Nate followed behind them. “Wait a minute. How’d she get her sight back? Did you two….”
“None of your business.” Gabriel picked up the pace.
“We’re so going to talk about that later.”
“No—we’re not. Keep up. I’d rather be gone when Saefa arrives.”
“Why?” Nate rushed to catch up, cradling his arm. “You can take him.”
Gabriel shrugged and tugged Jocelyn down a side street. “This way.” That would be a hard outcome to predict. Ian had handled the staff better than he’d expected. He’d almost had him on the roof a couple of times. Could he take him? The only way to know would be to fight again.
“What’s that about? You can take him. Right?”
“If I fight him again, one of us will die. Since I don’t intend to become a corpse anytime soon, I’ll be wanted for more than abetting and resisting arrest. The best thing I can hope for is to stay out of his path until we can prove Jocelyn’s innocence.
“I requested a court date and the DSLE has accepted. The law allows for an Enforcer to call for a week’s reprieve if he believes the charges brought against a fugitive are faulty. It’s similar to the old bail bond system, but you can barter with your soul. They didn’t think anyone would actually do it. The clause was initially established to protect innocents in the case of an Enforcer going rogue, allowing time for a secondary investigation, but mostly it’s there to appease the public about what we do,” Gabriel said as he ducked in an alley and motioned for them to follow.
“I still don’t get why they did,” Nate said.
“At first, the DSLE didn’t want to grant my request, as Ian Saefa is the reader responsible for Jocelyn’s warrant, and he doesn’t make mistakes according to his files. No Enforcer has ever contested charges and no one has ever questioned Saefa’s abilities. However, I threatened my father to take the evidence public if they didn’t.”
Nate laughed. “Bet that pissed them off.”
Gabriel frowned. He grabbed Jocelyn’s hand and guided her out of the alley and onto another street. “Pissed? You have no idea. They granted me a week to prove it, but if I walk into that courtroom without solid proof, we’ll all be taken into custody—Nathanial for assault of a DSLE Enforcer, Jocelyn for her past-life crimes and I’ll lose my bail bond. If I have the proof, then our warrants in conjunction with Jocelyn’s will be null.”
“You’re certain about that?”
“Yes. The DSLE doesn’t want to be seen taking innocents into containment. They’re worried about riots and public opinion being against them. Too many people gain too much from what we do for them to take that chance. Besides, this year is an election year and my father wants votes. Bad publicity won’t help his cause. And believe me, no one believes in the cause more than my father.”
“Then we need wheels.” Nate scanned up and down the street. “Down there.” He pointed. “Fast, and she’s made for bad roads.”
Gabriel eyed the fancy all-terrain transporter and groaned. He might as well add grand theft transport to his growing list of crimes. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s my job to uphold the law.”
“Tell them you commandeered it in the line of duty, saving an innocent,” Jocelyn said.
Stealing this ATT might help his cover, but it sure as hell didn’t help his conscience. When this was over, he still had to take her in. “You’re marked, Jocelyn. The DSLE doesn’t consider you innocent.”
“How do you know that mark is what they say it is? They burned people at the stake three hundred years ago based on assumptions.”
He wanted so badly to tell her she was right, that he was questioning the same things himself.
Jocelyn grabbed his arm, stopping him. She tipped her face up until he could feel her breath wash over his skin. Their auras brushed. “I’m innocent.”
“It’s my duty to take you into custody and that hasn’t changed. In three days, we’re going in, with proof or without.”
“But who determines that we’re unforgiven? This is a witch hunt, no different from the past, and we need to do something about it. Innocent people are being punished.”
“How can you be so sure they’re innocent?”
“How can you be so sure they’re not?”
And that was the problem. He wasn’t sure anymore if he was a bad guy or a good guy, if the institution he stood for, worked for, lived for, was wrong. Had his life been a lie?
Nate approached the ATT and ran his hand down the side like he would stroke a lover. “Okay. It’s real simple. You can use this chronograph and rewire like this.” He slipped the timepiece off his wrist and smacked the case against a light pole, cracking the crystal over the face. He yanked the wires out one-handed, crossed them, and spit out a gob of gum, sticking it on the back. He flipped the digital device over and stuck it to the side of the vehicle next to the lock. He tugged another wire free and left it hanging, then pushed it into the vehicle’s outer security device. “Then you plug into the access panel and realign by adjusting the date, which creates a continuous path for the energy to travel, tricking the alarm into thinking—”
The door popped open. “Or you can do it this way.” Gabriel pressed his hand over the lock and sent a charge through the panel, opening the remaining three doors.
“If you could do it yourself, why didn’t you do something before now?”
“I don’t break the law. It’s my job to apprehend people like you.”
“People like me? What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you have any idea how many years in containment you get for grand theft?”
“Any more than abetting a fugitive or assaulting an officer of the law?”
Gabriel reached around Nate and opened the door. “Get in.”
“Yeah, yeah. I was going to sit in the back anyway.” He glanced over at his sister. “Joce, Gabriel will navigate for you. I need to lie down. My arm’s killing me.”
“Navigate?” Gabriel eyed Jocelyn. “No. I’m driving.”
“Can you drive one of these?”
“I can drive this craft.”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “Let me reword it. Have you ever driven one of these before?”
“No, I’ve never needed to, but I’ll manage.”
“Uh—no. Not when the roads are like this. This has a stick shift. It’s complicated. You can’t just blink in and out like you do with that teleporting thing. If you’ve never driven one of these, there’s no way you can do it now.”
“Get in.” Gabriel nodded toward the back again.
“You even got a license?”
“Don’t need one.”
“Let Joce drive.”
“No.”
***
The streets blurred by. Gabriel did his best not to let his gaze stray for even a second. Even the slightest distraction could cause Jocelyn to lose sight of what was ahead, so he forced his eyes to focus. Navigate? What the fuck had he been thinking? “When you said ride, I had no idea you meant this?”
“You can breathe, blink, do what you normally do.”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t blinked in the last ten minutes.”
“No.”
She turned and the vehicle slid across the snowpack, fishtailing. His hands clamped to the dash and adrenaline rocketed through his blood. She hadn’t hit the curb, parked vehicles, or even the occasional pedestrian that braved to cross in front of her. Competent, but he still had the urge to yank her out of the seat and take over. This had to top the list of craziest things he’d done.
“Breathe before you pass out and we really have issues.”
Gabriel drew in a deep breath and fought the urge to scream as she neared an intersection where vehicles crossed both ways. This was the point during the funhouse ride he’d normally get off. He hated traveling in vehicles. No control. He’d rather dive off a skyscraper.
She eased the vehicle to a slow and stopped at the lights. A five-second repri
eve and the color changed. Green. Shit. He clutched the handle on the door, snapping it off.
“You haven’t done this much,” Jocelyn said.
“No.” He dropped the handle to the floor.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared.”
“No.”
“Try to relax. You’re making me nervous.”
Making her nervous? Gabriel glanced over and Jocelyn swerved.
“Eyes front.”
His eyes snapped forward to stare at another intersection. Gabriel swallowed. What speed were they doing? Sixty? Seventy? His eyes crept down. Twenty. The gauge must be broken. The vehicle veered onto the other side of the street. Gabriel brought his eyes back to the road. “Don’t you want to slow here?”
“Why?”
“The light’s about to change and you’re going too fast.”
“It’s green and I’m doing twenty.”
He eyed the traffic signal. “No, yellow, and I think the gauge is broken.”
“It works fine.” She pressed her foot to the floor and the vehicle lurched forward. The transporter fishtailed. A smile curled the corner of her mouth.
He’d spent a lifetime building a career as an Enforcer. In a matter of hours, he’d managed to destroy it. They might look the other way about his request, but stealing a transporter and letting a blind woman drive? Maybe he could plead insanity?
Gabriel eyed the kid in the mirror. None of it seemed to affect Nate, who’d curled up in the back, his chest rising and falling softly, no evidence of stress, worry or anything to indicate any of the recent events affected him. The way he clutched his arm to his body didn’t look good. It was puffed up like a Polish sausage and had to hurt. Nate shifted and sucked in a staggered breath. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and Jocelyn swerved, hitting the curb. He snapped around and tightened his hold.
“Don’t take your eyes off the road,” Jocelyn said.
“We need to get him to a medical facility. His arm doesn’t look good.”
Jocelyn nodded. “I noticed. But he’s stubborn and doesn’t like doctors.”
“I don’t know how we’ll pay for it. Saefa tracked us from my credit chip. The second I settle the bill, he’s going to know our location,” Gabriel said.
Nate mumbled and Gabriel turned around again. Jocelyn swerved and he swung back, gluing his gaze to the ice-packed pavement.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, okay, it’s bad. I need to go to a hospital.” A voice came from the back seat, raw, ragged. Nate tossed the chip to the front where it landed in Gabriel’s lap.
“What’s this?”
“I jacked the psycho’s chip when he had me in that headlock.”
“You what?” Gabriel snarled. “I think that’s the stupidest thing you’ve done yet.”
“Not stupid. Now we have funds they aren’t watching and he probably hasn’t realized it’s missing. There were four others in his pocket.”
“You snagged his credit chip? Of all the people you chose to rip off, you chose him.” Gabriel gripped the dash harder, cracking it. He glanced down at his glowing hands and backed his power down. Lucky he hadn’t killed the engine. Too much more of the kid’s dumbshit tactics and he’d lose it for sure. “You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
“Would you rather we jack a store for it? Life skills. It’s all about survival. When you’re on the run long enough you learn to be creative. It was an opportunity, so I took it. Look, we can’t use yours and I need a doctor. Something’s not right. I’ve got pain in my abdomen, a fever, and well—other not-so-good things going on.”
“Other things?” Jocelyn pulled over and threw the vehicle into Park. She twisted around, climbing to her knees, and reached over the seat to find Nate and touch his forehead. “He’s hot.”
“Thanks. I like to think so.”
“That’s not funny, Nate.”
“Who said I was joking?”
She slid her hand to the pulse in his neck. “Your heart is racing.”
“I think I did some internal damage. I’ve been spitting blood since we left the city. When I caught that staff in my chest, it must have broken a rib and shoved it into a lung or something. Of course it could have been Two-Ton Grim, when he landed on me.”
Jocelyn started to climb over the seat. “Blood? That’s not good.”
“As opposed to what? Going splat on the sidewalk, as your boyfriend put it so eloquently?”
Gabriel grabbed the back of her jacket and pulled her back to the front seat. “Drive.”
“Use the psycho’s chip,” Nate gasped, drew in a wheezy breath and coughed blood onto his sleeve.
“He’s right. We don’t have a choice,” Jocelyn said.
“Okay. But if Enforcers start showing up, I’m getting you out of there. With or without him.”
“You can’t leave my brother.”
“I’m a big boy, Jocelyn. Maybe the best thing we can do is split up. I’m too hurt to go farther and you need to get that evidence. Besides, Ian’s not going to figure it out. I replaced it with Gabriel’s chip.”
“You gave him my money,” Gabriel snarled and stared.
Nate cringed. “Had to replace it with something. When he said he’d been tracking you with it, I figured it was useless. Technically, I didn’t steal Ian’s chip. I replaced it with something of equal value.”
“Equal? That’s my entire…and you better learn the law if you’re going to break it. That’s still theft.” Gabriel eyed the punk and sighed. So that was why Nate had been so silent when Ian had him. He didn’t want him to know he was pulling the switch. Smart kid. “Never mind. Let’s find a hospital.”
***
“The internal damage couldn’t be much worse. You’re lucky you came to this facility. We specialize in trauma.”
“Will he pull through okay?”
The doctor frowned. “Are you saving his body for installment?”
“No.”
“He’s got a ruptured spleen that needs to be removed and a puncture to his right lung.” He tapped and slid his finger along the digital clipboard. “They’re prepping him for surgery now. He’d be dead if you waited another hour.” He glanced up, looking over the top of his reading glasses. “How’d you say he injured himself?”
“I didn’t. Wrong place, wrong time.” The less the hospital knew, the better. They were required to report all suspicious injuries to the authorities, but since Gabriel was one of the authorities, he doubted they’d contact anyone. Still, not going to take chances.
“You Enforcers should take a little care when you’re apprehending suspects. I’ve seen way too many innocent bystanders lately.”
Gabriel stared at him until he looked away and focused on the data board. Even the doctors were skittish of the Enforcers. Most. Not this one. The doctor looked up again and made eye contact, not the least bit frightened by the blue energy Gabriel let glow through his eyes.
The doctor’s stare intensified. “Put the headlights away. They don’t intimidate me.”
“I wasn’t trying to intimidate you.”
The doctor snorted. “Where’s the suspect?”
“The morgue. He had an unfortunate collision with a sidewalk.”
“That’s too bad. We could use donor bodies. The list is a mile long. The Enforcers seem to be killing more than you’re apprehending. You’re the third officer this week that’s terminated a suspect. I don’t suppose the body is salvageable?”
“He fell a hundred and twenty stories.”
The doctor pulled his glasses off and tucked them in his pocket. “A—hundred—twenty—stories. We don’t have any buildings around here that tall.”
“Happened in the city.”
“Then what are you doing here? You’re a little out of your jurisdiction.”
“I’m not at liberty to release that information.”
“And the civilian? Why did you drag him down here for treatment?”
“He didn’t look that bad.”
“You did notice his arm?” The doctor touched the screen. “Not compound, but close.” He glanced up, locking gazes with Gabriel. “Are you Federal DSLE?”
“No.” If he said yes, Gabriel knew he’d be asked to present his badge. This doctor didn’t play around. “I might have accidentally crossed jurisdictional lines.”
“Accidentally. As in forty miles accidentally?” The physician frowned. “You do realize I have to file a report with the local department. I don’t cover up collateral damage, officer. I don’t cave because your eyes glow, and I don’t particularly like your kind. This report will go to your commander. Coming here, trying to bury it, was your first mistake.”
Gabriel nodded. “Of course. Policy and procedure. I understand.” Inside, his stomach churned. If they filed a report, it would be on the DSLE database and accessible to all Enforcers. His gag order would be null and void and Jocelyn’s warrant valid. She’d be free game for any Enforcer out there. It was a good thing they were using Saefa’s chip to pay the bill. One charge on his and he’d be popping up with alerts everywhere. It seemed Nate’s crime had paid off. Hopefully, Saefa wouldn’t pick up on it. It would buy them some time. Regardless, the charges would raise questions. Nate was right. They needed to split up.
“How long before you release him?”
“Four days. If you hadn’t done such a great job wrecking him, we’d have him out today.”
Fantastic. He had a court appointment in three. “Can I speak to the patient before you take him in?”
“Make it brief. He’s in bad shape.”
***
“Take my sister and get the evidence. Before you go, I need a portable holo-processor and I’ll make a few adjustments to that doctor’s report. I’ll have the rea—”
Gabriel lifted a brow.
“Uh, Enforcers running through so many mazes they’ll be dizzy,” Nate said.
“What do you want me to tell Jocelyn? She’s not going to be happy about this.”
“Tell her I’m fixing it. It’s more important she gets the evidence than hangs around waiting for me to heal. We’re all screwed without it.”
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