Chapter 6 - The Iron Escape
The rusted iron rungs of the fire escape scraped against my palms as I half-carried, half-guided Leo down into the freezing January alleyway.
Above us, the wood of the apartment's bedroom door splintered completely under a heavy kick, the loud crash echoing off the brick walls of the narrow alley.
"Keep moving, buddy," I whispered, my voice shaking as I grabbed Leo's small hand and pulled him toward the mouth of the alley where the pale morning light was just beginning to bleed over the horizon.
His sneakers crunched over frozen slush, his breath coming in quick, shallow puffs. He didn't cry. The shock of being woken up in the dark and dragged down a fire escape had plunged him into a quiet, obedient terror that broke my heart worse than any scream could have.
We ducked behind a row of metal commercial trash bins just as a pair of heavy-set men in dark wool coats stepped out onto the iron landing above, scanning the alley with harsh flashlights.
"They went this way," one of them barked into a radio clipped to his collar. "Check the perimeter toward 4th Street."
I held Leo tightly against my side, pressing us flat against the damp brick wall behind the green dumpsters. The smell of rotting produce and old cardboard filled the cold air. My fingers instinctively searched the pocket of my jacket, confirming the hard, blunt shape of the USB drive was still safely tucked inside.
If they caught us now, they would take the drive, wipe the files, and hand Leo over to my mother under a mountain of falsified emergency paperwork before the sun hit noon.
May you like
As the sound of the security guards' footsteps faded around the corner toward the main avenue, I spotted our old, battered Honda Civic parked half a block down, coated in a thin layer of morning frost.
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