Exposed by Judith Graves

ONE
    The trouble with most people? They never look up.
    They keep their eyes dead ahead, fixated as they march forward and go about getting the day done. And, like ants, they don’t notice that the darkness creeping over them isn’t just another storm cloud. It’s a freaking shoe. No. It’s a steel-toed boot on the foot of some beer-guzzling, asbestos-lunged construction worker, and the thing is going to stomp their lights out.
    I thought I wasn’t most people.
    Guess I was wrong.
    I shifted my grip on the crumbled concrete, the pull of my weight stretching the tendons in my fingers like the string on a crossbow, threatening to snap. Toes digging into the brick, I managed to snag an edge and relieve some of the pressure. I’d completed this route more times than I could count, and that was the problem. I’d been using this building for training for weeks, its brick façade perfect for an easy climb. But I’d become complacent. Forgotten my own rule. Keep your eyes on the prize.
    Just like those dead-ahead ants I promised myself I’d never be.
    If I had simply looked up while I’d made the climb, I would have noticed that the awning I’d decided to rest my feet on was missing a bolt, or had rusted out, or whatever made the metal bar pop from under me. Leaving me dangling by my fingertips far above a major street.
    Not that any of the late-night pub crawlers noticed, too drunk to do more than put a foot in front of the other as they shuffled from one watering hole to the next.
    But I’d been on automatic, not focused on where I was going and far too worried about the guy steadily climbing after me. He’d watched as the bar that had been under my feet made its clattering descent, missing his shoulder by a hair’s breadth, then gone right back to picking his way up the face of the old theater.
    Stubborn.
    Well, so was I.
    A gust of cool night air had strands of my hair dancing before my eyes. Escapees from the confines of my ponytail. I probably should cut it once and for all, but it was my claim to fame, the long, layered black hair that inspired my name, Raven. My mother used to say my perpetually messy locks looked like the ruffled tail feathers of the large black birds.
    Funny, I could hear that raspy tone she had from smoking and screaming too much, but I couldn’t quite picture her face. I shook my head, clearing both my mind and my vision as I climbed, springing off my perch to snag the next handhold. Where memory failed, muscle and sinew served. Handhold, foothold, reach and handhold, foothold. Motion, thought and breath in sync, I made quick work of the climb.
    I scrambled over the foot-wide ledge and dropped about three feet to the roof. The red glow from the flickering marquee provided enough light for a quick scan of the perimeter. Rusted vent pipes erupted from the surface. Cracks filled with tar clawed the patchwork concrete like long black, twisted nails. Other than the cooing presence of a few pigeons, I was alone.
    For the moment.
    I backed away from the ledge. Waiting.
    Seconds later a dark form crept over the ledge. Breath siphoned from my lungs. He’d made it. I let our gazes clash briefly, then spun on my heel and bolted across the roof. The grinding scratches of my shoes sliced through the silence as I slipped across crumbling concrete. The ledge drew closer. So did the pounding of feet behind me. I stumbled once, straightened and shifted my weight just in time. I launched forward like a circus performer gone mad, hurtling through the air. I flat-palmed the lip of the ledge and pushed off, vaulting into the night.
    A dizzying blur of headlights in the distance as I crossed the seven-foot expanse over the alley. The pull of the earth, desperate to bring me down to the ground. Chin to chest, my body automatically tucked in on itself as I landed on the roof of the next building in a fluid roll, momentum driving me to my feet. I stood still. Watched as the guy neared the ledge on the building