The man nodded. She reached into her inside pocket for a small flask and a painkiller.
“Here, it’ll help the pain. Don’t worry if you feel sleepy. We’ll take you straight to the chopper.” She slipped the pill into his mouth and gave him some water.
He got up with her help and walked to Marco’s cell, which was the farthest from the door and the safest place to be in case the second guard started shooting. The boy was already there, lying unconscious on his side. Marco’s skill of putting people to sleep, not always violently, was a thing of beauty.
“Just stay in the cell. He won’t even see you’re still here,” she told O’Conner.
Marco stood by the door, looking strangely old with all the hair and even bigger than usual in his large, nondescript parka. The fallen guard stirred at his feet.
“You ready?” she asked, glancing at their client. His eyes were already closed, and she knew the pill would keep him asleep at least for a half-hour.
“Always. Call him in.”
She nodded and took her position behind the door as Marco grabbed the unconscious guard and rose into the air, hiding out of sight.
A deep breath, and she yelled at the top of her voice, “He-e-e-elp! Somebody help me!”
Not even a minute went by when the door swung open.
Pain drew her foot up, kicking the guard in the back. He sprawled on the floor before he could grab his gun, a heavy AK-47.
She grasped his hair, and her fist slammed into his head, knocking him out.
It took the other guard a couple of minutes to realize that it was suspiciously quiet, and to run after his partner.
He burst through the door, only to topple to the ground when Pain’s foot connected with his jaw. Gunfire shattered the silence, bullets ricocheting off iron exactly where O’Conner had been a few minutes ago.
Before she could lunge at him, all went quiet. He was knocked out, after all. Twitchy trigger finger.
At last, all three unconscious guards were piled up in the corner, and Marco carried their client out of the cell. She followed him with the boy—he couldn’t be more than ten, and she barely felt his weight, with the adrenaline burning in her veins.
“It’s your lucky day, kid,” she murmured, catching Marco’s smile with the corner of her eye.
In a minute, they were out of the dank room, corridor, and warehouse, breathing in the chill air and squishing the thin layer of snow under their boots. In ten more minutes, they were saying their goodbyes to the O’Conner couple and the boy, who had come around and blinked at them with an expression of utter amazement, wrapped in a blanket and strapped to his seat in the helicopter. Rebecca had insisted on taking care of him.
They reported to Skull, who was the field coordinator for the night, and stood on the rooftop for a minute, silently restoring order in their thoughts.
“Feel like going for a walk?” Pain asked at last, shivering in the freezing wind.
“Yes.” Marco sounded relieved. “I don’t feel like going home yet.”
She smiled, and darted upward, crossing the river to Brooklyn.
They landed a few blocks away from the road that went around their building. The wind was softer here, and it had stopped snowing, making the walk more pleasant than she’d expected. That, and her shield.
Marco broke the comfortable silence between them. “Is it just me, or do all jobs seem the same lately?”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “This one was different.”
“Why, because we didn’t have to sweat our asses off in Colombia or Kandahar?”
“Well, yeah. It was simple. Like there was nothing that could go wrong.”
“Exactly. They all feel like nothing can go wrong. And I feel like I’m sixty. Like I’m losing the edge.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Come on, you know what I mean. Don’t you feel like if there’s no risk, we’re not using our full potential?”
“The client’s safety is what’s important, not our potential, Marco.”
“I know.” He waved her off. “I’m sure you know what I mean, too. Since we got rid of Eugene, it’s… It’s been the most boring four months of my life, I swear.”
She smiled at his unhappy tone. “There’ll be plenty of other—” A distant scream made her pause. Her head whipped up. “You hear that?”
“What?”
“Someone fighting.” Another muffled scream. “Come on!” She grabbed his sleeve and darted into one of the dark alleys.
The street looked deserted when they came out on the other side, but she knew where to look, because another scream guided her even as she ran. A shadow moved in a dark corner at the end of the street, and she took off into the air with Marco close on her heels.
Tires screeched, and Marco flew past her into another dark alley as she halted and kneeled by a fallen man on the ground. He was wearing their gear.
“Be careful!” she shouted to Marco, turning the man face up. “Are you all right?”
The air lodged in her throat when she saw Chris, blood oozing from a wound in his head and soaking through his curly blond hair. Bruises marred his left cheekbone, and his pulse was weak when she brought her fingers to his neck.
“Shit,” she hissed, yanking off her mask so she could use it to stanch the bleeding.
The moment she pressed it to his head, his eyes flew open and his hand grabbed her wrist, making her jump.
“They…” He groaned, swallowing hard.
“It’s okay. Don’t speak. You’re gonna be okay.” She tapped her earpiece to ask Skull to open the infirmary window, but Chris squeezed her arm so hard, she forgot about it for a second.
“They’re going to kill
