The Conspiracy of Us (13 page)

J
ack tugged me along the rickety fire escape and adrenaline thrummed through my veins, shooting everything into high focus. The crisp bite of the night air, the acrid scent of incense wafting from another apartment. One of my stilettos sank through the metal grate, and I stumbled, then peeled off my shoes and threw them over the railing, watching the iconic red soles flip end over end. I tried not to notice how long it took them to hit the ground.

“Doing okay?” Jack called over his shoulder.

“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth, making sure not to look down. We were running on the sidewalk. On firm ground. On the track at school. Not fifty feet in the air. “I'm fine. It's fine.”

The fire escape swayed ominously with each leap we took down the stairs. We ducked under a neat row of wet socks on a clothesline and were just one story up when a shout came from the apartment window. Jack shoved down a rusted metal ladder, which fell with a clang and a sway that was not at all reassuring—then dropped off altogether.

Jack cursed.

The shouts from above got more excited. Two people leaned out the window. One was pale with a shock of red hair, and the other had darker skin—and a shiny black gun in his hand.

“We'll have to jump.” Jack swung himself over the edge, then let go. He crumpled when he hit the ground, but rolled and popped up in an instant. “I'll catch you,” he shouted.

No. I couldn't. Running along the fire escape was one thing. Throwing myself off it was another. I clung to the railing, searching frantically for another ladder, another staircase.

“Oi, little girlie!” the one with the gun called. I barely had time to register relief that he didn't know who I was before he continued, “I'll give you ten seconds to bring whatever you took from this flat back up here, or I'll have to knock you off that ledge and take it myself!” Even from here I could see him grin like he was enjoying this.

Not good. Really, really not good.

“Jump!” Jack yelled.

A bang ripped apart the night.

A rush of cold air flew past my shoulder, like when you're standing on the sidewalk and a bus drives by too fast. I winced, and the bullet hit the ground at Jack's feet, raising a cloud of dust. Jack danced out of the way. The only thought in my head was that I wouldn't have had time to have a thought if he hadn't missed.

“Avery!” Jack's frustration had turned to panic.

“Just go!” I yelled. “Hide! I'll get down on my own!”

“Are you insane?” he yelled back. “I'm not leaving you.”

I sucked in a lungful of cool air.

Above me, the guy started to climb out the window.

“Jump!” Jack shouted again.

Even if he wasn't going to leave me, there was no way I was trusting him to catch me. Ten feet away was a support pole that ran to the ground. I hurried toward it, trying to ignore the sound of footsteps banging on metal.

“No!” Jack yelled. “Jump!”

I lowered my legs over the edge, awkwardly in the short, tight dress. Jack was still yelling. I couldn't tell if the footsteps were still coming closer. I ignored them both and wrapped my legs around the support like a fireman's pole. I squeezed my eyes shut and, with a whimper, let my grip go a little at a time until one hand, slick with sweat, slipped. A sharp piece sticking out of the pole sliced into my thigh.

I fell.

“Jack!” I screamed, and then his arms were around me and we fell with a thud, but he cradled me so nothing but my elbow smacked the ground.

I scrambled off him just in time to see the dark-skinned guy raise his gun again. “Watch out!” I dove into Jack, driving us out of the way as another shot missed us. We barreled into a cluster of trash cans with a metallic crash, then scrambled behind an abandoned couch every cat in the neighborhood must have used as a toilet. Both men disappeared back through the window.

“Thanks,” Jack panted.

“You too,” I gasped.

Only then did I feel the sting on the inside of my thigh, just above the knee. A river of red ran down my leg and dripped onto the asphalt. I hissed through my teeth.

“Here.” Jack dug around in the pockets of his blazer until he found a tissue, and pressed it to the wound.

I grabbed the tissue from his hand and held it in place as he yanked me to my feet. I limped along beside him out of the alley, barefoot.

“There!” a familiar voice yelled, and I whipped around to see four men rounding a corner down the block.

We ran toward Jack's motorcycle, parked at the curb. He got on the bike and I leapt on behind him, pressing myself into his back as we shot away from the curb and into Istanbul traffic. Cars whizzed around us in every direction, their headlights and taillights performing an elaborate waltz to the music of their horns. I clung to Jack like my life depended on it, because it did.

It only took a few seconds to realize we were being chased.

Jack cut off a truck. The bike wobbled, and I slid precariously on the seat. I dug my fingers into Jack's chest and he grabbed my leg, fighting to keep me upright. I gripped the bike hard with my knees, and when we balanced again, he sped back up. The wind whipped so hard in my face that I buried it in the hollow between his shoulder blades. I could feel his frantic heartbeat against my cheek and under my palms at the same time as he sped around a traffic circle, flaunting the rules of the elaborate dance by cutting across all five lanes only to fly back out the way we'd come in. Behind us, a screech and a crunch, and, when I glanced back, a pileup of cars.

The car following us careened around the wreck.

Jack drove up onto a sidewalk, scattering pedestrians, then turned into a dark alley. The cobblestones under us shook the bike so hard, my teeth chattered together, and then we were flying onto another street where two sleek white trams were going in opposite directions. Jack gunned the bike, and we flew straight toward them.

“Jack,” I said. No. He couldn't be trying this. This was suicide. My fingers bunched in his shirt. “Jack!”

At the very last second, we shot between the trams, close enough for me to lock eyes with one of the conductors. Then we were out the other side and the trams formed a barrier.

Jack ground the bike to a stop in an alley. We jumped off, and I swept strands of my ponytail out of my mouth as we ducked through a low doorway, emerging in another world of color and sound and—I choked—smell.

It was a market, a huge one, with low, arched ceilings over stalls selling scarves and rugs and gold and silver trinkets and mounds of colorful spices all wedged into a space that seemed too small to hold them.

Even though it was late, hundreds of people still browsed and bargained. Two shopkeepers sitting cross-legged on the floor of their booth under hundreds of colored lanterns glanced up from their tea as we passed, Jack helping me limp as fast as I could.

Down a narrow side aisle, I saw the source of the smell. Dead fish hung all along the back of a stall.

Jack dragged me toward the fish and I gagged, but it was the only deserted stall around. We ducked in and crouched behind the sales counter, and I inspected my leg again. The bleeding hadn't slowed at all, and my tissue was soaked through, my leg slippery with blood.

“We've got to elevate it and keep pressure on it,” Jack whispered. “Here.”

He produced a knife and slit his own shirt at the waist, ripping off a long strip. He propped my leg on his knee and wrapped the shred of cloth around my thigh, tying it in a knot.

I nodded as I tried to catch my breath, incredibly aware of my bare leg balanced across his lap, and of what that was doing to my very short dress. I tucked the blazer around me as well as I could. Jack peered through the cold glass case of fish heads and innards, and I followed his gaze. “Do you see them?” I breathed.

And then I did. We'd almost been quick enough. Almost, but not quite. A group of men in turbans carrying a rolled-up rug passed the entrance to our aisle—and behind them were all four guys from Mr. Emerson's apartment, staring right at us.

The one who seemed like the leader saw me and grinned. I jumped up. My leg screamed as we dashed out the back of the stall, parting the—thankfully dried—fish like the bead curtains I had on my closet door when I was thirteen.

Footsteps pounded behind us, but at least they weren't shooting. Yet.

Jack grabbed my hand. We raced around a corner, and my heart sank. Dead end. I wheeled around, but it was too late. The leader came into view not ten feet away. This close, I could tell he wasn't too much older than us. He had short, spiky dreads and cinnamoncolored skin, and a dark scar bisected his face from below one eye to his chin. When he saw us, a lopsided grin curved the scar into a grotesque dimple.

Jack yanked me behind him and pulled the gun from his jacket.

The redhead and the other two followed Scarface, guns drawn.

“Give us whatever you bloody kids took from that safe,” Scarface said.

Frantically, I searched for something, anything that would give us a few seconds. Shooting in this crowded place would be a disaster. If we could just get out of their line of sight, we could disappear. This place was a maze.

The shopkeeper at the next stall stood plastered against a rack of jars, his eyes wide. Steps away from him, I saw it. His stall had a rickety wooden roof, held up by poles tied to the ground. If I timed it right, and if I could get the Order guys under it, I could crash the roof on them and we'd get those seconds.

“Give me the note,” I whispered to Jack.

“We can't let them have it,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I have a plan.” I pulled him to the side so the stall was between us and the Order.

“You'd better be right,” Jack murmured. “Inside left jacket pocket.”

I reached around him and stuck my hand in his pocket, feeling around until I found the scrap of paper. He kept the gun trained on the men as I pretended to trip and grabbed the support rope.

“Okay,” I said, holding out the note and letting my voice waver like I was afraid they'd shoot us. I nudged Jack, gesturing for him to lower the gun. “Here. Take it.”

All four of them darted toward us, and when they were a couple of yards away, I yanked the cord. The stall trembled—and as the redhead reached toward me, its entire top collapsed. His fingers grazed my arm as I jumped out of the way.

What I hadn't realized was that the top of the stall was more than a roof. It was a spice stall, and the top must have been used for extra storage. Bags full of spices tilted and tipped, and finally fell. Red and yellow and cinnamon brown and saffron orange rained down in fragrant cascades. I sneezed once, twice, three times, trying to keep a hold on Jack's back, wiping at my eyes with my other hand.

In the second it took for the men to realize what had happened, we were sprinting down the next aisle, and my heart leapt in triumph.

We didn't try to outrun them this time. Jack ducked into the tiny bit of space between two tentlike shops and pulled me after him, yanking the fabric closed to cover our tracks. We fought off the rippling white canvas, staining it orange and yellow and red on our way to the center of the bazaar.

Finally Jack stopped, so suddenly that I slammed into him.

“Do you think they're—” I started, but he put a finger to his lips and cocked his head to the side. The fabric billowed into us from both sides, and I clamped my mouth shut.

“I think we've lost them,” Jack whispered, and I realized it was true.
We
had lost them. Me and Jack. Me and Charlie Emerson. We had done this together. I couldn't have done it without him, and he couldn't have done it without me. We, the two of us, had just jumped out a window. And ridden a motorcycle. And gotten away. I kind of liked that word.
We.

Jack glanced down at me and his eyes were shining, but not with worry like they so often were.

“You—” He cut off and bit his lip.

“What?”

“Nothing. You're—that was great. Really good.” He was panting as hard as I was, the red-yellow-orange dusting his shoulders and across his chest.

I couldn't help but grin. And then I muffled another sneeze in my elbow.

A smile pulled at his lips. “It's the spices. They're almost in your eyes.” He reached up to my face but stopped, like he'd thought better of it. “Um.” He gestured to my eyes.

I wiped my face and looked back up at him. The dimple came out in his right cheek.

All of a sudden, I realized we were pressed so close between the two fabric stalls that we were practically in each other's arms.

“Come here.” Hesitantly, he took my face between his hands. He ran his thumbs under my eyes, along my cheekbones, the tip of my nose. “There you are,” he said, in that perfect accent. “All better.”

I waited for him to drop his hands, but he didn't. I suddenly realized how infrequently Jack met my eyes. He watched everything else so closely, not missing a detail, always prepared, but he hardly ever looked at
me.
Now his eyes, dark and stormy at the edges, fading to a glowing silver in the middle, held mine, the softness in them crowding out his hard edges.

I could swear he moved a little closer, or maybe I did.

I licked my lips, almost unconsciously, and now he wasn't looking at my eyes anymore; he was looking at my mouth. And now I was looking at his, and his lips parted, and my heart sped up to a flutter—

The fabric billowed again, and we both startled. Jack's hands fell away from my face. “Right,” he said. He backed a step away, concentrating a little too hard on fighting off the white canvas.

“Yeah. Right,” I echoed. I pulled the blazer tight around me. Had we really just almost kissed? I looked at his mouth again, and quickly away. This was just the adrenaline talking. Nothing else.

Plus, the words
punishable by death
still echoed loud in my head, and the thought of Liam's Keeper, and the Emirs' Keeper, and all the others who had undoubtedly suffered the consequences of going against their families. Jack wasn't just risking his job by not turning me in—he could be risking his
life.
But he was doing it for Mr. Emerson, not me. Wasn't he?