The dust played above the carpet as a flashlight searched the room.
Shit. I swallowed and tilted my head, listening.
From the hallway, the security guard shouted, “Got a light alert for twenty-three zero five.”
What light? I looked around the room. Sure enough, a tiny night lamp shone dimly in the corner of the room. The motion sensors in the office had worked, and the lamp had lit up while I busied myself with the picks.
The door handle jerked.
I peeked over the desk and stuck my hand into my pocket.
The security guard, in a black uniform, fiddled with the lock. I took a few seconds to size him up, and unfortunately, the beast was fit, which meant he wouldn’t tire as quickly as an unfit beast. Time to go. I crawled across the office space to the adjacent suite’s polished, dark wooden door.
Above my head, the flashlight hit the door. “Got a guy in here!”
Before the building locked down, I opened the door, then turned. When the beast stepped inside, I got a short blowgun from my pocket and pressed it to my lips.
He advanced.
I blew.
Hit! Right in the neck.
The beast wouldn’t collapse, but the poisoned dart would slow him down. Adjusting my pack, I ran to the other office’s exit door, skipping the visitors’ chairs in my way.
The lights lit up the hallway.
The alarms blared through the building.
Feet pounded the carpeted floors. “Stop!”
Not a chance! I wasn’t getting caught again.
Small round lights above the metal doors signaled that the elevator was on the first floor, so I ran to the fire exit at the end of the hallway, the guard on my heels. Or was it both guards by now? I didn’t look back, only forward.
“Climbing up!” the guard shouted.
The alarms triggered the lockdown right after I opened the exit door.
Leaping three stairs at a time, heart pounding, I fisted my hands and worked my shoulders and legs twenty floors to the roof. The beasts were big, bulky guys, so I sprinted. Quick on my feet, I got to the top and kicked the exit door. Locked. Shit.
I heaved breaths along with the guard, who panted as he climbed the stairs, the poison rushing through his bloodstream. From my other pocket, I got a tiny detonator and pasted it like a piece of gum on the door right above the lock. I stepped back, covered my ears. Three, two, one. Boom! Blew the lock. I’d have used that on the safe’s door.
I pushed past the door and stepped onto the roof. Heaving breaths, mouth gaping, I propped my hands on my knees and checked the area. Full-moon light graced the star-filled winter night skies. In the distance, a giant beast ship hovered over the city. The battle cruiser looked like it would touch the moon. Beneath the ship and inside the city on top of the hills, a few stray cars passed through the night. That small neighborhood was my destination.
“Nowhere to go, man,” the wounded guard said from the bottom of the last staircase.
I leapt onto the edge of the building and yanked off my hat. My long red braid bounced off the middle of my back. “What’s up, beasty mofo? I ain’t no guy.”
Vice
Thousands of feet above the city, in the surveillance room of my battle cruiser, I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned in as if I couldn’t clearly see the scene unfolding before me on the giant screen. My mate, Dewlyn, had escaped our home again. I’d chased after her, then ordered my males to sweep the city every single hour. They’d swept for weeks and come up with nothing. It was as if she’d crawled into a hole and hadn’t come up for air.
When the wait for her to surface got too long, I flew back to my battle cruiser, dropped the ship closer to Earth, and used the air traffic search sensors to sweep for small bikes such as the one Dewlyn had stolen from my brother’s mate. Thousands of small vehicles registered. I waited for one pink bike.
Patience paid off, and I got lucky. Yesterday, a small pink bike had popped up in New City. Dewlyn rode that thing like she rode everything else: hard and fast. And so here I was with my ship’s surveillance crew. My brother followed, his mate, Rey, in tow.
Next to me, the chair protested as my brother Jamie, Alpha Beast, leaned closer to the screen too. His eyebrows drew down. “You took her hydro-skater, didn’t you?”
“Mm-hm,” I mumbled.
“And she doesn’t seem to have Rey’s bike with her.”
“Should’ve sold that damn thing when you had the chance.”
Jamie pierced me with one of his glares. If I hadn’t grown up with this asshole, I would’ve pissed myself. But I had grown up with him, and also our father, so I kept staring at the screen, ignoring the glare.
“If she doesn’t have transport,” he said, “what the fuck is she doing on the edge of the building?”