I held my breath until my lungs burned in case the others magically heard the nearly silent hiss of air releasing out of my nostrils.
The two men, and the lone woman that accompanied them, were so caught up in their own hushed discussion, so certain in the unbreachability of their private chamber, that I slipped initially beneath their notice and they walked right past my hideaway, unawares. Slowly, so slowly, my eyes never straying from their backs, I brought one hand to my neck and pulled up my hood over my head. With any luck, it would provide temporary anonymity at first glance. Then, as quietly as possible, I stuffed my pilfered papers under my shirt, tucking them snugly into my waistband to provide additional support.
A smart person would have cut their losses and discarded them. Left them behind, lest they be later discovered on my person and used against me. For better or for worse, I did not count myself amongst the privileged ranks of those with a functioning brain. If I had any such faculties, I wouldn't have found myself in that mess in the first place.
The three in knee length Elder robes stopped in the doorway to the Constable's office. I tried to eavesdrop, but struggled to hear anything over the pounding against my eardrums, an echo of my thundering heart. One shift of their collective gazes and I'd be directly in sight. My meager cover covered so very little.
The instant I took my first step out of my hiding place, it hit me that I would never make it safely across the room undetected. I had hesitated too long in that spot, or not long enough, and they would see my flurry of movement out of the corners of their eyes, but by that point I was already visible and had no choice except to simply cut my losses and go for it. Run. Run, and hope for the best. Run, and keep on running, because I had no good explanations for my presence, and when they eventually searched me, they would find confidential files that I had no business touching.
"Wait!" The voice, the Constable's voice, rang with authority. "Who is that? Who are you to be up here? I command you to stop and reveal yourself!"
Respectfully, no.
I kicked out the leg of a nearby table into their path as I hurtled by. They sprang into action, crashes sounding against my back in that cluttered room as they prioritized making chase over avoiding the obstacles that separated us.
I rounded the winding set of stairs with enough speed to whip the hood off my head, scrapes pebbling my palms where the harsh stone bit into them as I chose to propel myself off of the walls at each turn instead of sacrificing valuable speed by slowing enough to change direction. The scratches mended almost instantly, though a phantom of pain lingered. While still out of view from my pursuers, I ripped my hoody over my head and tossed it down one of the adjoining corridors. Perhaps without it they wouldn't know who to look for. A vain hope, but I clung to it, even as I detected the chlorine smell of ozone, followed by a weak jolt of lightning channeled through the floor. Good thing stone was a poor conductor of electricity, or else it would probably have had me seizing face down on the floor.
Gathering momentum, I leapt to the bottom of the next set of stairs straight from the landing. My leg gave, and I dropped to one knee at the base with a painful crack that had me hissing in a sharp breath. No matter. It would heal. I always healed.
If I could count on nothing else in my life, I could count on that.
No doubt looking disheveled with papers shoved under my loose fitting shirt - black, since that was the color one generally wore to commit crimes - I barreled into the dinning room to scattered disapproving stares. The meal hadn't started yet, evidently, because only roughly a quarter of the chairs were filled, a dozen more people mingling around them, and more laughter echoing from down the stairs towards the first floor below. I locked in immediately on Leigh's father and brother across the room humoring an elderly woman with rings adorning nearly every boney finger. I made for them, only to be intercepted by a man in a suit of gold and Guild gray, a blinding smile beaming at me below his half-mask.
"I knew you'd come!" Tempest exclaimed.
"Not now, Ezra," I rushed out, forgetting to keep his identity to myself in the heat of the moment, and I shoved roughly past him.
In a matter of moments, he'd be receiving an alert to apprehend someone matching my physical description and wearing my discarded hoody. When he did, I didn't want to be anywhere near him or his Super comrades. In a choice between the Guild he loyally served or me, I couldn't be sure I would come out on top. Even if he miraculously chose our years of friendship, the seconds of indecision it would take for him to finally reach that decision would cost me dearly.
As I approached, Atticus was either very deliberately not looking my way or utterly enraptured by his company.
Taking no regard for the conversation I was about to interrupt, I hooked an arm through his without preamble and dragged him, staggering backwards, to a nearby alcove for a false semblance of privacy in the heavily occupied room.
"Liliana," Mr Courten blustered, using the name that was, in fact, not my name, and had never been my name, not that I managed to convince him of such in the last six years. He made to follow. "What ever-"
Are you doing here? Are you doing with my son? I'd never know how he planned to finish that statement, because Atticus waved his one unrestrained hand airily and said, "Excuse us, Dad, I'll be just a moment," taking his abduction like a champ, as though I prescheduled this appointment weeks in advance and he'd merely forgotten.
Alone, or as alone as we'd ever get, I blurted out without preamble, "I need you to kidnap me."
A pregnant pause.
He tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, a strand of his dark hair brushing distractingly across his stark cheek bone, as though my words puzzled him. His eyes, playful on the surface, held an undercurrent of wariness roiling beneath. He said, overly polite, "This event isn't so bad. Staging a kidnapping to give you an excuse to leave might be a little of an overreaction."
"No! You don't understand!" He wore no tie, so I fisted my hands through his collar and jerked him in close, to the point where mere inches separated us, and he was bent slightly at the waist to match my shorter stature. Then, I bridged the remaining distance, bringing my lips up to the shell of his ear. He froze down to the smallest muscle in his pinky finger, man turned marble, and more striking than any statue locked away in a museum. "I know who you are," I hissed, "and I need you — that version of you — to kidnap me again."
Time temporarily ceased turning in our small bubble. We hovered there, unmoving and disparate from our laughing, whirling, living surroundings. I barely dared to breathe, lest that impact his response in some way.
Several tense heartbeats later, ungloved palms pressed down on my shoulders, pressing me back to arms length, though without any real force. His pupils were blown wide over his blue and gold irises as he stared, initially wide eyed, before softening into something seemingly relaxed, but that ease came across as contrived. Another mask.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked gently, not yet letting go. "You're not making very much sense. Of course you know who I am; I'm your best friend's brother. We are hardly strangers. You know my own house better than I do."
In the span of a few sentences, my heart plummeted to somewhere in my toes.
Insane. He thought I was insane, or else lying to save his own skin. Perhaps I was insane. Why had my first instinct been to throw my lot in with him anyway? Why was that the only plan to pop into my mind when I saw him?
Why did I think he would agree?
Then came the beeping of half a dozen pagers going off all at once, a dozen more chirping in the distance from downstairs. I tried in vain to keep the sheer panic off my face.
"Forget it," I said hoarsely, shrugging out of his hold. I backed away abruptly, shaking my head, like that could conceal the way the rest of me had begun to shake with adrenaline induced fear. "Forget it. Forget you saw me! I wasn't here, got it?"
Not wasting any further precious seconds for a reply, I took off at a brisk walking pace, avoiding running from that point on to minimize suspicion. The world blurred until nothing existed but me and the path to my escape.
"Wait!" Atticus called after my back, too late to matter.
How stupid I'd been. Of course he wouldn't want to jeopardise his identity for me, let alone admit I was correct in guessing his identity. For all he knew, I was laying out a careful trap. Part of me thought — foolishly — that maybe he'd help me out of a fondness for his sister, if nothing else.
I cursed myself for asking him in the first place. All I succeeded in was wasting my own precious time I could have spent getting further away. I wished I never stopped, never searched him out, never let my curiosity devolve into snooping, and never, never brought Leigh into it.
Deep breaths, I coached myself, though they were getting harder and harder to come by. Deep breaths. I can't afford to freak out and lose my head.
Or maybe I already had lost it. Nothing felt very clear at the moment.
My flight down to the first floor was a blur, my movements mechanical. Supers spurred into action all around me, spreading out to search for the intruder or otherwise blocking off the exits one by one. I heard their shouts, saw Tempest shoot up into the air overhead for a bird's-eye view, felt Windless force a wave of calm down upon the guests to soothe their anxious questions and quickening hearts. It did little to affect me.
Bad. This was very, very bad.
At the very least, that meant they didn't know I was the intruder. Yet. Given time, they'd search us all. Match descriptions. Discover a veritable treasure trove of evidence pressed right up against my stomach.
Unless I could get rid of it somewhere. The Archive, maybe? Where to hide a needle, except for in another stack of needles? Paper lost amongst paper. If I could make it to the stairs into the basement, I stood a competitive chance. Someone surely locked the place at this hour, but I still had the paper clip and screwdriver tucked into my back pocket. I reached for them, already plotting the exact motions needed to unlatch the gears, and found only one of the two items. A paper clip without the screwdriver.
My breaths were coming out in shallow bursts and I slowed to a stop in the middle of the first floor auditorium, trying to think. Failing to think.
Spotting me, a plain speck of normalcy amidst dozens of the best dressed society had to offer, Leigh shoved her way through anyone unfortunate enough to get between us, locked in and mouthing something I couldn't distinguish. Mrs Courten struggled to keep up, a phone pressed to her ear, looking simultaneously serious and concerned.
Leigh was less than twenty feet away. She widened her eyes meaningfully at me, then past me, and back again, willing me to suddenly develop enough telepathic abilities to read her mind.
I took a small step in retreat, then another. Leigh couldn't get caught up in this mess. She simply couldn't. I wouldn't let her. No one would go down for my own stupid decisions except for me.
A hand clamped over my shoulder, nearly making me jump out of my skin.