"Get out."

For just a moment, the man Zima had tasked to monitor the security screens in her absence looked as though he might object to her peremptory tone—but then saw her expression.

"Yes, ma'am." Eyes downcast, he hurried from the room.

Taking a seat, she muttered a curse as she glanced up at the dozens of scenes arrayed before her—not one of which showed any trace of the fugitives. Cameras in the stairwell were just the latest addition to the ever-growing list of changes she would make at the first opportunity. That, and a polite but firm recommendation to her employer that in future he might like to refrain from keeping his playthings at the office. When it came to the Syndicate, the stakes were far too high for business to risk being compromised by pleasure.

She had suppressed the fierce satisfaction her implied—but so far, unspoken—promotion to head of security had engendered, all too aware this night's work was only half done. Removing her oaf of a predecessor was all well and good, but the task of making amends for his failures now fell onto her toned and capable shoulders.

And make amends she would. She had men in the stairwell and every exit was monitored. The girl and the mystery man had proven remarkably slippery, but the net around them was tightening fast.

Very soon now—within minutes—they would be hers.

Blinking in the bright, fluorescent light of the stairwell, dazzling after the gloom of the cupboard, Mica couldn't prevent a sharp intake of breath at the sight of Nick's battered face. She hoped it looked worse than it felt.

The puffy lips managed a grin. "That b-b-bad, huh?"

"What? Um, no. You look...fine."

He would have cocked an eyebrow, if he wasn't convinced it would hurt. "Really?"

"Well...no. You look terrible. Oh Nick, you poor thing. Are you sure you can manage all these stairs?"

He wasn't sure of any such thing. He had some experience with beatings, but while his previous assailants may have shared Hugo's enthusiasm, he suspected none had his brutal strength. Given their lack of alternatives, however, he couldn't see much point in sharing his doubts.

"I'll b-be fine. B-b-besides—you should see the other g-g-guy."

She stared at him for a moment, before shaking her head. "You know, I still haven't figured out whether you're a good man—or just a crazy one."

Lady, you don't know the half of it, he refrained from saying. Mica was hardly the first person to face that dilemma. To try to figure out which box to put him in. Being labelled was a familiar—and unwelcome—experience.

For all that this city, this place he'd tried to call home, couldn't care less whether he lived or died, for all that a good proportion of its population wouldn't spit on him if he was on fire, for all that he was a complete and utter nobody, the tiniest, most microscopic of plankton in an ocean-sized pond, that was actually part of its appeal.

The reason being, people who didn't care didn't judge. In the city, Nick could screw up something as simple as ordering a coffee, slinking away red-faced and sans coffee, clutching instead the gross bran muffin he'd purchased because it was on the counter and could be pointed at, and it didn't matter all that much. Well, other than the bran muffin thing.

Because while the person behind the counter might think him a stammering idiot, some other idiot would soon be along to make them forget all about Nick. And even if there wasn't, there were plenty of other coffee shops for him to screw up in. He should know, he'd been in a few.

And, just as importantly, the person behind the counter wouldn't have already cast judgement. Wouldn't turn to their co-worker after Nick left and say, "That was the Devine boy. Did you hear about what happened?"

Anonymity—the refuge of the odd ones out, the misfits and the socially inept. The pariahs. Hiding in plain sight. Just one of the benefits he was looking for when he came to the city.

But he had neither the time nor the inclination to explain any of that to Mica. Instead, he just turned towards the stairs and went with, "When you f-figure it out, let m-me know."

He was all too aware that despite their surprising success in so far thwarting their pursuers, he and Mica were still trapped inside a building with an unknown number of ruthless and now somewhat annoyed criminals, all of whom wanted them caught or dead or quite likely both. This night was far from over.

He took a deep breath. "Ready?"

"Don't forget, they got guns."

Poised at the top of the stairwell on the penthouse level, Diaz's colleagues exchanged a look, before each pulling back a lapel of their jackets.

The smaller man's eyes bulged. "What the fuck? You guys got Uzis? Where's mine?"

"Oh, please." Higgs rolled his eyes. "The real guns are for the grownups, you pussy. Quit your bitching and come on. These pricks aren't gonna catch themselves."

Despite their bravado, the two men's passage down each flight of stairs—with a pale-faced and sweating Diaz trailing in their wake—displayed both their awareness of the risks involved in this hunt and their skilled approach to dealing with them. Neither moved without the cover of the other as they tag-teamed their way down each level, the vicious, stubby barrels of their compact weapons in constant motion, covering angles, anticipating ambushes, seeking targets

But finding none. And as the number of levels left to clear dwindled, with Zima reporting no sign of the fugitives exiting the stairwell, their caution increased even further. While they had their prey outgunned, the three hunters knew one bullet was all it would take to spoil their evening.

They were not about to let that happen.

"Level two!" barked Zima, eyes darting to the telltale flicker of movement on one of the silent screens. "They've exited onto the second story. Stairwell team, get yourselves down to that floor and secure the door. Move, move, move!"

Trapped. She allowed herself a grim little smile of satisfaction. With all lifts now deactivated at her orders and the stairwell soon to be off limits, the fugitives were trapped. Contained.

Catchable.

And—it went without saying—killable. But such was not her wish. While there would be a certain satisfaction to the act, not to mention a pleasing finality, such a solution also smacked of crudity. Of desperation. It reeked of the old ways—Hugo's ways.

No, what this situation demanded was a little finesse—something that foolish thug had been incapable of. While killing their visitor may solve some immediate problems, it would reveal nothing of who had sent him, or their motivation in doing so.

She wanted the fugitives taken alive. The girl to face whatever salacious fate Jaime Salazar had in mind for her, and the man to be interrogated. To be stripped of every last iota of useful information he possessed.

Then, and only then—provided he survived that long—would she kill him.

Utterly drained, Nick was too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other to properly assess the merits of Mica's plan—but as far as his aching brain could tell, it seemed more or less sound.

Well, perhaps 'sound' was a bit of a stretch. 'Not completely ludicrous' was more like it, but in the circumstances, he figured that was about as good as they were going to get.

To the best of his indistinct recollection, her reasoning had been thus:

1.) Any floors with exits to the outside world would likely be guarded.

b.) Hiding out in the building until some non-Syndicate people turned up to save them was probably a bust, due to both the presumed presence of security cameras on every floor and the inconvenient fact it was a Friday night, meaning most likely nobody would be coming in until Monday morning.

3.) The second floor might just be close enough to the ground to provide them with some means of climbing down to street level, thereby allowing them to bypass the aforementioned guards.

5.) Given Nick's head had been smashed several times with a large fist, he was unlikely to be in a position to come up with a better plan.

He found he concurred and—in confirmation of point 5—had nothing to add. He was feeling a little sore and a lot fuzzy and after the ordeal of descending hundreds of stairs while saddled with a debatable sense of balance, he was content to let Mica take the lead for the moment.

From a few paces ahead, she shot him a concerned glance. She was relieved Nick had managed the stairs without too much trouble, but there was a glazed look to his eyes which suggested that while the lights were on, she wasn't sure anybody was home.

"Come on. We need to find a window, or a balcony or something. And we need to do it quickly. They're probably watching us right now." She stopped walking. "What are you doing?"

"Waving," replied Nick. And—somewhat to his surprise—he discovered he was.

"What?" she hissed. "Do you want them to see us? Stop it, right now."

He frowned up at the offending hand, and then folded down all of its fingers but for the middle one. "How about if I d-d-do it l-like this?"

Grabbing him by the wrist, she dragged down his arm. "Nick, please—you've got to pull yourself together. I need you to focus. I can't do this without you."

Blinking owlishly, he stared at her, as the desperation in her features cleared away a little of the fog. "Sorry. Not really thinking st-st-straight, at the moment.

"That's okay," she replied, maintaining her hold on his arm. "Given the beating you got, I'm just glad you can think at all." With a gentle squeeze of his wrist, she looked up into the semi-dazed and blackening eyes. She didn't know if it was concussion or fatigue or stress or quite likely some heady cocktail of all three, but this strange young man seemed to be drifting away. She couldn't let that happen.

"Look, Nick—I don't know what strange twist of fate brought you into my life. I don't know how you really wound up in that pool, and"—she held up a hand to forestall his protestations—"I don't need to know. I don't want to know, although I think I can probably guess. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you did come into my life, and for that I'm more grateful than you can possibly know. Without you, I wouldn't have gotten out of that penthouse. I wouldn't have made it past Hugo. I would never have escaped from those two in the fitness centre. And without you, I wouldn't have gotten away from Hugo the second time, either."

Shaking his head in instinctive denial, he forced himself to focus. "Mica, d-d-do you know what I d-did? I d-dropped a chair. I threw a phone. I k-kicked a guy in the n-n-nuts. And then I g-g-got the...hell b-beaten out of me. I'm no k-k-kind of hero. B-besides, Hugo would've k-killed me, if you hadn't d-done what you d-did. You saved me, t-t-t-too."

She nodded. "Yes, I did. Which just shows what a good team we make. We've come a long way, Nick, but we need to go a little further yet." She slid her hand into his. "After what you've been through, after all that you've done, I know it isn't fair of me to ask for more, but I don't have a choice. I still need your help to get out of here. I need you to keep it together. Can you do that for me? You're my only hope."

He smiled. "Obi-wan K-kenobi?"

"What?"

"Nothing, sorry." He gave her hand a return squeeze. "I'll b-be g-g-good, I p-promise. Now, let's—"

He was interrupted by the creak of the stairwell door opening, quiet but distinct in the hushed stillness of the night.

"Non-lethal force," commanded Zima. "I want them alive. You are only to fire your weapons as a last resort. Diaz, you secure the doorway, while the others collect our guests."

Having recruited them herself, she had no doubts as to the combat skill of the two men she could now see making their cautious way out into the open atrium that made up the bulk of the second floor—she only wished she'd had more time to take the measure of their intellect and character. Chasing armed prey in the night-time half-light, it would be all too easy for a machine-gun wielding man to shoot first and worry about questions later.

Still, as demonstrated by their steady progress out onto the floor, flitting from one patch of meagre cover to another, these two were well trained (and paid) professionals, who knew their business. And they were up against a frightened girl, and a man who'd just had the shit beaten out of him. There was only one way this should go down.

However, given the night had already contained more than its fair share of surprises, she'd be a damned sight happier once it did.