Disclaimer: Would Horowitz actually kill loveable-OCs? I do not own Alex Rider.

Chapter 44: Slipping Out

"Nico's alive." Cameron had hesitated, left something out.

"But?"

A long sigh. "First and second degree burns up and down his right side." There was still a hesitation.

"And?"

"He hasn't woken up."

Alex carefully laid out the last of his belongings on the bed, making sure he had everything he needed before shoving it in his backpack. All his worldly belongings. Though the current alias wasn't likely to keep him safe, it would at least give him a level of legitimacy in moving around the city. He wouldn't need it for very long anyway… The music player, though not currently connected to any of the hotspots, had bits of pieces of information he knew were important. And the gadgets might come in handy, once it no longer mattered whether anyone tracked him or not.

He was going to find the Puppet Master, even if it were the last thing he did. They were somewhere within the city – the explosion was enough evidence of that. And maybe he wouldn't be able to take them out, but it could be enough to tip the balance. Enough for the others to return to their lives. Give Mickey's family some closure, by at least clearing the path for his body to be repatriated.

But that might still be too late for Nico…

Alex glanced around the bedroom. They had moved safehouses – this time to one that had little more than bare shelves. But there were at least two fully stocked med kits. One of which had had the supplies to make a more rigid splint. The other of which had had a packet of sleeping pills that provided the perfect way to make sure Cameron didn't immediately come after him when he left. After all, it wasn't like Alex could sneak out the roof this time; his arm was broken.

He took a deep breath to center himself, resigning himself to doing something that made his insides curl in revulsion.

He headed out to the kitchen to make the morning tea. Since regaining some of his equilibrium, that duty had fallen to him – or rather, he had made sure to take up that particular duty. After months of practice, making tea one handed wasn't even that difficult anymore. He had tried out the potency of the sleeping pills the day they had arrived – on himself, which in hindsight probably wasn't the best plan with a concussion – but there hadn't been any noticeable taste or texture when mixed with the tea. And their potency hadn't changed either.

Cameron was already up – though Alex suspected he had never gone to bed – and was checking something over on the laptop that had come with the safehouse. The past three days, neither of them had said much to each other, especially after the news reported the discovery of Mickey's body – or what little was left of it.

Alex put the pot on to boil and slipped the ground up pills he had swiped earlier into Cameron's mug. Just a few more minutes and the plan would officially be underway.

Jacobs' reports had been equally depressing – no change.

That was probably the hardest part to rationalize. Nico would quite likely never get better.

Cameron glanced up from the table as Alex puttered around the kitchen. "How's your head today?"

"A little better." It was the truth. A permanent low-grade headache was still there, but he could function.

He pushed something across the table, toward Alex. "Found these in one of the rooms. You mentioned you were a bit light sensitive still, so that might help."

Alex glanced down at the sunglasses – dark tint, not bad – and gave a hesitant smile. It seemed Cameron was trying. He almost felt bad about drugging the man.

Almost.

The pot whistled and Alex turned back to his task. Burying any niggling feelings of possible betrayal. It was for his own good. He put the tea bags in and left it to steep. It wasn't going to be a good pot of tea, on account of subpar tea bags, but it was at least better than hot water.

Cameron closed the lid on the laptop, then rubbed at his forehead. Definitely exhausted. "We don't have much by way of food."

"There's some biscuits in the back," Alex offered. He had seen them hiding in the back of the pantry. Though the apartment offered a fully stocked medical kit, there wasn't much as far as food. It hadn't been in the plan.

But Cameron was running and hiding – as the smart ones did when there was complete chaos to all their preexisting plans. None of the contingency plans Alex was aware of left only a single unit member stranding. They simply hadn't foreseen a situation that could have caused this. Not without warning.

Cameron went to look in the back pantry and came back holding a can and the package of biscuits. "Biscuits, tinned peaches, and tea sound like a well-rounded breakfast?"

Alex shrugged and turned back to the tea. He poured it out and added a hint of sugar to Cameron's – as he liked it – and stirred until the crushed pills dissolved. There was no telling how long it would take them to kick in, certainly not instantly like in the movies, but Cameron was exhausted.

He carefully set the doctored mug down in front of Cameron, before returning to grab his own. It was tempting to not go back to the table, but that would be out of the ordinary. He resolutely contemplated his own mug of tea, so as not to stare as Cameron took a sip of the tea and give the game away.

Throughout breakfast, Alex busied himself with doing anything that wouldn't seem out of the ordinary. Staring off into the distance, drinking his tea with his eyes closed, picking the tinned peaches into tiny little bits but hardly eating them. Anything.

Thankfully, Cameron didn't pay him much mind. The mug of tea disappeared little by little, until there were only the dregs remaining.

Check. Mate.

Guilt churned in Alex's stomach. But it was for his own good.

Now, all he had to do was wait.

It didn't take long.

Not long after breakfast, as Alex was cleaning up the dishes, Cameron retreated to the front room with one of the local newspapers. No doubt trying to find any mention of them or the explosion among conventional means. The yawning was the first sign and Alex nearly held his breath in hope that Cameron wouldn't notice. Even if he noticed though, it was too late.

"I'm… gonna go lie down," Alex said, hesitating by the doorway. Cameron hardly looked in his direction, but nodded the affirmative. Hopefully, a few minutes in the quiet would be enough for Cameron to stop fighting the drugs and give in.

And with a plausible alibi, he wasn't likely to immediately go looking for Alex when he woke up. Nothing was out of the ordinary and the sudden exhaustion could be brushed off as stress – and sleep deprivation – from the past week.

He slipped back into his room, placing the last of the items in the small backpack. All his worldly belongings, once again, crammed into one little bag. He slipped the sunglasses on, reveling in the darkness for once, and sat down on the bed to collect his thoughts. To review the few plans he had.

He didn't know where he was in Lima. Still within the limits, but the city was so large it could be almost anywhere. The north. The south. The east. When they had crisscrossed the city to the safehouse, Alex has still been fairly disoriented. Looking out the windows had been fairly nauseating and he hadn't been able to track any landmarks. And using the mapping app on the music player was out of the question – though it certainly would have been useful.

He was just going to have to improvise.

Alex ran a hand through his hair. The dye job would probably last another couple of weeks. More than long enough.

The first order of business was to find public transport – preferably one that would get him out of the neighborhood and closer to the downtown region. Miraflores. There, he could blend in with the other tourists that blanketed the region. It would, most likely, also be the first place Cameron looked for him, so he would have to keep a low profile, but in a city of millions, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Ultimately, he would need a place to stay. And ideally, it would be a place where no one would be in askance of his age. Of course, that all depended on whether he had any money…

Which…

Cameron had some.

Alex watched the minutes tick by – five in total – then slung the backpack over his shoulder. A glance into the front room showed Cameron's head resting on his chest and light snores. It wouldn't be a comfortable position for any length of time but… it was what Alex needed.

He slipped into Cameron's room and quickly found a bundle of cash tucked in the drawer. Alex grabbed the cash and mentally apologized to the man that had managed to keep him safe for a little while. He was going to have to find more money on his own, but for now, it was enough to get him out.

Alex crept toward the front door, keeping one eye on Cameron, thankful for once that the change in safehouses meant primitive security. Locks were easy to undo. Which didn't really help much if you were concerned with intruders, but it meant Alex could get out easily. The door closed quietly behind him and Alex paced away with rapid steps.

The clock was ticking, and there was no telling how much time he actually had to get away.

How long Cameron would remain blissfully unaware…

Alex shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped into the streets of Lima. Or, well, the back streets of Lima. This was certainly a lower-class residential area than they had been in before and it wouldn't do to linger and attract too much attention. He would be more inconspicuous if he had shed the jacket, but he wasn't about to part with one of his few belongings.

A gut feeling led him down the street, in search of the busier neighborhoods. There were little shops here and there selling prepackaged goods and little popup stands selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Those were a little more surprising within the city limits, but he supposed people had to eat in the neighborhoods as well. It was probably normal. It wasn't like he had gone out and explored the residential area around the San Isidro safehouse…

Alex traded a few soles for some mandarin oranges and a banana, effectively blending in with the mid-morning crowd. His splinted arm remained tucked in his pocket – the angle wasn't the best, but it was better than sticking out. He was just a normal person, out on the streets.

He kept meandering, until he found a suitable random stranger to tail. Public transport was popular in the city, but it was also placed at seemingly random locations that only locals knew. There was, of course, the possibility that the random stranger was going home, but eventually they led him through to a large avenue.

And Alex knew where he was.

Well, more or less.

Just down the road was the Lima airport. Well... at least a mile away, but it meant he was headed in the right direction. The avenue was one of the main routes through the city and there was bound to be plenty of buses leaving the area. He just had to find the right stretch of road where a bus would stop, headed toward his destination.

Just follow the crowd.

The seconds ticking away in the back of his mind only grew more ominous.

He needed to far away, as quickly as possible. Which in reality, meant that he might just need to get terribly lost.

Alex hunched his shoulders and pressed into the growing crowd. The closer he got to the airport, the more people there were. He would take the first bus he found that had a neighborhood name he recognized. Whether that would get him further or closer to his final destination… well, that would be something he dealt with later.

Alex tried to physically relax his jaw, tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. After nearly eight hours of riding around on one crammed microbús after another, Alex wasn't exactly ready to step foot onto another one, unless he absolutely had to. He had somehow hit rush hour – and really, rush hour at three in the afternoon? – which meant that buses already packed to the brim somehow added more people. And a splinted arm didn't win him a seat on the busy buses, so he had to make do and try not to be jostled too much.

Even the Metropolitana – which had seemed to be slightly more sophisticated than the other city buses – had ensured maximum occupancy for the forty-minute bus ride.

Now though… he had reached his destination.

Miraflores.

Though it generally wasn't wise to return to a place he had been previously, it was only for a brief moment. A week ago – which felt like an eternity – Cameron had brought him through an internet café. Alex planned to use that limited knowledge to find a place to stay for the night. He just needed a room, with no questions asked.

Of course, that meant nearly another hour wandering the streets trying to find the right alleyway, without looking too much like a lost tourist. He stepped into the small shop, finally out from under the eye of public scrutiny, but held back his sigh of relief as the shopkeeper eyed him warily. Though they were in the tourist section of the city, tourists apparently weren't the norm in the shop.

But he knew the routine. Had watched Cameron process several of these transactions over the past few weeks. He knew what to say and what to do.

"Cuanto?" He asked the man, nodding toward the ancient looking computers. He took care to flatten his accent to a more appropriate level, similar to what he had heard yelled around him all day long. It wouldn't do to sound like he had just stepped out of Spain here.

The man eyed him. "Un sol por deiz."

Alex tried not to chew on his lip. One sol for ten minutes was a bit steep, but two soles wouldn't cut into his savings too much. He fished the coins from his pocket. "Veinte minutos." He slid the coins onto the counter. It would be plenty of time.

The man took his coins and nodded him toward the computer furthest from the entrance. Though he didn't exactly like the idea of being trapped further within the shop, it also provided the best view of the entrance. And the man had a reputable business in a high-profile district – even if it didn't get much tourist traffic – he wasn't likely to try anything to get a few extra soles from a teenager.

Alex loaded the browser, clicking into a private tab to at least pretend there was some level of security on the machine. Though the next few days of his plan were foggy and cloudy in his mind, he knew what the first step was.

He needed a place to stay.

An hour later found Alex on the far side of the Miraflores district, checking in to a tiny hotel. It wasn't too expensive and they didn't look too hard at his passport when he handed it over to check in. Mica Tomer was alive and well, and he just hoped and prayed that none of his information got put into a system that anyone could use to track him down.

He didn't have a choice though.

"187." The front desk worker pushed the key across the counter, then jerked their chin to the left. "A la izquierda."

Alex nodded his thanks, shoved his passport back into his pocket, and headed for the door. Thank goodness for the popularity of backpackers, because they didn't seem to think twice about his lack of belongings.

187.

It was toward the back of the hotel, but still on the main floor. Good enough for his purposes.

Alex slid the key into the lock. Not the most secure – easy to pick if you had the know how and tools – but at least it had a lock. The room was small and dingy, and there wasn't much more than a bed, bedside table, and television in the room. It cost extra to have an in-suite, so it was shared toilets and showering. He got what he paid for and absolutely nothing more.

There was, of course, no way that he was going to stay there for more than one night. The money he had gotten from Cameron was no more than a couple hundred soles. It would last for a bit, a week maybe, but he would have to be careful.

He was running out of options – and time – though. He was going to have to bite the bullet and actually settle into a plan. This was the first time he had truly been alone in months – not since before the Puppet Master had decided to turn his life upside down.

It was the first chance he had to actually take stock of the situation – and realize the hopelessness of it all.

Alex tossed his bag down beside the bed, kicked his shoes off, and curled up on top of the bedsheets.

He was going to have to pull off a miracle to get Cameron and Jacobs home. Find the loose threads that tied everything together. And his notes were all gone. All that was left was what he had memorized or had on the music player.

And the blog.

No one was going to ride in to save the day this time. He was well and truly alone. And was probably going to have to do something absolutely idiotic to get the unit's names cleared. Was going to have to do something ridiculously dumb to have any shot at taking out the Puppet Master.

A cold sense of reality settled into him.

He was probably going to die.

And it certainly couldn't be by his own hand. Not now, with most of MI6 and Central Command thinking S-unit were the bad guys. He had to get them back into the good books, so they could go home to their families. So that Mickey and Nico's families didn't think they were traitors when they died.

Alex swallowed and stared at the wall, letting the unacknowledgeable truths he had always known, seep in. This was it. The ultimate chapter in Alex Rider's sucky life adventures.

No happy endings here.

A/N: Poor Alex. I guess we'll see what harebrained schemes he'll come up with. Probably nothing good...