I laid down on the ground and pulled one of the blankets up over me. It was toasty in here thanks to Stacy’s insulated tent, and the blankets, and the small fire outside. She laid down next to me and pulled a blanket over her too. This tent was plenty big enough for us to both spread out with lots of room. Stacy yawned and it made me yawn again, and even though I fought against sleep and tried to keep my eyes open in case the guys were to show up earlier than expected; fatigue was winning out over me.

“Maybe the reason people tell you that is because it’s true,” she said. “Maybe you’re braver than you think.”

Those were the last words I heard before falling asleep.

9

Michael

“I didn’t want to say this in front of Lisette,” Adam said to me as we trudged closer to town. “But this isn’t going to work.”

“What do you mean it’s not going to work?” I shot a look over to him and wished that I hadn’t shaved after my shower last night. My entire chin felt frozen.

“I get it that we are sick of it all and opted for the more rambunctious tactic here,” Adam continued. “But man, come on. Robbing a police station doesn’t even make sense. There isn’t even money there to take for a robbery. The whole thing reeks of ridiculous intent.”

“Well why didn’t you voice your protests about this earlier then?” I asked angrily.

I hated it when Adam played up to Lisette, only to come back and tell me a completely different angle on it once she was out of earshot.

“Besides,” I continued. “A robbery doesn’t need to involve money. We could be robbing information and taking Rob hostage for ransom money for all they know.”

“Michael, I’ve known you a long time. I know that you don’t think this is a good idea. There’s no way that you could think breaking into an armed cop precinct with two handguns and new hairstyles is going to go in our favor.”

“It will as long as Rob cooperates,” I said.

That comment got his attention.

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t Rob cooperate and come with us? You don’t think he’s playing both sides, do you?”

“No, not at all,” I answered. “But I do think that he is just the kind of idiotic martyr that would be adamant about sacrificing himself if he thought it would protect and save his friends. If he thinks that breaking him out of there is going to put Lisette, or even the two of us, in any danger, then I wouldn’t put it past him to try and resist coming with us.”

“This keeps sounding even more stupid and poorly thought-out by the minute,” Adam said as he shook his head and huffed.

His breath made billowing clouds of warm air against the cold.

“Not only are we marching into a cop station to do something criminally illegal, but the guy we’re trying to save might make it even harder for us to be able to get away. If we do get out of this, I am going to knock that bottle of whiskey over your head for agreeing with Lisette about this being a good idea.”

“You agreed with her too,” I reminded him smugly.

“I would roll my eyes at you if I weren’t afraid that they would get frozen in place at the back of my head,” he huffed.

I almost chuckled, but then the first sight of the town came into view. Regardless of what either of us thought—this had to work.

We walked into town and toward the police station with our winter jackets concealing handguns that we pull out as soon as we were at the doors. As soon as we stepped inside, it was easy to tell within the first couple of seconds that none of the cops recognized us now.

“What can I help you with?” the guard at the front door said to us.

There was no time to delay. Any hesitation would give the cops enough time to alert each other and react. I could see in that split second, that Adam waivered as his hand hovered over where his gun was without actually reaching to pull it out. I wasn’t going to afford myself the luxury of making a mistake. I pulled the gun from my jacket and held it to the cop’s throat before he had a chance to react at all.

“Take us past the security door and tell everyone in this station to drop their weapons and let us in or I’ll blow your head off,” I growled.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here,” he said as he did what I commanded and took us through the security door by swiping his badge against the keypad. “But you’re not going to get far. Every cop here has a loaded weapon at their waist. You two fools are outnumbered and overpowered.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But don’t you guys have some sort of code to try and protect each other?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because we don’t. I won’t hesitate to kill you or anyone else here. I’m assuming your friends probably want to keep you alive.”

At that, the cop did everything we asked. He led us right into the belly of the precinct, instructed all the cops around us to drop their guns and hold their hands up in view, and then even begged his colleagues to do everything we said in order to save his own cowardly ass.

So far, so good.

Everyone was complying surprisingly easily, and now all we had to do was find Rob. I knew he was here, but I didn’t see where. The trick was going to be making it look as if we were just grabbing a random cop to take hostage once I let this guy go. If we had to look around for Rob, that would blow it and they would all know that we came specifically for him. I started to get worried that he wasn’t here or that the cops would start getting restless and do something stupid before we could find him. But thankfully, as soon as word spread like wildfire throughout the police station that there was a hostage situation, all the rest of the cops in the building came running—and so did Rob.

As soon as he saw Adam and I there, he immediately knew what was going on. Our changed appearances didn’t throw him off for a minute. He instantly recognized us and although he looked a bit confused at first about what we were trying to accomplish, I could see that it set in and dawned on him after a moment. We were there to get him and he realized it. Then, just as I had feared, he decided that he didn’t want to be rescued. He took a few steps back and looked like he was going to try to run back into the station in order to avoid coming with us. Just as I had suspected, he knew that this was a really crazy plan and he thought that if he removed himself from it altogether that Adam and I would stand a better chance of being able to get away. He probably even thought that he could better keep the cops off our scent if he continued to stay behind and try to mislead them from within.

“Okay, this is enough,” Adam said as he pushed right past the unarmed cops toward Rob.

Adam got that crazed look in his eyes just before he was about to do something completely mental. It was the same look that he had right now. He was out of patience for all of this, and to be honest, so was I. He walked right up to Rob as he held on tight to the handgun. When he reached him, Rob looked at the gun in his hand instead of at Adam’s face.

“Where did you get that?” Rob asked, realizing that it belonged to Stacy, but looking unsure about why Adam would have it.

Adam didn’t give him an answer, and he also didn’t give him another second to be able to formulate any other questions either. Instead, Adam turned the gun around in his hand as if he was spinning it, and he knocked Rob squarely in the side of the skull with the blunt handle of it. When Rob’s eyes rocked backward and his body began to fall down toward the floor, Adam grabbed him and dragged him under one arm toward the door. I watched the cops as he did and saw a couple of them try to reach for their guns.

“Touch one of those guns,” I snarled at one of the cops who had gotten a little too close to being able to reach his weapon, “and it will be the last thing you ever touch.”

As soon as Adam had made it to the door with Rob hanging unconsciously at his arm, I pushed the cop I had been holding onto out of my arms and into the center of the room.

“Any of you moves in the next five minutes to reach for a gun or make a phone call, I’m going to kill him,” I said as I motioned toward Rob who wasn’t lucid enough to have any idea what was going on. The cops stood around looking agitated, but obedient as we dragged one of their own out the door unconscious. I did manage to notice that a few of them had a different look brewing beneath the surface though, and it made me aware that not all of them were totally buying into this being a random hijacking.

As soon as we cleared the door and were out onto the street, we started running with guns still drawn. It took all of about two seconds for the now-armed cops to pursue us and since they weren’t dragging dead weight, they were much faster and we wouldn’t be able to outrun them.

This was a really, really bad plan.

Adam turned around and fired a shot at the crowd of cops, and it looked like he might have hit one of them in the knee. For a second, the cops didn’t return the fire. My guess was that they were afraid a shot might hit their fellow officer who was hanging between our shoulders now. But that didn’t last long before the sound of shots being fired rang in the air around us. Either they figured out this was a rescue attempt and not a kidnapping, or they just didn’t care whether they hit Rob in the crossfire. Either way, it wasn’t good for us. The only thing that we had to our advantage was a keen understanding of the woods.

“This way,” I shouted at Adam, as we ducked into a corner alley behind two brick buildings.

“Isn’t this a dead end?” Adam asked.

“Only if you stick to the street,” I answered.

I could feel Adam’s stare of confusion against the side of my face, but we didn’t have time for me to explain the intricacies of the web of streets in this town right now. Instead, I pulled him and Rob’s unconscious body into one of the back doors of a Chinese restaurant. We hurried through the galley kitchen and out the side door and back out onto a different street.

“Wicked,” Adam said, impressed when he realized that the businesses connected the streets if you passed through them—something that I doubted most of those cops even knew about.