In a way, I was curious to find out how creative Rob could get, but instead of testing my luck, I said, “Your second anchor’s already tangled in my harness. So long as your primary anchor doesn’t break through the window, I’m not going anywhere. It’ll be faster and safer for the both of us if you get to the top first. I’m a liability like this.”
“Shit. You’re serious.”
“I have one trick right now, Rob. I can hang around and wait. Will you please just get to safety?” I begged.
With luck, we’d both escape alive, but if my harness or the anchor binding us together broke, at least one of us would survive.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rob secured both of the cases filled with drugs and electronics to his harness with Colby’s help. The details of how he had gotten both of them were a bit of a blur, along with Colby making hand and foot holds for me in the glass. My body refused to move quite right, but I had sufficient strength and coordination to keep myself from swinging away from the building.
If I had any say in it at all, I would never climb out of anything higher than a first story window ever again.
While I waited, my worry for Rob and Colby growing with each passing minute, I systematically wiggled my fingers and toes to convince myself I hadn’t done permanent damage colliding with the skyscraper. The movement hurt, with the worst of the pain radiating from my neck and shoulders. So I wouldn’t stare at the ground far below, I fixed my gaze on the blinking blue light above. If my anchor detached, all of my weight would end up hanging from Rob’s harness.
If I fell, I’d take him with me, and it worried me so much I considered slipping my harness to make certain he reached the top alive. The dae climbed hand over hand to my anchor, and he gave my cable a tug. A faint glow radiated from Colby as my roommate worked with Rob.
Despite my attempt to remain close to the skyscraper, the instant they deactivated my anchor, the slack in the line dislodged me from the building, and I swung out into open air. I spun, and when I hit the glass, it was with my shoulder and back. Blinding pain stabbed down my spine, and my entire body jerked. I bounced against the skyscraper a second time before I twisted around and clawed for one of Colby’s holds. My fingers caught on the opening, but before I could secure a grip, Rob hauled me up an entire story.
Without anything to cling to, the gusting wind blew me along the glass, spinning me. I squeezed my eyes closed, and my fear of falling choked off my breath. Rob and Colby were all that stood between me and death, and my inability to influence my fate terrified me even more than the thought of splattering on the ground below.
While I was vaguely aware of Rob and Colby working with my anchor disc, I lost track of time. The dae’s hands under my arms, hauling me up onto the skyscraper’s roof, woke me to the fact he had pulled me to safety. He dragged me away from the ledge, and while I shuddered from relief, he stretched me out, his hands cupping my throat to check my pulse.
At the rate my heart was pounding, I was impressed I hadn’t keeled over dead yet.
“You’re fine. I have you,” the dae murmured, going to work freeing me from my harness. “Just give me a minute to get you out of this mess.”
The mess proved to be a tangle of cables, anchors, and the pair of cases. I had no memory of anyone securing our ill-gotten gains to my harness, but one of the metal edges dug into my side, and I hissed from pain when Rob rolled me over to work the straps out from under me.
“Can you move your hands and feet?” Rob demanded once I was freed. Bracing for the inevitable pain, I rotated my ankles and wrists. My left hand protested the worst, and dark splotches showed beneath my bandages.
“Better than I expected,” the dae confessed. “I was afraid you were paralyzed for a few minutes there.”
I had been, but I kept my mouth shut. Shaking my head, I sat up with his help, and when the world spun around me, I closed my eyes and leaned against him. “Thanks.”
“If we can avoid a repeat performance, I’d appreciate it,” Rob grumbled. He pulled me to the retaining wall of the skyscraper and leaned me against it, peering over the edge. “The good news? It doesn’t look like anyone noticed us while you were hanging around. That’s about the only good news I have for you, though.”
“I’ll take it. Beats being a pancake or spending the rest of my life in prison.”
“Mommy.” Colby hopped onto my lap and bumped against my stomach. While I was a little unnerved about touching leftover macaroni and cheese, I forced myself to give my roommate a single pat.
It was rather warm, a little squishy, and disgustingly moist. When I checked my hand, I was relieved it didn’t leave any neon-orange residue. “Good job, Colby.”
“Mommy!”
“Do you have any idea what happened?” Rob asked, sitting beside me. Sliding an arm behind my back, he tugged me to him until my head rested against him.
I should’ve protested, but he was warm. “Anchor failed, I guess.”
While I had my doubts, I had no proof. All I had was Monica’s warning. Alone, it wasn’t enough to point fingers at anyone, especially not Kenneth. My height and weight for the harness would have been enough to betray me, making my gear an easy target if someone had wanted to get rid of me.
“Sabotage?”
I shrugged. The motion hurt. “Possibly. Monica tried to warn me.”
“I’m going to enjoy ruining Kenneth Smith,” the dae grumbled.
“You’ll have to share him.”
“I’ll share Smith if you properly share Hasling.”
Without Rob, I would’ve been as good as dead or imprisoned, and I knew it. The words caught in my throat, but after several breaths, I choked out, “Deal.”
I couldn’t deny him, not in good conscious. Sighing, I closed my eyes. My entire body trembled, and while I was no longer at risk of falling to my death, anxiety cramped my stomach.
“Take deeper breaths. You’re fine. We’ll wait a while; once the building employees start arriving for the day, we’ll take the stairs to the ground floor and leave through one of the delivery entrances. Colby can take care of any surveillance cameras. We’ll walk out of here like we belong, take the long way to my car, and bust out of here. I’ll swing through the fringe and scout for Hasling’s place, go to Gibson Island, and take a look at what Moore was into.” Rob rubbed his hand over my chilled arm. “Ruining people is my specialty, and I look forward to destroying both of them.”
“There’s no proof it wasn’t just a faulty anchor,” I pointed out.
“If it weren’t for Smith, you wouldn’t have been in this position in the first place. I’m afraid you’re just going to have to accept it. Now, get some rest, and leave everything else to me and Colby. You’ve done enough for tonight.”
The warmth of wearing my coat and Rob’s jacket lulled me into a sleepy daze. Rob showed no sign the cold autumn air bothered him, and he fidgeted with nervous energy while he kept watch, pacing across the roof to check for any signs our hiding place had been discovered. When the first light of dawn brightened the eastern sky, he huffed his satisfaction.
“Almost time to go,” he whispered. “I’m going to need my jacket back for the next part.”
I shrugged my way out of both coats. While I liked the security of wearing the Beretta, I was too sore and achy to reach the weapon, let alone put it to good use. The holster gave me trouble, and when Rob realized what I was trying to do, he helped me out of the straps.
“I’ll make it fit in one of the cases,” he said, cracking open one of them to reorganize the collection of drugs and electronics. “Colby, can you deal with the harnesses?”
While I would have just tossed them off the side of the skyscraper, Colby’s solution to the problem was to eat the harnesses. I stared at my roommate, my mouth hanging open, as it devoured everything, including the electromagnetic anchors.
“Well, that’s one way to deal with them,” Rob muttered, shaking his head. “Think you can walk, Miss Daegberht?”<
br />
“Only one way to find out.”
Taking hold of my hand, Rob hauled me to my feet, and I staggered. My body had a different definition for the word upright than my head. Rob gripped my arm until I was able to stand without his help.
“Take your sweater off,” he ordered.
I blinked at him. Without the pair of coats, I was already shivering, and I hadn’t been exposed for more than a few minutes. “What?”
“Your sweater. Take it off.”
“Are you crazy? It’s freezing up here.”
“Only for a minute. I want to check you over before we go downstairs. With the sun up, I don’t want to do it in the car. It’ll draw suspicion.” As I had to him earlier, he snapped his fingers at me. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”
For a long time, I gawked at him, trying to figure out why he wanted to check me over again. He already had several times, though I hadn’t been completely with the program while he had been doing it. I hadn’t moved much, and the cold stiffened my already aching body, which clued me in on what he was doing. “You want to see if I can.”
He mocked me with a slow clapping of his hands. “You caught on reasonably quick. Take the sweater off—if you can.”
Rob was goading me into doing it, and despite recognizing what he was up to, I was grabbing my sweater to pull it over my head. I managed to lift the sweater halfway over my head before blinding pain stabbed across my shoulders and up into my skull.
My legs gave out, and Rob caught me, pulling me to him. Working my sweater the rest of the way off, he tossed it aside. One of his hands pressed to the back of my neck, prodding and poking at me. A shudder ran through me, followed by a yelp when he found a particularly sore spot.
“Well, I don’t think you broke your neck at least,” Rob said, and I grimaced at the doubtful tone of his voice.
“If I had broken it, I’d be paralyzed or dead.” That I had been, at least for a little while, incapable of doing anything more than twitch worried me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. “I’ll head to a fringe hospital if I need to.”
“Like hell you will,” Rob snarled.
“What’s your problem? The hospitals aren’t that bad. Can’t let the workers get sick, you know,” I grumbled.
Without a word, Rob massaged at the kink in my neck until there was a crack and a pop, and the muscles along my shoulders rippled and twitched. I gasped, reaching up to touch the spot, but Rob captured my hand in his. “Leave it. Your back is a mess of spasms. I’ll do what I can for a few minutes before we head down. Colby, want to start taking out the surveillance system? Start on the other side of the building so they’re looking the other way.”
“Mommy!” Darting across the rooftop, Colby halted some fifty feet away before burrowing through to the interior of the skyscraper.
“You have a terrifying roommate, Miss Daegberht. I’m satisfied you have a suitable guard when I can’t be nearby.”
“Who said you get to stay nearby?” I hissed.
“I said.”
“We’ve talked about this before. I get to decide.”
“No, you don’t.” With a soft laugh, Rob released my hand and pushed my hair away from the back of my neck. “You really did a number on yourself this time.”
“I guessed that much. Falling a story or two and smacking into the side of a building hurts. I’m lucky I didn’t snap my neck when I reached the end of my line.” I clenched my teeth together, held my breath, and risked rolling my shoulders.
The fact I sounded like the percussion section of a band concerned me. Rob ran his hands over my shoulders and massaged them. “If you can’t walk down the steps on your own, I’ll carry you. You’ll have to manage the couple of blocks to the car or it’ll look suspicious, though. I’ll adjust the cases so I’ll carry most of the weight in mine. I’ll go with the lawyer story and mine has the sensitive material I don’t trust with someone from a lower caste.”
“I’ll manage.” With some help from Rob and using the building for support, I got to my feet and risked leaning over the edge to stare at the Ivory Tower. The garden-covered rooftop looked abandoned, although the access door to the penthouse floor was open. “It’s only a matter of time before they find the holes on this side of the building.”
Rob crouched at my feet to pick up my sweater and grab the cases so he could reorganize them. “As soon as Colby is done with his destruction, we’ll get out of here.”
I glanced down at him, arching a brow at the rifle hanging across his back. “Perhaps you should put your gun away while you’re packing things up.”
Rob smacked his hand to his shoulder, groping for the strap. “Shit, I forgot about the rifle.”
I laughed and stared out over the city. A faint hint of smoke in the air and a subtle haze over Baltimore was the only evidence I could spot of the riots that had followed the Dawn of Dae. While Rob dismantled his weapon and packed it away, I wondered how much had changed—and how much would stay the same.
How would I fit in, especially if Kenneth had rigged my harness to fail? Was there a place for me in a world inhabited by dae?
Only time would tell.
By the time Colby returned, the city was alive with people and dae. The honk of car horns gave Baltimore a deceptive sense of normality. While some dae chose to fly, none of them came near the rooftops of the skyscrapers.
“The government was quick to establish a few laws regarding aerial limitations of dae,” Rob explained. Startled by his unnerving accuracy at guessing what I was thinking, I twisted to face him.
Picking up the first of the cases, he slung it over his shoulder. Before he could grab the second, I snatched it, ignoring the pain in my back. I set it between my feet so he wouldn’t claim it. I unzipped my coat in anticipation of climbing down hundreds upon hundreds of steps. “Are you sure you don’t read minds?”
“You aren’t exactly subtle; you were staring at the fliers,” he replied, grinning at me. “Wings would be rather convenient right now, I do have to admit. You don’t feel like you’re going to sprout any, do you?”
Instead of rewarding his idiocy with a reply, I heaved the strap over my shoulder and straightened. It was heavier than I liked, but lighter than I expected. My back protested the work, but I ignored the discomfort and tested my luck by walking in the direction of the access stairwell for the rest of the building.
Colby waited by the steel door, and as I drew close, it left a smear of orange residue over the locking mechanism, which blackened and smoked. In the matter of a minute, a gaping hole remained. Rob caught up with me, shoved his shoulder against the door, and popped it open.
“I’ll go first. If you fall, try to do so against me rather than down the steps.”
“I have no intention of falling,” I hissed.
“Good.”
Taking the elevator would have been a lot riskier but a lot easier, and by the time we had gone down three flights of stairs, I was ready to locate the nearest one and take the risk. Rob waited at the landing below, watching me with narrowed eyes.
“You’re limping.”
“No shit I’m limping,” I muttered, glaring at him. To make it perfectly clear I wasn’t about to accept pity from him or anyone else, I gripped the strap of my case so he wouldn’t take it from me and kept walking. “You’d be limping, too.”
“Yes, for about five minutes.”
“Fucking dae.”
“Later.”
I came to a halt, staring at him with wide eyes. The way he smirked at me promised all sorts of interesting things, and I was so distracted by what his tone and his smile implied I forgot I was supposed to be proving I didn’t need—or want—him for anything.
“Like the thought of that, don’t you?” he murmured.
I blushed, and convinced my face was about to burst into flame, I stomped down the stairs, spitting curses at him every step of the way. His laughter followed in my wake.
My embarrassment and annoyan
ce at myself sustained me all the way to the ground level of the skyscraper. In the time it took us to climb down all the steps, I had cursed myself hoarse.
Rob snorted, shook his head, and pointed up at the emergency exit sign. “Think you can prevent the alarm from going off, Colby?”
Colby’s solution to the problem was to eat a hole in the door large enough for us to slip through. It hopped outside, gurgled, and threw up on the asphalt. The steaming black pile of twisted metal, harness scraps, and electronics was three times larger than Colby and reeked of burned plastic. I gagged and averted my eyes.
“Mommy,” my roommate whined.
I swallowed several times to control my stomach. “It’s okay, Colby. Rob’ll make an entire pot of soup just for you, okay?”
“Mommy.”
“Me? Why me?”
“You were the one who suggested Colby eat all that junk. You upset its stomach. You will pay the price for that, sir. You will make soup, and you will nurse Colby back to health.” I smothered my doubts and held my hands out to Colby. “Come on, I’ll carry you.”
Colby launched itself at me and landed against my chest with a squish. It weighed far more than macaroni and cheese should have weighed, but instead of complaining, I worked my arm under it, grateful the leather coat kept the neon-orange gunk off me and my clothes.
Rob sighed. “Fine, I’ll make Colby soup.”
“I’ll take some, too.”
“You will get a proper meal, Miss Daegberht. You have eaten almost nothing but soup for two weeks.”
I widened my eyes. “But you make good soup.”
Laughing, he brushed by me. “I’ll consider adding an appetizer of soup to your lunch. We’re likely going to miss breakfast.”
“If you even think of slipping any drugs into my lunch, I will kill you in your sleep,” I warned him.
The Dawn of Dae (Dae Portals Book 1) Page 28
