The first part of the plan was, unfortunately, a success.
Javier considered it unfortunate because, now that Natalia's idea had worked and she'd proved to be useful, she'd officially become part of this whole thing.
To say Javier wasn't happy with that would be an understatement. But he couldn't give a reason for not working with Natalia further than 'I don't want to.'
(Not true, he could probably say more, but this case was more important than whatever he felt, and it was much easier to block the shit out of it and think of something else.)
They had to split for the next part of the plan. Sofía went with Raúl and Javier with Natalia. The pairs were not by choice but by necessity. Both Sofía and Javier would've preferred to go together, but this was the more efficient way if they wanted it to work. Javier suspected though that Sofía wasn't as opposed to pairing up with Raúl as she pretended to be, but he shelved the familiar annoyance that came with that and focused on the mission.
He and Natalia followed their target down some streets, making sure to remain out of view, aided by the darkness of the night and almost lack of working streetlights. The first few minutes went smoothly, right according to the plan.
Then Natalia opened her mouth.
"I really am sorry about what happened you know."
Her tiny, earnest voice squeezed Javier's heart, but then, as it always did, everything came back to him in a wave. He clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze firmly on their target on the other side of the street.
"Don't speak about that, we're only here for one purpose."
"But I really needed to apologize to you."
"Well, you did," he said curtly. "Now focus on what we have to do, alright?"
He kept moving stealthily, following, both of them stopping at the corner of a building. Javier inched his face as far as he dared over the edge to localize their target in the alley.
"Is there really no chance that you could ever forgive me?"
Javier whipped his head around, totally done with her ill-timed words. "Natalia—"
But he didn't get any further in his scolding than that, because right then, the sound of tires speeding down gravel resounded from afar, and they peeked over the corner of the building just in time to see their target get into the backseat of a black car and taking off.
Javier's face dropped. "Nononono."
Both ran down the alley over to the other street, now uncaring of being visible because anyone that mattered was already many meters away and counting. They reached the sidewalk just in time to see the car growing smaller on the horizon and turning a right, disappearing from view completely.
"Shit. Did you catch the plate?" Javier asked Natalia.
"No, I can hardly even see anything in this dark," she replied.
Javier ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
"Fuck."
They'd lost him.
...
..
.