The woman holds her fingers stiffly spread and turns her hand in a slow circle, cutting the glass with the claws built into her gloves. It makes a faint squealing noise – much too faint for anyone to hear.
So she's surprised when a little palm is pressed to the window and a little pale face appears beyond it. Her free hand jerks back, claws scoring into the bricks around the window. Then she realizes there's no danger and laughs silently at herself.
She puts a finger to her lips, miming shhh. The boy nods and stumbles back to the far corner of the room. He trips, sits-falls-collapses down onto a blanket and curls up, shivering.
He doesn't look good, she thinks. He's too pale, too glazed, too uncoordinated. Even in the dark, even from across the room, she can see the glistening of fever sweat on him.
She removes the circle of glass, slips her hand inside, and opens the lock. The boy doesn't move as she pushes up the sash and climbs noiselessly through, and she knows that particular boneless loll means he's lost consciousness.
There's a chunk of rock duct-taped to the wall below the window. She peels it free, holds it to the light, sees the dull green sheen of its facets.
She's something of an expert on shiny rocks, and this one makes her look twice in surprise. It can't possibly be what she thinks it is, but she's not going to take any chances. She unzips the front of her suit just far enough to stick the rock inside the hidden pocket there, then zips it closed again.
She crouches down beside the boy and gathers him up in a careful fireman's carry. Back through the window, moving with precision and delicacy – the first time she's ever stolen a kid – and as she's letting herself down her rappel line she hears the door open in the room she just vacated.
She moves faster, but not faster than the bullets. One scores a firecracker line of pain across her arm.
Oh, no. Absolutely not, she thinks, dropping the last few feet and sprinting for Holly and the waiting van, small body dragging at her shoulder. She is highly uninterested in being shot at.
This kid is going to become someone else's problem – the sooner the better.
And she knows just the right babysitter.
