A damn good reason to live.
My lungs burn and my eyes burn and my entire fucking body feels like it’s been pulverized by a meat grinder as we wrestle under the searing hot water, but it’s not quite as bad as I let on. See, I might not be able to use Mac’s guilt or his vanity or even his sense of justice to get what I want, but he’s got something even easier to exploit.
Pride.
Good thing I got that shit beat out of me by the eighth grade.
Leaving myself open to a few blows that feel like sledgehammers, I let Mac think he has the upper hand. I can almost see his ego swell as he lands a solid right cross to the cheekbone of the punk twenty-two-year-old who dared to take on the legendary Officer MacArthur. And I can almost hear it shatter into a million pieces when he rears back to clock me again and feels a solid steel cuff click into place around his wrist.
Scurrying backward out of the shower on my elbows, I watch as Mac’s eyes go wide in horror. He sits up on his haunches and thrashes in place as he realizes that I’ve handcuffed him to the shower pipe.
I reach the gun across the room just as he reaches for his taser, but when he holds it up, it’s dripping wet and completely worthless.
The look on his face as he drops the taser and raises his hands in the air is something I’ll never forget as long as I live. I’ve seen it on TV a few times now but never in person. Never staring down the barrel of my own gun.
It’s the look of a man who knows he’s about to die.
His nose is gushing blood, which the shower dilutes into a pink stream that courses over his swollen mouth and down his neck. His chest is heaving even harder than mine, but his hands aren’t shaking nearly as bad.
“You fought well, son.” He spits through the bloody water.
“So did you, old man.” I close one eye and aim for his forehead. “Between the eyes, right? That’s your style?”
He nods without remorse. “Instant kill.”
His words send a shiver down my wet, bruised spine as I tighten my finger around the trigger.
But I’m not like Mac.
I’m not a cold-blooded killer.
Which is exactly why the fuck I need him.
Rain
“You got it uploaded and everything?” I whisper as Flip closes his laptop.
“Uploaded. Broadcasted. It’s done.” He looks over at me, the blue digital glow from the servers illuminating his tired face.
“Oh my God.” I cover my mouth with my hoodie sleeves.
“And you got all the images in there without them being too obvious?” Michelle asks, rubbing her exposed arms to stay warm. They must keep the air-conditioning on full blast in here to cool off all the equipment.
“Yes, ma’am.” Flip stands up and stretches. “Folks are gonna have some real wild dreams tonight.”
I launch myself at him and wrap my arms around his middle. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea …” I ramble as Flip awkwardly pats me on the back.
“I hope it works, hon. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get the hell outta here before nightfall.”
Michelle stands up and smooths her hands over her black pencil skirt, which I can see now is actually a little loose on her. She’s probably lost weight since she bought it from all the stress.
I let go of Flip and attack her with my gratitude next.
Hugging me right back, Michelle says, “You gonna be okay tonight? If you need a place to stay …”
“I’ll be all right. I wanna stay nearby in case something happens.”
What I mean is, I’m going to spend the night locked in the trunk of a car outside the police station, praying that my boyfriend escapes before they execute him.
I look over at the Jones brothers, who are sitting against a shelving unit full of servers on the other side of the room. Their eyes are closed, and their heads are propped against one another’s.
“Y’all go ahead,” I say, nodding toward my sleeping friends. “I seriously can’t thank you enough.”
“You sure?” Michelle asks, holding me at arm’s length.
I nod. “I’m sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Those words remind me of the last person I said that to just a few hours ago. The place where my heart used to be aches in response.
“Yes, you will.” She smiles, but it looks all wrong on her.
As Michelle and Flip tiptoe out of the capitol’s server room, I walk over to Quint and gently shake his shoulder.
“Wake up, guys. It’s done. Time to go.”
“Hmm?” Quint smacks his lips without opening his eyes.
“We gotta go. We’ve been in here for, like, two hours. The guards are probably already lookin’ for us.”
Lamar sits up with a yawn. “Did you do it?”
“I think so. Come on!”
The boys grumble but slowly pull themselves to their feet.
I grab my duffel bag off the floor and toss it over my shoulder before pressing my ear to the door. When I don’t hear anything, I open it just a crack.
“You get what you need, Ms. Ling?” The voice of the male security guard echoes through the rotunda.
“Yes, thank you. There was no way we could have made it to the station to upload our footage in time with the roads being the way they are,” Michelle replies with her patented, matter-of-fact reporter voice.
“Happy to help.”
“That was a great interview, by the way,” the female guard adds.
“Thank you. My stand-in, Ms. McCartney, will be along shortly. She just had to … use the restroom.”
“I think we’re good,” I whisper to Quint and Lamar as I open the second-story door and tiptoe out into the wide hallway.
There’s significantly less light coming in from the windows in the main entryway than when we got here, increasing my sense of urgency.
I’ve seen this place at night. If we want to live to see morning, we need to find a place to hide before dark.
We should be talking, I think as we near the end of the hall. We’re being too quiet. They’re gonna know something’s up.
I turn to say something to Quint, anything, but the words shrivel up and die in my mouth when I notice that his brother is no longer following us.
I swing my head in all directions and find him just before he disappears through a door.
A massive wooden door with the words Office of the Governor painted on the frosted-glass window in white and gold letters.
“Lamar!” I whisper.
“Shit!” Quint hisses.
We follow him as quietly as possible but freeze when voices ring out from the atrium behind us.
“Governor! We didn’t expect you back until tomorrow morning. How was your outing?”
“Pretty damn good, Officuh. Pretty damn good. I suspect those old bastards let me win, but a win’s a win in my book.”
“Spoken like a true politician,” a third voice that I don’t recognize jokes, causing everyone to laugh.
Quint and I glance at each other in horror and dash inside the governor’s office to grab Lamar. The lights are on inside, illuminating what looks like a time capsule from the 1900s. The front room must be a lobby. It’s filled with heavy wooden furniture upholstered in navy blues and deep reds, regal-looking carpet, brass light fixtures, and oil paintings of ducks and dogs and old white men.