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DRIVING BACK TO THE poorer side of town, I kept wishing I could’ve shared the situation with my parents. I wished I had Ben along with me.
My parents couldn’t have handled it. Coffee and cookies for communion was one thing, B&E was almost certainly more adventure than my mom could take. Dad would be on the phone to the cops before I half finished explaining.
I had a plan. Sort of. Not really.
I had Cass’s plan. I had her confidence and knowledge, but very little of my own.
This is what she’d told me: The admin building had a series of windowless closets that had been converted into apartments, and then into cells. They all had doors that locked from the outside and secret access via a service entrance in the rear.
It was all fabulous info for my game, but I couldn’t care about that right now. All I could think about was doing it in real life. I kept thinking there would be no hit points involved if someone started shooting me. There wasn’t a healing kit for me to use from the Inventory menu.
“What if there’s a guard?” I had asked Cass on the phone.
“He’ll be staring at his phone or hitting on some chick in the laundromat. Don’t worry about it.”
“What if someone sees me sneaking around?”
“They won’t.”
“But if they do?”
“You’ll be dead before you know it. Okay? Nothing to worry about.”
That’s the conversation I kept replaying while the sun set on my city.
I’d lived here my whole life, but tonight it felt like a foreign land. Everything was changed. Everything was strange and new.
Even coming home.
I didn’t take my normal turn into the parking lot. I rolled right past it, scanning the front of the buildings for guards. Derrick wasn’t at his post, but there were enough dudes lounging outside, Hauser could’ve had a dozen guys watching my door.
I wasn’t going there, though. Not tonight. I passed the main complex entrance, too, and rolled down the maintenance alley that ran along the north fence line.
The fence was a wrought-iron gate six feet tall and topped with spikes that weren’t entirely decorative. As Cass had suggested, I killed the lights when I turned down the alley.
“What if someone is watching?” I asked her.
“Everyone who’s supposed to sneak down that alley kills their lights when they turn in. You leave ‘em on, that’ll be suspicious.”
Thinking like a criminal was turning out to take a lot of work.
The gate at the end of the alley was posted with several threatening signs of the “Trespassers will be shot” variety. The variety with authentic bullet holes for punctuation. There was also a huge chain with a comically large padlock clipped on it. It was the “Severe Tire Damage” sign that worried me, though.
Cass hadn’t mentioned that one. She said the rest was all bluff, but if I wrecked my tires, I’d be stranded here, at their mercy.
Scary stuff. I sat there in the twilight gloom and plumbed my courage. I heard that memory from Cass again. “You’ll be dead before you know it. Okay?”
I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel and gently pressed the gas. “Nothing to worry about,” I muttered.
When my bumper touched the gate, the metal screamed and the chains clanged and rattled to make a real racket. It was a cacophony! Cass had been wrong! The gate was locked! Someone would be running to investigate—
Nope. Sorry. No. It sounded shockingly loud in the stillness, but that was probably heightened by my stress. The gate yielded almost immediately, though, and swung easily on well-oiled hinges. Just as Cass had promised.
My heart was still hammering. My eyes darted at every little motion. I felt sick in my gut, and all I’d done so far was drive down a service alley.
This was going to be a long night.
I scooted up, leaning over my steering wheel and straining for a clear view of the road beneath me. Maybe the signs were a bluff, but the trash and debris in the back lot left me worried about tire damage anyway.
I’d lived in these apartments for years, but I’d never had a reason to come back here on the service side of things. It was rough. Glass and gravel cracked and popped under my tires. I’d never felt less stealthy.
Lights snapped on in one of the nearest apartments. It sprayed ugly amber shadows more than it illuminated. I did get a clearer view of the back of the administrative building and the service entrance I was hunting for.
The doorway was almost invisible. But that was the point. Two buildings came together with a narrow, blind alley just wide enough for one car. Or a panel van. The thought of bad men bringing helpless people through this alley burned like acid in my throat.
And that’s why I was here. I was going to right a wrong. I was going to help. I was going to save someone.
I was going to get myself killed.
I parked the car in the alley and killed the engine. Then it was too late to sit and think. If I didn’t go forward, I’d be going back.
“Come on,” I whispered. “You can do this.” I eased the door open and took a steadying breath. “Oh, God, what am I doing?”
No answer was forthcoming, so I went in blind.