Crash and Burn (1)

always anticipate another move, lacey

**DID YOU GUYS MISS ME?

BUT ALSO, HOLY SHIT, guys, I literally met the real life Soren Calloway today on a train in Queens...and I think I fell in love. He was speaking to me in this crazy, muddled, amazing Spanish and I was just sitting there, babbling back in broken Spanglish and wondering if he'd ever murdered someone 😭

♚ ♛

ACT TWO

June 20th, 2018

New York Times

Late on the night of June 17th, 2018, the skyline of the city was adorned with flames.

The fire that dominated much of the South Bronx with ash and smoke on the mid-summer night has finally, after two days of a fighting effort from the NYFD, been put out.

Though no one was hurt in the fire that spanned along an entire block of the seemingly abandoned apartments on well-known Commerce Avenue, officials have released a statement that they believe the fire was set intentionally.

They have no leads at the moment, but the NYPD is more concerned with what was left behind in the building. What was uncovered by the fire not only startled the residents in nearby neighborhoods but made this neighborhood a hot spot for many detectives statewide.

When the fire went out, it left behind the scar of what could prove to unveil one of the largest human trafficking rings that the Bronx has ever seen.

New York City is no stranger to trafficking, though it reigns silently in the city that never sleeps. Last year alone, the NYPD rescued at least one person a week from the hands of sex slavery and successfully busted 223 pimps while working sex trafficking cases. Yet, that barely scrapes the surface of the what is considered one of New York City's dirtiest secrets.

From this location alone...

I shoved the newspaper back on the stand roughly and pulled my hood tighter around my head. A soft drizzle fell around us, but Soren seemed unaffected.

Staring at the article with an intensity so strong that I thought he'd burn a hole in it, he didn't even pay attention to me.

"It's been three days, Soren."

A long moment passed before he finally slammed it back onto the shelf and looked at me. "I know. He's planning something."

"And we're not planning anything," I muttered bitterly. "We can't just wait him out."

I'd thought that with the fire, Seth would be even hotter on our heels than before, but instead, it had gone radio silent for three days. No one had approached Soren and I.

I was growing anxious at the thought of Seth finding us. We weren't supposed to be running anymore.

We'd spent the past three paranoid days sleeping in the darkest corners of Port Authority and living on public transportation, trying to outrun people that probably weren't even chasing us.

I'd been too afraid to stay in one place, but I could tell from the slight bags under Soren's eyes that it was taking a toll on him. "We're not going to wait for him, Lacey. Because I know what he's doing."

Well, this was news. "What?" I hissed, angry that he hadn't told me anything.

Soren leaned back into the building, and as his figure tucked neatly into the corner of the stand, he blinked innocently. "Exactly what I did for two years."