Ashley waited until the sirens faded and the city noises returned to their normal rhythms. Then she moved. She could go to the police with the drive and risk it being traced, or the drive could lead the wrong people right where she couldn’t control the outcome. She made a third choice: she would use the trail to find Rook herself.
She ran out through a side door into the back lot, rain searing her face like pins. The intruder pursued, purposeful and not terribly slow. Ashley’s mind calculated escape routes without thinking: the maintenance stairs, the delivery trucks, the high fence with a coil of barbed wire she could scale if she had to. Behind her, a metallic shout echoed—he'd alerted the guard.
She dove under the loading dock door as it descended, the intruder’s hand slamming meters away. In the narrow pocket of shadow between dumpsters, she crouched and did what she knew best: she became unremarkable. She let the rain soak through her coat and the night swallow her outline.
“You're Rook,” she offered. It felt strange to call him by the name everyone else had whispered like a talisman.
Ashley waited until the sirens faded and the city noises returned to their normal rhythms. Then she moved. She could go to the police with the drive and risk it being traced, or the drive could lead the wrong people right where she couldn’t control the outcome. She made a third choice: she would use the trail to find Rook herself.
She ran out through a side door into the back lot, rain searing her face like pins. The intruder pursued, purposeful and not terribly slow. Ashley’s mind calculated escape routes without thinking: the maintenance stairs, the delivery trucks, the high fence with a coil of barbed wire she could scale if she had to. Behind her, a metallic shout echoed—he'd alerted the guard.
She dove under the loading dock door as it descended, the intruder’s hand slamming meters away. In the narrow pocket of shadow between dumpsters, she crouched and did what she knew best: she became unremarkable. She let the rain soak through her coat and the night swallow her outline.
“You're Rook,” she offered. It felt strange to call him by the name everyone else had whispered like a talisman.