Neal charged through the corridor, hands bound tightly in front of him. He was glad that he had decided to wear his Nikes today – he could do with the extra traction as he skidded across the carpet, almost careening into a lady holding a stack of files. He dodged her easily, then suddenly thought the better of it. Guards were chasing him, swarming out of the courtroom. He doubled back and with a quick slicing motion, brought his bound hands up together under the box the woman was carrying and pushed. Files flew everywhere as her box upended. A security guard who was right behind him fell back – a manila folder had bonked him on the nose.

The woman swore and scrabbled on the ground, scooping up armfuls of paper. Neal was already long gone by this point, but reflected in the glass of a window he saw yet another guard try to leap-frog the woman on the floor behind him. He misjudged the jump and they both went down in a tangle of curses. Neal had to fight a smile.

His good luck vanished a second later. Two guards had managed to skirt around the chaos caused by the woman with the files and were pounding up behind him, hollering for him to stop. He couldn't run very fast with his hands chained in front of him, and even though he poured on the speed he knew that there wasn't much he could do to stop them gaining. To make matters worse, a platoon of policemen idling in the foyer of the courtroom had spotted the commotion. They were running towards him. The guards were chasing up from behind. With enemies on all sides, Neal did the only thing that he could do – stagger against a door to his left and pray that it opened.

It did.

Propelled by his own momentum, Neal stumbled through the door and found himself in a stairwell, with flights of carpeted steps spiralling above him and another flight heading towards the floor below. The door swung shut behind him and he heard it click loudly. A red light in the corner of the stairwell was blinking at him. Neal knew that it was a silent alarm. This was a high-end courthouse with lots of other trials going on at this very moment. The staff were hardly going to interrupt all those lawyers and judges with blaring sirens.

He started off down the stairs, thinking that down was his bet best. At least then he would be at ground level and the chances of finding a window leading to the street would rocket. He had barely made it five steps when he found himself face to face with a security guard climbing up. The man saw him, took in the cuffs and flushed face, and reached out to grab him. Neal barely had time to dance out of his way and skip backwards, up the way he had come. Standing on the landing where he had been seconds before were a whole host of lawyers and receptionists, apparently driven downstairs by the silent red alert. He was trapped on a staircase with approximately twenty people.

Briefly, Neal wondered why they weren't trickling out through the door he had entered by. For that matter, where were the policemen and guards who had been chasing him? Why hadn't they followed him in? He was puzzled for a moment, but then the pieces fell into place and he recalled the strange clicking noise he had heard when the door swung shut. Automatic locking system. He had sealed himself in the stairwell.

Instead of doing what he wanted, which was plonk down on the steps with exhaustion, close his eyes and swear, Neal forced himself to think. He only had the very beginnings of a plan when he started speaking.

"Alright, could I please have everyone's attention? Look this way, please. Yes, even you in the back. Thank you." He injected himself with lots of false confidence in the hope that it would make his voice boom with authority. "Right, now that I have everyone's attention…" he turned to the side so that he could see everyone: the guard, the office workers. They were all looking at him uncertainly, stunned that this boy wearing a suit and handcuffs was telling them what to do.

"What's this about, son?" the guard asked, taking a step closer. Neal smiled encouragingly.

"Yes, that's it. Well done, Mr Winston. One more step ought to do it."

"Ought to do what, eh? And how do ya know me name?" Even as he questioned it,Winston took a step forwards.

"I know all your names." Neal lied, shooting a glance over his shoulder at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. It was behind him. "Take another step towards me, sir, and put your hand on my shoulder."

Silently, the guard obliged. Neal smiled at him – not the rueful smile of a captured criminal, but the tight-lipped smile of a teacher when a slow student made progress.

"Very good. Now, as I'm sure you all know, we're facing a red alert here." Neal had no idea if the security situation he had caused was actually called 'red alert', but it sounded good coming off his lips. "I don't want to be the one to have to tell you good people this," he continued, "but I think, given the current circumstances, that you deserve to know." Neal paused dramatically, looking at each person in turn. "This isn't a real red alert."

"I knew it!" someone at the back hissed. Everybody else ignored him. They were staring at Neal with silent disapproval. But at least they were willing to hear him out.

"This is all a drill. I'm a hired stunt man from a local drama agency. I was paid to run through the courtrooms and hallways, causing havoc. Meanwhile, your bosses would watch on the security cameras and assess the staff response. This is all an exercise to weed out which members of the security team were slacking and locate any gaps in the security of the building. This practice is actually common in banks. Managers often hire people to break into their bank and test if they can bypass security measures. They use the results of the test to highlight flaws in security and tighten things up a notch."

Winston the guard was staring at Neal in horror.

"This is all… all a test? You're not actually an escaped criminal?" Neal forced himself to laugh – as though it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

"Of course not! I could take these handcuffs off any time I like." It was another lie. As he had discovered during the hours stuck in the courtroom listening to the bickering of lawyers, the cuffs were electronically locked. They couldn't be picked. It was a problem he would just have to figure out later.

"If this really is a test," a receptionist with razor sharp fingernails asked, "then why are you telling us about it? Doesn't that defeat the point a bit?" Neal turned towards her. Winston's hand was still on his shoulder. He knew he had to hurry things along a bit. It would only be a matter of time before Peter, the guards and the police decided to unlock the doors and get him.

"Yes and no. You lot aren't the first employees I've interacted with. Unfortunately, you're doing worse than any of the others. None of you tried to stop me, none of you called the police on your phones, and Winston didn't restrain me until I told him to. That said, I don't want anyone here to get fired. I thought that I could tip the scales in your favour."

"But why?" the woman pressed, brow furrowed, "Why do you care?" Neal bit his lip. Time was running out. He had to wrap this up – and fast.

"I'm not just a stunt man," he improvised, "I'm Judge Grady's son. It's one of the reasons they chose me, even though I'm younger than most others in my profession. I know all about Winston. The troubles with his wife, the fact that his kids can't get into private education…"

It was all rubbish. Neal was making guesses based on the tiny clues he had gleaned from Winston's appearance. The faint whiff of perfume he had got when he had nearly collided with the guard suggested he wasn't all that faithful to the wedding band on his finger. The fact that he was a security guard meant that the chances of him being wealthy were fairly low. The unmistakeable outline of a crayon in his pocket suggested children.

Thankfully, it seemed that he had guessed right. Winston wasn't objecting to anything that he said. "What I mean is," Neal went on, "I admire Winston. I don't want to see him lose his job over one silly test." There were nods from the crowd. Neal saw his opportunity and pressed on. He turned to Winston.

"OK, what I want you to do is grab hold of my elbow, just like you were trained. Yes, that's it. Now you and I are going to walk down the stairs and you're going to escort me out of this stairwell. Let's see if you can impress your employers." He turned towards the assembled office workers. "Please, I know it's asking a lot, but could you keep this quiet from your bosses? I wasn't supposed to tell you that this is a drill. Don't lie to them if they ask you, but if you could maybe not mention that you knew this was all a test, that would be great."

With that, Neal nodded to Winston. The guard grabbed his elbow and together they headed down the stairs. At the bottom, Winston used his swipe card to override the locking system and they emerged in a lavish reception area. Neal could see the big double doors that led out to the street outside. Freedom. It was so damn close. But also so very, very far. As they walked across the entrance hall, a door to the right burst open and Peter, followed by the guards and police officers from upstairs, entered the room. They saw Neal and Winston instantly.

"Good, you got him!"

"I sure did! Do I get a promotion or something?" Winston was practically glowing with pride. Neal elbowed him gently in the ribs.

"Keep it together, Winston," he warned in a voice barely above a whisper, "They don't know that you know that this is a test."

"Oh right, right," then, loudly this time, "What shall I, uh, do with him?" Peter paced towards Neal. His expression was one of pure shock.

"What's wrong?" Neal asked him. Peter blinked a couple of times.

"Nothing, nothing. I'm just surprised."

"At what?" Even as he said it, Neal knew that it was a stupid question. Peter had so many reasons to be surprised: surprised that his son was going to prison for four years, surprised that Neal had done a runner back in the courtroom, surprised that even after he had been sentenced, Neal still hadn't given up the microchip…

"I'm surprised that you got caught so fast. Usually you're on the run longer than ten minutes." Peter said quietly.

"Oh."

"Take him to a secure room, Mr…"

"Winston, sir."

"Mr Winston." Peter nodded, as though committing the name to memory. "Take him and lock him up. I'll be there in a second."

Winston dragged Neal off towards the holding cells, leaving Peter standing with his hands behind his back, deep in thought. Neal wondered, with a rush of pain, if this was the last time he would ever see the agent. He certainly had no intention of going to a holding cell and waiting for the prison bus.

"Right, Winston," he whispered as he was led away from the crowd in the entrance hall, "I want you to take me to the nearest exit. The test finished the moment you 'got' me," he traced the inverted commas in the air as best he could with his bound hands, "and it's about time I got back to my agency. I'll send a full report to your employer…"

"Now hang on just one second, lad. Shouldn't I take you to see me boss?"

"Oh, no, no, the nearest exit will do just fine…"

But Winston had stopped walking. Neal's hands started to tremble. He had been too hasty. He had overstepped his mark and now Winston was getting suspicious.

"Can I see some identification?" the guard asked suddenly. Neal looked pointedly down at his handcuffs. Winston didn't buy it. "I thought you said you could get rid of them whenever you wanted. Well, go on then. Show me. You need them off if you're going to leave." Neal knew that he was done for. At least his elaborate lie had gotten him out of the locked stairwell. He knew that if his plan hadn't succeeded, he would still be there now, waiting with all those people for the doors to unlock and the police to rush in with plastic rounds, ready to subdue him.

"Thanks, Winston," he muttered, "you've been great." He eased out of the guard's grip as he spoke, and got ready to make another run for it.

"Now you just wait one moment-" Neal didn't wait one moment. Instead, he turned tail and sprinted back the way he had come, through the main hall where all the policemen were idling. They watched him flit past with something akin to shock, before bursting into action and racing after him. Peter got there first.

"Neal, stop. Please, just stop." Unable to help himself, Neal slowed enough for the agent to grab his arm.

"Let go of me."

"You know I can't do that, kid." All around him, the police officers gathered like a flock of birds.

"Peter," Neal had to push the word past the lump in his throat. His eyes had filled with tears. Reality was crashing down on him. One way or another, he wouldn't be seeing Peter for a while. If he went to prison it would be four years before he went home. And if he somehow managed to escape, going home to the Burkes would be impossible. If he was going to say it, he would have to say it now. "Peter, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to take me in. I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you, and all the worry. I don't know how to thank you. You made me into your son, you loved me, you made me breakfast in the mornings," Neal was finding it harder and harder to speak. The tears were filling his head, threatening to spill. Peter's eyes were red-rimmed.

"Dippy eggs and soldiers," he whispered.

"See?" Neal gestured, for some crazy reason, to the police force all around him. He felt dizzy with the emotion. He didn't want to say goodbye. "He made me dippy eggs and soldiers for breakfast. You truly cared for me, Peter, and I… I love you too, OK? I love you too. Thank you so much. Thank you…" As he spoke, he felt the grip that Peter had on his arm loosen. When it was as relaxed as it was likely to get, when Peter was fully preoccupied with the emotion of their goodbye, Neal did what he had been dreading. Tenderly, he pulled his arm out of Peter's fingers.

He was moving as if in slow motion. A half turn had him facing the door. Ten steps had him out of the entrance hall and pounding down the stairs. He heard everyone follow him, but he had already reached the bottom of the marble steps. He had melted into the crowd, and he knew he was safe. As a skilled con artist, he had enough talent to slip out of reach. Now that he was on the streets, he was anonymous, just another face. He was free.

But he didn't feel good. His actions had tainted his goodbye. Peter Burke would now forever wonder if he had really meant what he said, or if it had just been a trick to distract him long enough to escape.

Hi everyone, sorry it took me so long to update! Thank you so much for all your kind words and reviews, they're really appreciated. This story is going to wrap up soon, I'm afraid, but there's a few chapters left before the end. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please feel free to drop me a review - I love hearing your opinions, good and bad!