manages, “Don’t call it nothing. And you’re fucking braver than me, than everyone, okay?” She wants to set something, or some people, maybe, on fire, oh, does she ever want to. Dance in the flames, too. Alicia squeezes her wrist, quickly.
“I’d help,” she says. Apparently Lindsey has said that last part out loud. Well, okay. Help works. In fact, she’d hand Alicia the whole goddamn matchbox if she wanted it.
She grins at Alicia in a way she hopes conveys just that, and then Brian touches her elbow.
“We’re there,” he says quietly.
So they are. The docks spread out before them, sheds and containers and cranes rising in the dark. Chantal points down toward one of the boats, smaller than most of the others but still bigger than any ship Lindsey’s been on before.
“Are you sure we can drive that?” she asks Brian in an undertone.
He shrugs. “If things have gone off like they were supposed to, Kitty and Vienna should be meeting us, and between the two of them, they can work the ship’s computer.”
Alicia makes a gesture, implying, well, what if they aren’t here?
Brian scratches at his neck, looking apologetic. “If not, our back-up plan is sort of iffy, but if we get partway across the river with the boat, I figure we can swim the rest of the way, right?”
“That’s a great plan,” Lindsey says, “Great.” She rolls her eyes at Alicia.
“It’s too bad Bob isn’t here, or Matt,” Alicia says absently, as they watch Brian walk over to Mikey and, well, Lindsey assumes they’re discussing when to start hacking city communications if Kitty and Vienna or Bert and Frank or Matt, for that matter, don’t get here soon.
“Why?” she replies. “They good at boats?”
“They’re, well, we’re all tech experts. Boats are that weird mix of old tech and new tech and tech that doesn’t work at all anymore. They’re both good at that.”
“So couldn’t you do it, then, if you’re all tech experts?”
Alicia shrugs. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t like vehicles, though. Never had much use for them. I could maybe get us across the river, possibly.”
Lindsey rolls her eyes. “You should maybe go tell them that.”
“I’d be surprised if I’m haven’t become the backup plan already.” Alicia grins a little, nodding at how Chantal is gesturing at her. “Chantal knows what I can do.”
That’s when the shots are fired. Lindsey’s got both herself and Alicia on the ground in three seconds, and she twists around to look back, scrabbling for the gun Amanda gave her in the basement. Alicia’s swearing next to her, face pale in the dark, hand gripping at her hip.
“Sorry,” says Lindsey, “sorry.”
Alicia waves her off, getting her own gun out. The shots are coming from behind a container; Lindsey can see a couple of someones, guards, she assumes, poking their heads out-and-back. She wishes she could turn and see if anyone’s hit, but mostly she wants the guards to stay still for a bit, there. One of them grabs at their shoulder, drops their gun and pulls back.
Then, there are shots from somewhere else. Shit, they haven’t just sent a Patrol pair. Chantal must have been right about the search parties. Shit fuck shit. Taking a deep breath, Lindsey rolls so she ends up behind the nearest shed. Thank fuck she has good night vision, really. Ann used to complain about the unfairness of that, how Lindsey was the one they should have recruited.
Standing up carefully so she’s still hidden, Lindsey can see that Chantal and Brian have gotten most of the group onto the boat. Amanda’s scrambling up onto the top of the nearest container; she must be aiming for visibility.
Then there’s an explosion followed by screaming and a laugh Lindsey hasn’t heard before, but she’s betting it’s that tall guy Chantal had been leaning on, Jimmy-good-at-explosions Urine. Lindsey likes that in a man. She wishes she had some booze or oil or something; she’s standing at a good angle for hitting the guard shack, built to be part museum, which is why it’s made in wood. To look like an old building.
Someone touches at her elbow and she only just suppresses her immediate reaction (to get at her knife) when she sees Bert’s standing at her side. Fuck, what a fucking relief it is to look down at his grin.
“You want this?” he says, holding out his flask.
“Hell yes,” she says, digging the lighter she’d found in the basement out of her pocket. “Gimme a strip of your t-shirt, too.” Fuck, but she loves molotovs. She’s going to need something to put it in, but she can see some empties not too far off. Nudging at Bert, she slides down and grabs them, avoiding getting shot by half an inch or so.
“I got a couple of bottles, too” Bert offers when she’s back at his side. “Frank and I had a beer while we watched the last guard office burn, and I thought of you and saved them. I had a backpack, like.”
“You’re such a fucking moron,” she says fondly, and together they portion the vodka left in Bert’s flask into the four bottles, as fast as they can. Beer bottles make wimpy Molotovs, but really, it’s all in the aim.
Amanda and Alicia and Frank, now, are holding down the fort goddamn well, Amanda shooting at the guards from the top of her container and drawing the fire to her while Alicia and Frank slide through shadows, doing what they’re so good at. There are a couple of more people on their side in fighting shape, but they’re on the boat, keeping the guards off. Lindsey wishes she knew how many officers are here, or whether Mikey’s managing to block their calling for reinforcements.
There, the bottles are done. She gives two to Bert. “Lighter?” she asks. He nods and sneaks off, uncannily quiet like he always is doing this, but never otherwise.
Lindsey stays where she is, waiting until Bert gets his first bottle thrown: a wooden pier goes up in flames and she grins, aims and throws. The fire is really, really satisfying, flames licking high and bright. She’s about to throw her second one when she hears someone behind her.
Whirling and grabbing for her knife, she knows she won’t be fast enough, but then she sees the guard facing her has frozen, hand on her gun. There’s no mistaking those eyes, that face, not even in the dark of the docks. Oh Ann, oh, Ann, Lindsey can’t breathe.
She steels herself, picks up her second bottle, and loops it high over Ann’s head, hitting the shed behind her. Ann stumbles backwards, then sideways, away from the fire. She’s bitten her lip bloody and Lindsey aches to sit her down, ice it, smooth the creases out of her forehead (patrol wrinkles, they’d called them, patrol wrinkles from the things Ann had to do that made her face twist).
Instead, she lifts an arm in a half-wave, mouths, love you, and backs away, turning to run towards the boat.
Halfway there, she almost trips over Amanda, who’s lying so goddamn still and Lindsey goes cold. Not now, not her. Carefully, she bends down, ignoring the way she feels like a big fat target, rolls Amanda over gently and sees she’s breathing, thank fuck, breathing and apparently half-conscious, because she grabs for Lindsey’s hand and tries to say something.
“That’s it, come on,” Lindsey coaxes, and sees Kitty and Vienna out of the corner of her eye. Kitty’s practically carrying Vienna, but they’re alive. The docks are so warm from the fires, but the guns have gone quiet, she realizes. The redhead, Dusty, that’s right, Dusty, is running at them from the boat. First, she helps Lindsey get Amanda on her feet, and together they make it down the pier.
The whole situation is so frantic, Lindsey forgets to notice when the ship actually starts. She only figures out that they’re moving when the fires become smaller and she doesn’t feel their heat anymore. Little fireflies, reflected in the dark water.
Mikey comes over to her and hands her a blanket, silently. They turn around and listen to Chantal telling them that yeah, she’s pretty sure they managed to blow up enough boats plus the guard shed, which housed the transmitters for the harbor, and so backup shouldn’t arrive until they’ve managed to cross the river. For a second, Lindsey considers saying something about the guard that got away, but she can’t. She hopes Ann will wait to call for help until it’ll be too late to catch them.
Her knee hurts, and she thinks about that first night in the warehouse, when she’d gone to sleep thinking she’d go back home in the morning, that her life would keep being the same.
“Any regrets?” says Mikey, not looking at her.
She thinks about it. “You know I used to wish I’d died in that venue, too? Not all the time, just, some days, when I was stuck in the warehouse and couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t do anything, I just wondered if maybe I wasn’t supposed to have died too, like the rest of them.”
He nods, circling her wrist with his hand. “Do you still?” he asks.
“No--not anymore. This is it, Mikeway. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
--
Part 2 | Epilogue
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-18 11:52 am (UTC)