A Hidden Escape

Adrian came back to it in pieces, face pressed to wet asphalt, one hand tight over his ribs. Blood soaked through his shirt and glued the fabric to his side. Somewhere above him, a metal grate rattled under a truck’s passing weight.

He tried to sit and nearly blacked out.

A shadow moved near his head.

He forced one eye open and saw a woman crouched beside a stack of trash bags. Her coat was gone. Her hair hung in one rope over her chest, caked with soot and oil, long enough to drag on the pavement when she shifted. She looked at him, then at the mouth of the alley.

“Stay down,” she said.

Her voice was rough from disuse, but steady.

Boots slapped on the pavement at the far end. Two men came in fast, both in dark parkas, both with hands under their coats. One of them swept a flashlight over the walls and the bins.

“Target’s gone,” he said.

“Check the alley.”

The woman didn’t run. She bent over Adrian and flung that hair forward until it spread over him like a dirty blanket. The ends spilled over his shoulder and across his face. The smell hit first: winter grime, old smoke, a subway grate burst with heat below the street. He nearly gagged.

Then she climbed over him and folded herself against the wall, shoulders hunched, mouth open, eyes wild.

One assassin rounded the dumpster and stopped.

She crouched lower and made a noise from deep in her throat. Not words. A warning, maybe. Her fingers clawed at the curb. She jerked her head toward the sewer opening and hissed.

The man laughed once. “What the hell is this?”

“Girl’s cracked,” the other said.

She snapped at the air when they came closer, teeth bared. One of them took a step back. Adrian saw the gun beneath his coat, the slight tremor in his hand. The woman lunged for the trash lid and sent it clanging across the alley.

Both men flinched.

“Move,” one muttered.

She kept making noise, half snarl, half sob, and scraped both hands through the filth on her coat until her face looked even worse than the rest of her. The men lost interest fast. A broken woman was not a witness. Not worth a bullet.

They backed out, cursing, and the alley went still again.

Only then did she turn to Adrian.

“Can you stand?”

He managed a breath. “Maybe.”

“Bad answer.”

She gripped his arm anyway and pulled. He bit down on a sound and got his feet under him. Her body was all angles and bruises, but she did not let go.

At the alley mouth, red and blue light flashed once against the bricks. Her head snapped up.

“Go,” he said.

She shook her head.

He caught her wrist. “I owe you.”

Her eyes flicked to his hand, then back to his face.

“No,” she said. “You owe me later.”

Then she vanished into the dark before he could ask her name.