Too many shoes pound the pavement around me.
Shade and I practically charge through the parking garage, winding down and around for the car that my brother apparently owns. A dozen cops clad in black pants and jackets surround us, guns drawn at the cement pillars and luxury cars and limousines parked within the ramp. Compared to the rest of Calore Industries, this place is outright depressing with its grey motif and fluorescent lights.
Not that Calore Industries is so impressive anymore. The skyscraper has become more of a beehive than a building, swarming with cops, the FBI, SWAT teams, detectives, and all other kinds of important people. As we descend the ramp, teams of agents pass us and bark out commands into radios and phones. The elevator ride the rest of the way down took too long, stopping at nearly every story to fill and empty with new people—none of whom ever stopped talking about the two terrorists who got away from Davidson in a cloud of strange smoke and a power outage on the eleventh floor.
Farley and Kilorn could be anywhere. For Tiberias Calore, I imagine that at the moment, he's thinking about how unfortunate it is that his building is seventy stories tall and plenty big. He might be able to call in as many cops as he wants, but those cops are currently congesting his elevators and flooding his staircases. For all that the Scarlet Street Fighters have managed tonight, the chances of finding the two in the immediate future seem bleak.
They ordered the building back on lockdown, have men positioned across floors and at the entrances to elevators and stairwells. But they can't cover everything.
It's like a life-or-death version of hide-and-go-seek.
The blood went out of Cal's face when Davidson told him what they did, as he realized that his moment of heroism was for nothing. Farley and Kilorn had escaped—though the means in which they managed it remain unclear aside from a number of unconscious police and a series of power outages across the building—and the two of them were simply gone like they were never here at all.
Cal's anger was more subtle than his father's. I watched silently as his face turned flush and his lips twisted and his eyebrows contorted. As his jaw worked to find words to express whatever he felt.
Instead of speaking, Cal just stalked out of the elevator and headed towards his father. On his way, he ordered that a dozen police be sent with me and Shade so that we could leave rather than return upstairs to the lockdown. By then, he was too far away for me to prove Shade wrong and thank him.
After he saw the way that I cried, he wanted to get me out and knew he had the power to make it happen. That act is just another thing that I'll never be able to repay him for.
"It's common protocol to search the car, sir."
We've stopped in front of a slick red SUV. Compared to the rest of the town cars, sports cars, and limousines parked within the sloping, cave-like parking garage beneath Calore Industries, Shade's car is kind of lame. At the same time, it matches his new preppy, suburban look.
Shade clicks a button on the car key he's pulled out. "Then by all means, go ahead."
I realize two things.
My brother can suddenly drive, and he has enough money to buy a car.
Then again, the money was probably stolen.
The hatchback of the SUV pops open, and the police open all four of its doors. Most stay positioned around us, while one checks the back and another two poke around the interior of Shade's car.
"You must be incredibly important for Cal to order you be escorted out of his father's building by a miniature squadron of police," the man at my side notes as he watches the men scour the car. "Miss Barrow."
I suck in a silent breath. My heart's already pounding hard enough with the police on all sides of me, shining their ultra-bright flashlights around, but his voice stirs a deeper fear in me.
How much money does Tiberias Calore pay you, Dane?
Turning to Dane Davidson, a man that I don't know and yet hate, I smile softly. It's fake. "I'm one of the Principal dancers for the Academy," I tell him. I have nothing more to say.
For whatever reason, he elected to come with his men on the trip downstairs. I don't know why he's here, and I wish he would leave. His passive, almost bored face eats away at me.
"So I've heard," he comments with a slight interest to his tone. "What are you, eighteen?"
"Seventeen. I turn eighteen in November."
"Hmm."
He started the conversation, but Davidson seems content to stop it right there. I take the chance to turn back towards Shade's car, watching as the policeman at the hatchback slams it shut. The other two finish with their investigations of the cabin and make to close the doors. All of it takes too long.
Out of the corner of my eye, Davidson loosens his currant-colored tie and undoes the top button of his silvery-grey shirt. When I'm up close to him, I realize that he's older than I would've thought, but the only indications of his age are his hair and eyes.
They don't look bored anymore. They're wide open, flashing from one point in the parking garage to another, barely blinking and never distracted.
"I'll radio over your license plate, tell my men that they don't have to worry about searching your vehicle on your way out of the ramp," Davidson says. With a blink, his eyes turn bored again.
Shade's hand goes to my back, and he gives me a little shove forward to the passenger side of his SUV.
"Thanks, guys," my brother says. "Stay safe tonight."
Nothing about this building is safe, but I'm not about to say that as I climb into the car. Shade shuts the door behind me.
Like in the elevator, I find a sense of comfort in the car, behind panes of glass that aren't about to shatter. The leather seat beneath me is warm, and though the air has that new-car smell, it's better than what I'm getting outside.
For the first time all night, I feel like I can breathe.
I have to angle my neck at an incredibly awkward angle to see the helicopters.
Then there are the cop cars, the fire trucks, the ambulances, the vans, and the hundreds-strong police force that keeps a careful eye on all sides of Calore Industries. Along with cars and people, orange barricades stand in various places to block off streets. A bomb squad is somewhere around. The press, more than just the big local newspapers and paparazzi, line the surrounding blocks, getting as close as the police will let them.
They've shut down the entire block. With all but one street barred off, everybody has to follow a certain path to leave downtown. Nobody can get in or out with somebody knowing about it.
Shade navigates the SUV down the street. Downtown Manhattan is strangely bright at two in the morning with the abundance of police lights and reflective neon surfaces around. My fingers tap on my knee. Flashing red and blue lights assault my vision, along with muffled voices coming from megaphones. Cameras still flash, but the story is different from a glamorous gala and beautiful people.
A couple of town cars move along ahead of us, filled with other guests who found important reasons to leave the building before they ended up trapped inside of it all over again.
Security didn't check our car again, and I'm not sure why, but I'm thankful for it. Looking around, Shade's SUV is pristine and likely not a week old. It has an extra pair of shoes tossed on the back seats, some random tourist magazines, a crate of water bottles, and a set of jumper cables in the hatchback. The car almost looks . . . staged. Like a film set.
Shade won't turn on the radio. I check my phone for the first time all night, only to see too many texts from too many Academy girls that I barely know. Some of them were there, others weren't, but everybody in all of New York knows about what happened by now.
Whether or not they're a patron of the ballet or a devotee of Tiberias Calore, most in America now know what happened. Tomorrow morning, the world will likely know.
Everybody will know the name tomorrow.
The Scarlet Street Fighters.
Five blocks out, we clear the last of the police and end up somewhere northeast of Wall Street. The cars ahead of us go their own directions, and Shade turns left towards the Hudson.
The shadow of Calore Industries still looms. Anything within a mile radius of Wall Street is probably shut down, and for the first time in what feels like my entire life, no pedestrians crowd the streets around me. The traffic's light, even for this hour. For all I know, southern Manhattan itself might be in a lockdown.
Because somewhere in this city . . . are two highly dangerous people.
"Shade?" I say my brother's name again, this time as a question.
My brother keeps his eyes dutifully on the road. I'm really wondering when he learned how to drive and where this car came from, but those two questions aren't at the top of my asking list.
"Yeah?"
My mouth is dry. I'm half-tempted to reach behind my seat to grab one of his prop-bottles of water.
"Are we the only two people in this SUV?"
Shade's knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.
"Nope."
The voice isn't Shade's.
On the outskirts of Midtown, nightlife still buzzes on this Saturday evening—or this Sunday morning, if you will.
We're a world away from downtown Manhattan, and in New York City, it's hardly an exaggeration to say that.
Five miles separate us from Calore Industries and all that goes on there, and the further north we go, the more normal things seem. Or as normal as one could expect at two in the morning, anyway. A couple of drunks wobble out of lounges and upscale bars at the bottoms of pale, medium-sized buildings. I know what plays on the television screens inside. But anybody out this late doesn't care about that or much of anything else, and the few that roam the streets only stare up at the lights of the city in half-inebriated wonder.
One of Manhattan's larger parks stands off to my right, streetlights illuminating twisting trees and sculpted green perennials. But it's nothing more than a puny Central Park, and without another glance, I look away.
Something's wrong with Shade's SUV.
For I recently discovered that no, there are not two people inside of his car.
Nor three.
But four.
While it may look the picture of an ordinary vehicle for an ordinary family, this SUV is not normal. You know, as two people are murmuring at each other behind me even though I can't see them.
One of them is under the back seats, and the other is tucked away in the hatchback. This car did not come from a dealership. It was designed just for a situation like this, should it happen.
"Was it really that difficult to kill your target, Kilorn?"
"I told you," my best friend grumbles. "He shifted behind someone else at the last minute."
"That's the kind of thing that you're supposed to be prepared for, Warren."
Shade used me tonight. He used my position to get into Calore Industries, and he continued to use it to smuggle two fugitives out of the building.
I remind myself that I'm one of them, that I'm part of this.
I can't begin to imagine how they planned their escape, should any number of things go wrong.
So I choose not to think about all of the variables that they had to account for, how everything banked on a series of events occurring in the right order. I don't bother asking the two Scarlet Street Fighters how they managed to get out in the first place, away from Tiberias Calore and Dane Davidson and every other cop in the building.
Shade turns on the radio, and an annoying, bubbly pop song filters out of the car speakers.
The next thing I know, the back seats are lifting up, tilting towards the hatchback.
Beneath the hollow seats lies a crumpled-up, pissed-off Diana Farley. Though my brother's SUV is one of the larger ones, I don't forget that Farley isn't much shorter than Cal, and her legs are bent up to her chest so that she's folded in on herself. With a grunt, she climbs out of the hidden compartment, holes in the knees of her heavy-duty cargo pants and a purple-black bruise on her chin. Cal gave her that when he hauled her to the marble and threw himself on top of her.
"I preferred the plan where I got to use the grappling hook," she mutters, raking a hand through her short blond hair. The Street Fighter no longer wears her bulletproof vest or long-sleeves, having been stripped down to a black T-shirt. Her bloody bandana is missing.
She notices how I'm staring at her from the passenger seat but makes no comment, instead reaching for a gun tucked inside of the compartment. A moment later, it closes, and the seats return to where they should be.
Meanwhile, a second hidden compartment opens up, and where a spare tire would usually be . . . is Kilorn. He's in a similar state, and if I didn't know the context, I'd think he belongs with the drunks outside.
His eyes aren't as bright as they were when he intercepted me, Maven, and Cal on the bridge with his platter of rosé. Even now, I have half the mind to scold him for what he did, but his lazy, exhausted smile peeking over the back seats is enough to stop me.
"Good job tonight," Farley says, glancing between me and Shade, who only returns her gaze through the rear-view mirror.
I did nothing. I just smiled and nodded all through the night.
But I was an unsuspecting tool in a grander scheme that nobody bothered to tell me about.
Shade brakes in the middle of the road, but I realize that it's for three stumbling jaywalkers who don't bother to wave their thanks at my brother.
At the same moment, the rear window on the left side of the car rolls down.
Farley's out of it, and Kilorn's right behind her, climbing out of the hatchback and onto the backseats.
The street light that should shine nearby on the sidewalk happens to be out. Shade happens to stop right next to a delivery van in the parking lane of the street we drive on. I notice it has an open side door.
Kilorn pulls himself out of the window and tumbles face-first into it, a scoffing Farley rolling her eyes at him.
Nobody's around to see what happens. I make a point to survey the street, the windows of nearby buildings. The closest moving car is half a block behind us, and it's dark outside anyway.
The window rolls back up, and then Kilorn's hiding compartment disappears along with the two Scarlet Street Fighters. Shade changes the radio station to something nineties-ish, and I find it much more bearable than what played before.
The jaywalkers make it to the other side of the street, crossing just in front of us and the delivery van.
And then Shade's driving again.
"Your grilled cheeses are getting cold, Mare."
In a cotton shirt and a pair of workout shorts that cling to my waist loosely, I sit on top of Shade's bed in his Little Italy apartment. His room is of ridiculous proportions, with a king-sized bed dressed in the softest sheets and a bathroom containing a long marble counter and a bathtub that could fit our whole family.
I'm sick of marble.
The curtains that look out over Mulberry Street are drawn, and a small lamp on a nightstand casts Shade's room in yellow light. The doorway to the hall is wide open, and the kitchen lights shine dimly from it, turning the edges of off-white carpet orange.
"What would've happened if Cal hadn't ordered that we be escorted down?"
Shade sits on the other side of his massive bed, wearing checkered pajama pants and a cotton shirt of his own. Taking a bite out of his own grilled cheese, he's angled towards me.
I take a sip of my water as I wait for him to respond.
Maybe I'm not allowed to know any of it. How they escaped, how they managed what they did.
But my brother snorts. "We had people lined up on the ninth floor, waiting for elevators the same time we were going down. Regardless of Cal, somebody was going to point you out and offer to send police downstairs as your escort. It was a coincidence, and it worked out all the same."
Content with that answer, I take a grilled cheese off my paper plate and take a large, entirely improper bite of it.
"How did they escape?" I ask.
"That's a complex and elaborate story for another day, Mare."
Part of me knows he's right. My mind's beginning to catch up with the rest of my exhausted body. Water glass in one hand, I climb under the bedsheets and rest my head against the top pillow.
Shade put something in my water. He poured it right in front of my face and proceeded to drop a small white tablet inside, saying that it would help me fall asleep and keep me that way.
I take another bite of my sandwich. It warms my stomach from the cold ache that's been pulsing through it for hours.
"So I'm friends with Iris Cygnet, you know."
"Oh?"
I nod, finishing off the first grilled cheese and going for the second one. I realize that it's been almost twelve hours since I've last eaten, and only now do I become aware of the sharp, stabbing pains in my stomach. I'm ravenous.
"And really? Julian's a Scarlet Street Fighter? I didn't see that one coming."
Shade gets under his covers on the opposite side, his own head resting against a pillow.
"He has his reasons just like the rest of us."
I consume my second grilled cheese sandwich at such a rate that even my own brother questions it, giving me a look. While I might be a ballerina, I also have three brothers and no shame. I take my last sip of water before depositing the glass upon the nightstand.
"We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay." I don't remind Shade that it's already tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the guilt will return.
For now, I just turn over on my side, away from Shade and towards the lamp that should bother me. I already told my brother that I wanted it kept on, and he didn't argue with me.
I notice one final thing. In the little sitting area Shade has in the corner of his room, a woman's leather jacket rests over the top of a chair. I blink heavily at it, as though it's just a figment of my imagination.
He calls her Diana. Everybody else just calls her Farley.
"She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"
Shade chuckles. He sounds like he's been waiting for me to figure it out.
I take one final blink, not intending to open my eyes again.
"Yeah. She is."