Apparently a space for both staff and visitors to congregate and mingle, a large open area dominated the second floor; clusters of low tables and comfortable chairs intermixed with lush garden features, gleaming sculptures and carefully arranged artworks.

The effect was tasteful and inviting—but somewhat lacking in effective hiding places. While the sheer size of the space combined with the gloom of the after-hours lighting to provide a degree of cover, Nick knew it could only be a matter of time before he and Mica were spotted by the unseen pursuers who must be closing in on them.

Without discussion or even conscious thought, they found themselves moving towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that dominated an entire wall of the level, drawn to the soft wash of the street lights and the hazy allure of the city outside—to an incomprehensible yet tantalising world, a place without the Syndicate or a sense of entrapment or the ever-present, claustrophobic threat of imminent, bloody death—or worse.

"Nick," breathed Mica, as they hustled along in a crouched shuffle, "you have to promise me something."

Suspecting what that something was going to be, he made no reply.

"I can't be captured by them. I won't—no matter what it takes. It if it looks like that's going to happen, I'll...I'll take care of it myself, if I can. But if I can't—if for whatever reason I...waver, you need to promise me you'll do it. Promise me, Nick—please."

He glanced at her. "Forget it. Not g-g-gonna happen."

She felt a shocking, sudden surge of anger. "Don't give me that," she hissed. "If you're not going to finish what you started, you should have left me in that godforsaken penthouse. Even wasting away as Jaime's plaything, dying a little more on the inside every day as I waited for...for the worst to happen, at least I still had the hope that somehow, someday I might get away from him. That there was a chance, no matter how tiny, that I might escape and survive and maybe have a real life again. Now, if I have to go back, I know precisely what's in store for me. So, I'm not going back. No matter what. You have to see this through to the end, Nick. One way or another."

After a moment of shock at her obvious fury, Nick felt his own flare up in return. "D-don't you give me that. I d-d-didn't ask for any of this. I'm not a k-killer. I'm just an ac-c-c-countant in way over my head and d-d-doing the b-best I d-d-damn well c-can."

"Really? The best you can? If that's true, Nick, then you know I'm right. You know what you have to do."

For something like the trillionth time in his life, Nick inwardly cursed the stutter that had made his existence a misery for the past twenty years or more. The inescapable impediment which had cast its long shadow over virtually the entirety of his young life, the hated, omnipresent barrier separating the quick-witted, articulate and sociable Nick who lived inside his head, the one who longed to spread his wings, to thrive and to be all he could be, from the shy, the awkward and the wordless Nick the world saw, the one who moved through life as a sleepwalker, as nothing but a semi-mute shadow of the man he wanted to be.

"What I have to do?" he wished he could say. "Who the hell are you to say what I have to do? You have no bloody idea what I have to do, just to make it from breakfast until bedtime. You have no idea of the fear I battle just to get through a day. The simplest things—to buy a coffee, to make small talk, to pick up the damn telephone. To even answer the simple bloody question, 'What do you do?' without breaking into a cold sweat. Each and every one of those things, not to mention a thousand more, is a complete nightmare. Each and every one a golden opportunity to prove once again what a stammering, incompetent waste-of-space Nick Devine is. Each and every one a pitfall I have to negotiate, to not screw-up or, even better, to avoid altogether. Except that all too often I don't or I can't and even if I do and I can it takes willpower, it takes hard work and it takes a little piece of my soul, every single time.

"I could be a stain on the sidewalk, right now. I could be floating face-down in that fucking pool. I could be lying dead on the gymnasium floor, with my head beaten to a bloody pulp. And you know what? A part of me wishes I was. But I'm not. I'm not any of those things. I'm alive. I'm alive and I'm here and I'm doing my half-assed and haven't-got-a-fucking-clue and probably pointless best to help some woman I hardly even know escape from a bunch of homicidal goons. And I'm doing it with a killer headache and soggy underwear that's just beginning to chafe. So, maybe just lay off with the whole 'You know what you have to do' bullshit, huh?"

Such is what he might have said, were he able. Instead, he went with, "I d-don't have a g-gun."

Mica stared at him. "What?"

"You h-heard me."

"Nick, what are you talking about? You have two!"

"Had." He looked straight ahead as they crept along, refusing to meet her eye. "I d-d-dropped them." Strictly speaking, he'd only dropped one, while the other had been torn from his grasp and thrown away by the big guy sitting on top of him at the time, but he figured that kind of went without saying. Nick was all about the subtext.

Yes, he'd 'dropped' the guns. Two items that might just have made the difference in their struggle to achieve safe passage out of the building. And then, in the mad rush away from the bellowing, wounded man Mica had just shot, in his dazed and confused flight from the unknown but undoubted pursuers closing in on them, he hadn't thought to pick them back up again. He'd staggered away and left them behind, like nothing more than a set of car keys or a stupid shopping list.

Which just went to show, even without misspeaking a single word, he could still royally screw things up.

Already fading, Mica's uncharacteristic anger vanished. Of course Nick no longer had the guns. And, she realised, the fault was hers, not his. After shooting Hugo's hand, after drawing blood in anger for the very first—and what she fervently hoped would be the last—time in her life, after finding to her intense relief that Nick still lived, her one and only thought had been to shepherd the battered and half-conscious man away from his erstwhile killer, as fast and as far as she could. The discarded guns hadn't even entered her mind.

But while her anger may have disappeared, her need hadn't. "It doesn't matter," she whispered, holding up the pistol still clutched in her hand. "One is all we need."

While there was no denying the truth of this, she quailed at the thought of bearing sole responsibility for what may need to be done. "Here, you take it. Take it, Nick—please."

"Easy," cautioned Zima. "Easy. They're approximately thirty feet from you, moving towards the picture windows on the east side. Judging by their manner, I suspect they know you're coming, so be prepared. We have to assume the man is a professional, and even the girl has shown she is willing to engage, if pressed. My recommendation is for no surprises—their responses are simply too unpredictable to try an ambush. Let them know you're there, let them know they're trapped, and let them know surrender is their only option.

"No surprises, no shooting and no macho fignya...no bullshit. If need be, simply corner them and wait for reinforcements. I have more people on the way.

"Okay, Diaz—time to shine. Get your ass out there and let 'em know we're here."

Lingering well behind the other two men, hugging the shadows and every scrap of cover he could find, Diaz audibly gasped. "Wh-wh-what?"

Higgs' grin gleamed in the half-light. "You heard the lady, dipshit. No macho stuff. Sounds like a job made for you. We need them to surrender and they can't do that without someone to surrender to, can they? So, real slow and real careful, with your hands in plain sight, so they know you're not packing, walk out there into the open and talk 'em into, you know...surrendering. Negotiate with them. Don't worry, we've got your back."

"No way. Why the hell can't we n-negotiate from here?"

Torres looked back from the potted fern he was crouched behind. "Because they need a face, Diaz. Negotiating 101—give the unsuspecting bastards you're talking to a face. You know, to build trust, before you take the pricks down. Now, get out there, you pussy."

"Yeah, but—"

The gleam of Higgs' grin was joined by that of his gun. "That wasn't a suggestion."

Nick looked at the gun, but made no move to take it. "I'm g-g-good, thanks."

Mica fought down her frustration. If Nick wasn't prepared to help her, then she would simply have to do it herself, when...if the need arose. Perhaps it was safer that way, given his behaviour was becoming a little erratic. Unbidden, the memory of how he had come into her life popped into her head. Well, more erratic, anyway.

"Okay," she replied, sensing the darkening in his mood. "Look, let's just try to find a way—"

"Hey, listen up!"

At the sound of the shout, shocking in the silence, they both froze—but only for a moment. Quicker to recover, Mica scuttled behind a nearby sculpture, dragging Nick with her. Peering around its base, she made out a shadowy figure, standing in the open with its arms raised.

"We ain't gonna hurt you, okay? We just wanna talk, is all. We don't want no trouble. So, why don't you two just drop your guns and come out where we can see you? You got nowhere left to run."

"Diaz," she whispered. There was no mistaking the nasal tones. "Do you think it's just him?"

Nick didn't reply. They both knew the answer to that question. Nothing in the Syndicate's actions so far this night indicated they were quite that stupid.

"We got multiple guys here," went on Diaz, as though on cue, "and more on the way. There's no way out, so how's about you make this easy for all of us and just give up, nice and quiet?"

"Sh-shoot him," said Nick.

Mica drew in a sharp breath. "What did you say?"

"Shoot him," inner Nick wanted to say. "Shoot him because they think we won't. Shoot him because he's an asshole. Shoot him because we'd be doing the world a favour. But most of all, shoot him because it would be a big fat fuck you to these smug Syndicate bastards who think they hold all the cards, for the very good but extraordinarily irritating reason that they bloody well do. Shoot him because we got to within ten feet and a pane of glass from freedom and that pisses me off. Shoot him because why the hell not. It's not like any of it matters, anyway."

"N-n-never mind," said real Nick.

"Last chance," called Diaz. "Last chance to make it easy on yourselves. Come out, or we're gonna have to come get you."

Glancing at Mica, Nick was startled to see tears glistening in her eyes. Once again, she held out the gun.

"P-please, Nick. Please help me. I don't think I can do it. Please."

For a moment longer he looked at her—and then snatched the gun from her grasp.

"You want to die?" snapped inner Nick. "You really wanna die? Fine. But if you're gonna chicken out and make me do all the dirty work, then we're doing it my way. We're going out with dignity. We're going out with style. And we're gonna go out chasing the title. So, shut up, buckle in and hold on to your ass."

And as for real Nick? Real Nick hefted the gun, winked at Mica and said, "F-f-follow me," before sprinting at the nearest window, emptying the gun into it as he went, and leaping headlong through the crazed pane, shattering it into a million tumbling shards, shimmering yellow and gold in the city light.