The Thief and the Globetrotter

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Escape

His wrists rolled over the metal until he could get the ring in his teeth again. It had to be enough. The chain, the friction of pulling the plastic zip ties back and forth across it, had to be enough. It felt like he repeated the process over and over before the plastic yielded. It snapped, falling to the floor of the trunk.

Yes.

The small victory was worth celebrating, though the celebration was limited to a quiet moment laid out as wide as he could be, wiggling sensation back into his fingers. He spat the ring out again, hyper aware of the weight of it against his collar bone. Family legacy was good for something.

The music continued blaring, humming at the edge of comprehension. Louder, surely, on the outside. It was meant to drown him out. It was time to test that.

Baz squared himself up, bracing his shoulders against the rear of the trunk. A hard kick upward hadn't drawn attention. A hard kick into the back a seat offered give. He could feel the flex in it. One... two... three... He slammed his feet against the rear of the seat.

The force reverberated up his heels, rattling his bones. No one came knocking on the trunk. No one jacked the music higher to drown him out.

Four...five...six...seven. It gave, plastic crunching. Cars weren't made to contain people. They weren't foolproof containment facilities and Baz just folded down the seat of his.

He rolled out, back into the back seat so recently turned into a makeshift negotiation room. It was roomier without the crowd, desolate when empty. Through the tinted windows, there was only the bland exterior walls of an alleyway... and the driver, cell phone pressed to his ears.

Music thumped. Under it, the engine still purred. For a quick getaway?

Hell yes.

A shutter separated passengers from drivers, but a little flexibility let Baz slip through the window, albeit awkwardly, while the driver paced through his phone conversation outside. The windows were tinted. What was there to see?

Baz tumbled into the driver's seat, somersaulting through the tiny shutter. He braced himself, elbow striking the horn.

He froze, turning to the window where the bewildered driver stared back at him, still holding his phone. Both moved, lunging for opposite sides of the door. The lock clicked, then exterior handle yanked. Baz was faster.

The door didn't open.

Baz couldn't help but grin. Underestimated again. Maybe Jasper would have another opportunity to be smarter, to not consider locking up the thief he hired specifically for resourcefulness, athleticism, and improvisation.

He turned to the steering wheel, adrenaline screeching to a halt as one small wrench fell into the cogs of the machine.

Right. He couldn't drive. Temperance was so bike friendly. Cars were expensive. Insurance was worse. . Why hadn't he learned to drive again? Something so silly as being terrified and too intimidated by his father?

The driver pounded a fist against the window and Baz flinched. In a moment, he'd call for help and Cheng and the gang would come rushing out again and perhaps this time around, Cheng wouldn't be quite so polite and might let Jasper shoot Baz.

Baz fumbled for the gear shift. Pulling it out of park as he shifted into a better position in the driver's seat. He pressed the gas, lunging the car forward and sending the driver sprawling. In the side mirror, it didn't look like Baz did the man any damage so much as surprised him.

The car lunged for the end of the alley, slamming to a halt when Baz hammered on the brakes. It would be a very short getaway if he managed to get t-boned getting out of the alley, but no one was coming and Baz spun the steering wheel hard. Of all the things he could end up in, it had to be a limo.

It felt a lot like abandoning Rei, but the alternative was bursting into the bank and what purpose would that serve either of them? Cheng had culled the suggestion to shoot Baz, but would that decision hold up? It was too risky to to return to his own apartment. Baz wouldn't dream of leading Sundial back to Diego's once again.

There was the museum, though... What chance was there that Rei had time to make it to the museum before she headed to the hospital? Whatever business she had at the museum was still business she needed to take care of.

Having a destination did not solve all immediate problems. There was the issue of getting to the museum. Baz changed lanes, remembering too late to reach for the signal just to end up turning on the windshield wipers instead.

He'd been to the museum enough times to know roughly where he was going, but roads didn't 100% line up with the bike lanes and bus routes Baz was familiar with. A left at 10th ave? Centerpoint only had a handful of traffic lights and Baz had never turned left at any of the ones that crossed lanes of traffic.

After the ridiculous week of breaking into houses and drinking wine with a supermodel, he was going to end up dying trying to make a left hand turn in a limousine. That was the headline his parents would have to read: Local thief and kidnapper brought to justice by hybrid car in traffic accident. That would be his legacy. How would he survive the event? As it was, his body was so tense that hitting a pothole risked breaking his wrists.

No sirens came blaring after him. Not yet. How much time left before they did?

Baz flinched as another car horn blasted at him, but was better than a collision. Why couldn't there be a flashing signal light that meant 'I don't actually have a driver's license and took all my driving lessons in a small town'?

To be fair, it would probably be very impractical to advertise the illegality of what he was doing. Go figure. Driving without a license was the most terrifying of the illegal activities he partook in.

He followed the signs directing him toward the bridge. Over the bridge, follow the line of the waterfront. It would be fine. He was doing fine. After the first lane change, he figured out the signal and fewer cars honked at him. It was unavoidable. Even with the helpful turn signal warning he flashed other drivers, Baz still routinely forgot the car was as long as it was, longer than his dad's pick-up truck driving through the thinly populated streets in Iowa.

The Temperance Museum of History, being the tourist attraction the city hoped it to be, had plenty of very helpful signs telling Baz which lanes to take, which off-ramps to give himself heart attacks over.

The parking lot was vast and mostly empty, but the limo was too long for most spots. Bus parking? Yes, that would do the trick. Baz spun the wheel, navigating the hard corners of the lot. He angled into a spot, inch in into it until his foot slipped, plunging the nose of the car into the concrete base of a light pole. Metal crunched, the hood jutting up in a crumpled mess in front of the windshield. Baz froze.

Well... it was just the front end. Really, the damage could've been a lot worse. How much did it cost to get that kind of bodywork done?

Baz shook his head. What did it actually matter? Apparently, Rei had easily traded away shares worth millions just to free Baz from blackmail. In the time it took him to take the thing for a joyride, the stock market had probably fluctuated Cheng's net worth more than the cost of the whole limousine.

It made Baz's head spin, thinking of that kind of money.

That, or he'd given himself a bit of whiplash.

Leaving the keys in the ignition, Baz left the car, dusting himself off as he did.

The museum loomed over him, it's graceful landscaping surrounding it. Sunlight glinted off the windows, the kind that let sun in and out, but left no option to let in the breeze. There were ventilation ducts and all of that... How to get in?

Baz patted his pockets as he walked. The answer was an obvious one, painful only in the way that it wasn't the first thing to come to mind anymore. He dug a handful of cash out of his pocket, the kind of emergency cash meant for cab rides or street buskers. He could just... pay his way in, just like any normal, average person. At what specific moment had he become the kind of person whose first instinct was to enter through a window?

Maybe he could really be a normal, average person again.

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A/N: A sidenote, at this point, like what percentage of Baz's body is bruise.