Shit, he’s fast. Nobody can keep up with me, but somehow he is.
A wry grin pulls at my mouth and I shake my head to clear it. I haven’t been tested like this in a long time.
Flipping him the bird, I set off over the roof, jump the square metal top of a vent and make it to the service door that’s been broken for a year. A swift kick to the bottom corner sends it flying back, and I take the steps down two at a time to the second floor. The building is abandoned, the walls covered in graffiti, and there’s a stench of piss along with the pungent sage scent of marijuana. I don’t look down on the people who sleep here, they have a right to live just like everyone else, but I don’t fear them either. They’re my people, in a way.
At the end of the dim corridor, a tarp hung over the hole where a window used to be flaps in the breeze, and I don’t hesitate before ducking as I haul myself through, pushing off to leap for the long branch of the tree that’s been growing in the scrubland across the alley for as long as I can remember. Swinging from it down to the top of a chain-link fence, I’m pretty sure I must have lost Valiant by now. No way could he know where I went once I disappeared inside this building. My heart skips a beat at that thought, that I’ve just run away from the only man I ever loved, that I may never see him again, and I glance behind.
Just in time to see dark hair passing the alley, heading north on Dexter as he casts aside the jacket of that five-thousand dollar suit.
***
Val
I lost sight of her.
I have no idea where she is or where she’s going.
Except I do.
She might think I forgot her while I was inside, but nothing could be further from the truth. She said her sister was with a friend, and that her friend’s mom would be wondering where she was. That means most likely she’s at the friend’s house. Scamp took off heading north, and I spotted her jumping across the rooftop in that direction, flipping me off as she went towards Dexter Ave. and from there? Livernois, obviously. Or somewhere close by to their house. Where else is her sister going to have friends?
I just have to hope I can spot Scamp again before she gets there.
These days, most of my exercise is taken in the gym, and if there’s one thing running on a treadmill doesn’t prepare you for it’s these cracked and broken streets. But once upon a time I was a courier for her father, and my legs are starting to remember how to make fast progress.
As I pass, people watch me suspiciously from the doorways of houses, but they don’t try to intervene. Anyone running like I am around here is usually trying to get away from danger, or heading into it. Either way, if it’s not your problem you don’t get involved.
I discarded my suit jacket a while ago and I’m aware that it’s gone for good. Someone else will pick it up. I don’t care. It was slowing me down, restricting the movement of my arms as I tried to sprint, and I couldn’t have that. I won’t let her get away from me, not again.
I promised I wasn’t going to leave her and I meant it. She needs me, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what was going on inside the casino, or in the alley afterwards. She’s selling drugs, which means she’s working for her father. After all this time, to find that out breaks my heart. I tried to protect her from me, thinking that was for the best, but now I know it was the last thing she needed. Perhaps if I’d been there, I could have protected her from the real danger: the man who gave her life and apparently doesn’t care if it’s taken away.
As I run, a small figure, shining bright under the streetlights, darts across the road a couple of blocks ahead. For a second, I glimpse her face as she glances my way, then she jumps, clattering into the side of a wooden fence and nimbly leaps over it.
A little grin creases my lips. I know I’m on the right track. She’s heading west, taking a direct route across the overgrown empty land that makes up the majority of the space out here.
Well, I might not be agile enough to follow her, but I can cut her off.
***
Scamp
I glance back down the street as I wait on the porch, half hoping to see him running my way, but there’s nothing. Just silence. He kept up well, I should find him and tell him he can take me to dinner. I want to find him. No, that’s not quite true. I want him to find me. I want him to claim his prize.