🔍 Silver Tongue (Slow Updates) 🔎

Escape!!!!...Two Blocks That Way

Escaping a joint task force is a lot easier than it sounds. You'd think with all those resources, it would be a breeze securing a normal person like me. I guess that's what made the plan work. I'd always done what I'd been told and had settled into a routine. They still had a directive to keep an eye on me, but I guess they couldn't justify certain costs – like prescreening my letter mail - when all I'd done for the last ten years was a shitload of nothing.

You know, I'd kinda resigned myself to the way things were. The lack of a social life was only partially my brother's fault. Boys had never looked at me the way girls looked at Ivan and that trend had grown into adulthood. When Ivan first became Silver Tongue, the attention was nice, but now I can't remember the last date that didn't end in something like "I'll **** your **** if you get me five minutes with your brother."

You'd be surprised at how fast a dark, brooding, Ivy League billionaire who saves little kids in Africa can get unattractive.

Anyway, the plan to escape rested on two things: waiting and common decency.

The common decency part came in first. I had to go to the bathroom. You see, those FISA warrants didn't allow you to spy on people on the toilet or in the shower. One couldn't really justify to a federal judge why they felt it necessary to watch Emily relieving herself after a night of drinking.

I was even more determined to leave now. I'd always suspected, but knowing they'd been spying on me made me feel gross all over.

At least they didn't watch me pee.

While they didn't look inside, they weren't morons. According to the letter, the task force was patched into my personal security system. I had it installed with cameras right outside the bathroom window after I'd caught a neighbor kid watching me shower. That's one of the better aspects of being Silver Tongue's little sister. I get no shortage of admirers.

That's what my mysterious benefactor was counting on.

At seven-thirteen pm, after the second shift guard finished his last pass of my duplex, the cameras outside of my window would enter a time loop, giving me nearly fifteen minutes to squeeze through the window and hightail it to the metro in my jammies. And I mean haul ass. I specifically needed to catch the seven twenty-eight red line train into Maryland.

That was the other thing. I couldn't dress for early evening skulking. I had to be normal. And normal for me on a Thursday night was braless in my PJs, popcorn and old Jackie Chan movies. You know the good ones, before he started trying to be a comedian.

And if I managed to get there, I had to hope that the red line train was on time. I mean for hacker masterminds, they didn't seem to understand that the trains in Washington, D.C. are almost never on time.

I looked at the clock above my bathroom doorway and hesitated. It said seven eleven pm, but was that really the time? I mean was the note written on actual time or assuming the irregularity of my old ass clock?

My heart thudded in my chest and the bathroom seemed smaller than ever before. Suffocating.

Do I really have this in me?

I mean, the note could have been complete garbage. I shoved my hand into my pockets, ready to return to my bedroom, when I felt the edge of the photo.

I'd forgotten I'd shoved it into my pocket.

I pulled it out and took one more look at our perfect family: my grinning face and my brother doing his best to pretend he wasn't having fun.

His hand latched onto mine.

I shook my head. "You fucking owe me, Ivan," I said to myself, turning around and pulling myself up on the edge of the bathtub, sliding the window pane to the right and pulling myself on the sill.

The window frame scratching against my girls made me reconsider going braless ever again in my life, but at least I could get my top half through. However, as it hit my midsection, I got stuck. I closed my eyes and sucked in as much as possible, trying to pry myself through. It scraped at my sides and ripped at the fabric of my Deadpool jammies, but I could feel myself inching through, bit by bit. After one last heave, my butt came free and I ungracefully fell to the grass with a thud. I just knew that someone would peek their head around the corner and scream out "the jig is up." Whatever a jig was.

I opened my eyes, dusting off the sides of my clothes, then I froze. The creepy neighbor kid, the reason I'd gotten the security system in the first place, was standing there, mouth breathing with his hand on his crotch.

I resisted the urge to punch him in the face.

Instead, I put my finger to my lips, regretting it immediately. Maybe he knew what was going on and maybe he didn't, but given my situation, now he knew I was probably doing something I wasn't supposed to. He smirked, then pulled his hands across his chest like he was opening a shirt. I flipped off the little shit and sprinted through the backyard I'd shared with the neighborhood behind me. It was the first time I'd ever been thankful for the crappy insulation in my house that required me to wear sneakers indoors to keep from catching pneumonia.

Once I hit the sidewalk, I knew the worst part was over. Either I'd look homeless or like an eccentric runner, but I doubted anyone would believe me to be a kind-of-escaped convict.

The brisk air of fall in Washington chilled me as I ran past the mom and pop stores scattered in between the duplexes and small-scale apartments. I had to stop several times and take a breath, wishing I'd cared more about staying fit. And of course, I couldn't take the metro closest to my house; I had to catch the one two blocks away. And let me tell you, two blocks in D.C. is half a mile in most places.

When I reached the red line metro, I cursed to myself, wishing I had thought to grab my wallet. I walked up to the turnstile, trying to gauge whether the guy in the information booth would care if I jumped it. He was chatting with a customer, so I grabbed the edges and propelled myself over the bars. I was pretty proud of myself that I was able to clear it without falling on my face.

Then I kept my head down and kept forward.

"You're just going to have to pay more to get out," the clerk said, as I headed for the escalator.

I nodded contritely, but if he didn't care, neither did I. I'd worry about getting out when the time came. As the stairs carried me to the bottom, the platform was so deserted that I feared I hadn't made the seven twenty-eight. Then it arrived, all six cars looking two decades past their prime.

I'd never been so happy to see it.

I darted inside, at sat in the first open seat I could find. I didn't know what to expect at the end of all this, but one thing was clear: there was no turning back.