protest.
Bad men. You deserve whatever happens here tonight.
It made her want to glide up to them unseen and exact the kind of revenge that would put her in jail if anyone ever identified her. To use her skills in exactly the way that would horrify Jeth, so genuine and naive in his black-and-white world where bad things didn’t happen if you tried hard enough to stop them simply because that’s the way it should be.
A chameleon she might be, but stupid…not quite. Criminal…not quite.
Sometimes Jeth’s way was right. She could lie to everyone else, but to herself she had to tell the truth.
So the revenge…another day, maybe. Or a different kind of revenge. For now she’d get these women out as fast as she could, and if it meant scrapping, it meant scrapping. But no side trips. No distractions. Just a pure break-out and run.
Come on, Jeth. Sam waited poised by the back door,her elbow cocked and ready to take out the bottom corner pane of glass. Fake it if you have to, but fake it now.
And finally, a car alarm split through the subliminal thump of music…oddly, not quite close enough to be the van. Sam took the moment anyway, tapping the glass with her elbow just hard enough to crack it, then sliding her hand back up in her jacket sleeve to pick at the shards with her already tender hands. Just enough to reach in and—
Another car alarm went off. And he must have been getting the hang of it, for almost immediately a third alarm joined in—and then another. Sam grinned to herself as she flipped the deadbolt and slid the chain lock out of place and then released the doorknob lock. No one came rushing at her—as near as she could tell, at least two men had gone to the front door, and though Scalpucci still stood in the dining room with Gretchen in a cruel hold, he’d also turned toward the front of the house.
Sam slid inside, clothed in her unseen guise, reassessing the situation with every step. They were all big, like the man at the last house. Too big for her to handle in numbers, though if Scalpucci had been there alone…
But he wasn’t. And she didn’t have the leeway to try for cleverness; best strategy would be to go in fast, come out fast. Run away. After that she could call the police, holding out a faint hope that Scalpucci would in some way pay for his actions.
The house guardian sat at the end of the dining room table. With no finesse and nothing to lose, Sam waited until Scalpucci shouted something at the front of the house and then reached in to pluck at the woman’s sleeve from behind, hissing a warning. The woman startled and then froze, and Sam had to speak up against thefifth whooping car alarm when she said, “Help’s here. Grab them up and go out the back—it’s open.”
The refuge guardians weren’t chosen for their looks or their sweet dispositions. This woman may or may not have suspected there’d been no visible movement behind her, but she knew how to prioritize her reactions. She kicked one woman under the table—Jeth’s sister?—and snapped her fingers at the other. The frightened women only stared stupidly at her as the guardian gestured over her shoulder to the freedom of the open back door.
But the first woman…Jeth’s sister had his hair and his nose and though she also had a hell of a bruise on her face and an arm in a restrictive sling, she still had some of his determination. She quite matter-of-factly pushed her chair back and walked out of the room, and the car alarms covered every step of her movement. Sam stepped aside undetected to let her pass and then returned to her spot by the door. Scalpucci and another man bellowed a few terse words at each other across the house and through the front door. Suspicious, oh yes. But Sam had her eye on the light switches, and thank goodness for that. For while the second woman still stared at the rising house guardian in catatonic fright, Scalpucci turned to look at both women with instant fury.
Sam hit the switch,
Bad men. You deserve whatever happens here tonight.
It made her want to glide up to them unseen and exact the kind of revenge that would put her in jail if anyone ever identified her. To use her skills in exactly the way that would horrify Jeth, so genuine and naive in his black-and-white world where bad things didn’t happen if you tried hard enough to stop them simply because that’s the way it should be.
A chameleon she might be, but stupid…not quite. Criminal…not quite.
Sometimes Jeth’s way was right. She could lie to everyone else, but to herself she had to tell the truth.
So the revenge…another day, maybe. Or a different kind of revenge. For now she’d get these women out as fast as she could, and if it meant scrapping, it meant scrapping. But no side trips. No distractions. Just a pure break-out and run.
Come on, Jeth. Sam waited poised by the back door,her elbow cocked and ready to take out the bottom corner pane of glass. Fake it if you have to, but fake it now.
And finally, a car alarm split through the subliminal thump of music…oddly, not quite close enough to be the van. Sam took the moment anyway, tapping the glass with her elbow just hard enough to crack it, then sliding her hand back up in her jacket sleeve to pick at the shards with her already tender hands. Just enough to reach in and—
Another car alarm went off. And he must have been getting the hang of it, for almost immediately a third alarm joined in—and then another. Sam grinned to herself as she flipped the deadbolt and slid the chain lock out of place and then released the doorknob lock. No one came rushing at her—as near as she could tell, at least two men had gone to the front door, and though Scalpucci still stood in the dining room with Gretchen in a cruel hold, he’d also turned toward the front of the house.
Sam slid inside, clothed in her unseen guise, reassessing the situation with every step. They were all big, like the man at the last house. Too big for her to handle in numbers, though if Scalpucci had been there alone…
But he wasn’t. And she didn’t have the leeway to try for cleverness; best strategy would be to go in fast, come out fast. Run away. After that she could call the police, holding out a faint hope that Scalpucci would in some way pay for his actions.
The house guardian sat at the end of the dining room table. With no finesse and nothing to lose, Sam waited until Scalpucci shouted something at the front of the house and then reached in to pluck at the woman’s sleeve from behind, hissing a warning. The woman startled and then froze, and Sam had to speak up against thefifth whooping car alarm when she said, “Help’s here. Grab them up and go out the back—it’s open.”
The refuge guardians weren’t chosen for their looks or their sweet dispositions. This woman may or may not have suspected there’d been no visible movement behind her, but she knew how to prioritize her reactions. She kicked one woman under the table—Jeth’s sister?—and snapped her fingers at the other. The frightened women only stared stupidly at her as the guardian gestured over her shoulder to the freedom of the open back door.
But the first woman…Jeth’s sister had his hair and his nose and though she also had a hell of a bruise on her face and an arm in a restrictive sling, she still had some of his determination. She quite matter-of-factly pushed her chair back and walked out of the room, and the car alarms covered every step of her movement. Sam stepped aside undetected to let her pass and then returned to her spot by the door. Scalpucci and another man bellowed a few terse words at each other across the house and through the front door. Suspicious, oh yes. But Sam had her eye on the light switches, and thank goodness for that. For while the second woman still stared at the rising house guardian in catatonic fright, Scalpucci turned to look at both women with instant fury.
Sam hit the switch,
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