My heart was in my throat, blood rushing loudly past my ears. My chest burned, my calves cramped. We made it a good five or six blocks before taking a sharp right corner, hiding behind a massive concrete building. Wally bent forward, hands on his knees as he panted harshly.
“What the hell was that?” he wheezed.
“We were being followed!”
Wally looked incredulous. “Bywho, Viv? No one’s even here. What’s gotten into you?”
I turned. The man was nowhere in sight. We either lost him or…Or he wasn’t following us in the first place.
“I could have sworn that he…” I took a deep breath.
Wally put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re being paranoid, Vivian. No one’s after you, alright? Whatever you’re going through, I promise to help, but you’re totally safe. Do you understand?”
My mind swirled. None of this made any sense. Maybe Wally was right. Was I losing it?
I nodded slowly. “Okay,” I whispered. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
“Let me walk you home. Come on.”
A storm was brewing in my chest. My stomach churned, threatening to make me ill. Maybe what Arty and Alistair told me was true. Maybe Molly really had been transferred. It just didn’t make sense that she wouldn’t tell me, or that she would ignore my texts. Did our friendship really mean so little? The thought stung more than I wanted it to.
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal explanation,” Wally said as we walked back the way we came. “Let’s stop by Molly’s apartment, hm? Did you think to check in on her in person?”
“I… No. I didn’t.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine. She probably just lost her phone or something. You know how forgetful she can be.”
“That’s true.”
We took another few steps but stopped short when a man halted in front of us. He came out of nowhere, silent like a shadow. There was nothing particularly memorable about his features. If I were tasked to pick him out of a lineup, I wouldn’t be able to do it. The one thing thatdidstand out was the snake tattooed on the side of his neck. It curled around the front of his throat, slithering all the way behind and circling back like an ink noose. Most notable of all were the deep crimson of the animal’s eyes.
He loomed over Wally and me, staring down his nose at us. “Vivian Jones?” he asked, voice low and gravelly.
I shook my head, taking Wally’s hand to try and go around. “Sorry. You’ve got the wrong person.”
“She’s lying,” came another man’s voice.
I turned and saw the man from the coffee house. He somehow got behind us. Now that I got a closer look, he also had a snake tattoo wrapped around his neck. Was this some sort of gang symbol?
It was then and only then that I realized Wally and I were standing next to a big white van next to the curb. It’s side door slid open. A third and final man appeared, approaching with an alarming amount of speed. He was trying to shove us inside.
I whipped my messenger bag at him, smacking him across the side of the head with enough force to knock our attacker off kilter. I kicked his knee with all my might and watched him tumble to the ground.
“Run!” I shouted at Wally.
This time, I didn’t hear a lick of protest.
I hit my second wind, dodging other pedestrians on the sidewalk as we evaded our assailants. They were hot on our tail. No matter how many turns we took, no matter how fast we ran, they continued their pursuit. Considering they were willing to make such a scene in public, I knew I was in bigger trouble than I’d originally thought.
“What the hell’s going on?” Wally demanded. “Who are these people?”
“Less talking, more running!” I snapped. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the ascending stairs that led to the train. “This way!” I shouted at Wally.
We shoved past people trying to get through the ticket stall.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I said, mostly to myself in a panic.
The train was seconds away from leaving. Wally and I practically tripped into the last car as the doors slid closed, sealing us in and separating us from the platform. The men with the snake tattoos came up right to the door, one of them pounding the glass window in frustration. The train pulled away with an electric screech.