It was also the worst possible place for us to be right now, since it was deep in Benson’s territory.
My footsteps slowed as I glanced around, my head snapping left, then right, then back again. Thick brown sheets of cardboard held up with duct tape stretched across the windows of many of the houses, since the glass had been busted out long ago by bullets, fists, and rocks. Small holes had been cut here and there in the cardboard, and flashes of light and shadow appeared as folks peered out their peepholes at us, then scurried away. No doubt, someone was already dialing into Benson’s network, and word would soon reach him about our location. We needed to move.
“Gin?” Bria asked, stopping beside me, her breath coming in soft gasps as she put her hands on her knees. “Where to now?”
That was the question—and the answer would determine whether we lived or died.
I glanced at first one end of the block, then the other. Going south would take us back toward the river, which was no good, since Benson could always order more of his vamps to guard the bridges. The police station was about two miles north of here, but I doubted we could make it on foot without running into some of Benson’s men.
Killing my way through the vamp’s goons didn’t bother me. I could take care of myself. So could Bria. But blood was still oozing out of that gash on Catalina’s forehead, and her face was white with fear, adrenaline, and the strain of running so far so fast. I unzipped my duffel bag long enough to grab a tin of Jo-Jo’s healing ointment. The salve would take care of the ugly cut, but it wouldn’t be long before her body shut down completely and she went into shock, if she wasn’t already there.
“Here,” I said, shoving the tin into Catalina’s trembling hand. “Put that on your forehead.”
Catalina took the container, but instead of popping off the top, she hunched over between Bria and me, her hands on her knees, her breath coming in ragged puffs, her hazel gaze locked on a beer bottle sitting upright on the curb, one that wasn’t broken like all the others we’d waded through in the alleys.
Catalina stared and stared at that bottle, although I knew that she wasn’t really seeing it. I started to look away but found myself strangely hypnotized by the glint of the afternoon sun on the glass, making it flare with an inner amber fire. A faint breeze gusted down the street, tickling my nose with a hint of stale, sour beer. The color, the smell, the fingers of wind tangling my sweaty hair . . . For a second, I was in another place, another time, another street were I was clutching a beer bottle, getting ready to cut that man to save Coral—
“Gin?” Bria asked again.
I snapped back to this place, this time, this street. I knew where to go now.
“This way.”
I hurried across the street, shoved through a gate in a chain-link fence, and jogged around the side of a house in the middle of the block. Classic jazz music purred out from behind the walls, and the whiff of fried meat seeped out of the cardboard-covered windows. I headed into the backyard, ducked under a clothesline filled with white undershirts and blue boxers that were snapping back and forth in the wind, and hopped over the waist-high fence at the edge of the yard.
Again and again, I repeated the process, cutting through yard after yard, taking a zigzag route, with Catalina and Bria behind me. Finally, we reached the last of the houses, but I didn’t slow my pace until we’d crossed another street and ducked into an alley. Even then, I kept going until I reached the apartment building in the center of the block.
I stopped in front of the back door of the building. It was still red, although the color had long ago faded from that bright, glossy crimson I remembered to a dull, flat rust. More memories rose up in my mind about all the terrible things that had happened the day I’d followed Coral through that door, but I forced them back into the bottom of my brain. More terrible things were going to happen if I didn’t get Bria and Catalina out of here.
“Gin?” Bria asked, her gun still clutched in her hand, her head swiveling back and forth from one end of the alley to the other. “Why are we stopping?”
Instead of answering her, I dropped my bag onto the pavement and then crouched down in front of the door so that I was eye-level with the lock. Catalina slumped against the brick wall next to me, trying to get her breath back, her face even paler and bloodier than before. She still had that tin of Jo-Jo’s ointment clutched in her hands, and she started fumbling with the top, her bloody fingers slipping off the smooth surface.
“You still have your phone?” I asked Bria.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Text Xavier. See if he got away from Benson’s men and if his car is in one piece. Ask if he can pick you up at this address.” I rattled off a location.
Bria frowned, but she pulled out her phone and did as I asked. Meanwhile, I reached for my Ice magic, pulling the cool power up out of the deepest part of me and letting it flow out through my hand. A silver light flared in my right palm, centered in my spider rune scar. A second later, I was holding two slender Ice picks, which I inserted into the lock.
Bria’s phone beeped, and she read the message. “Yeah, Xavier’s fine. He’ll be at that location in five minutes.”
“Good.”
The tumblers clicked into place. I threw down my Ice picks, twisted the knob, and opened the door. The inside of the building was dim and murky, although I could see murky light spilling from the door at the far end of the hallway.
“Come on, Catalina,” I called out. “Just a little farther now. Go inside and wait for us. Bria will be there in a second.”
She’d quit trying to open the tin of salve, and she was just standing there, swaying from side to side. Her hazel eyes were a bit unfocused, but she finally sighed and shuffled forward into the building with all the lifeless enthusiasm of a zombie. She stopped a few feet away and leaned against the interior wall.
I turned to Bria. “You need to go inside. Follow this hallway all the way to the end. It opens up into a courtyard. You can cut across there and into the building directly across from this one. Go straight through that building, and you’ll come out on the street where Xavier will be waiting.”
Bria nodded, then frowned. “How do you know all that?”
“Because I’ve been here before.”
She opened her mouth, but after a moment, she swallowed down her many questions and asked the only one that mattered. “What about you?”
“I’ll meet you there. I’m going to go down to the end of the alley and then jog around the block to make sure that none of Benson’s vamps comes up on you from behind. We only have one chance to get out of here, and this is it.”