Page 63 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“We saw two flashlight beams in the hallway. Plus whoever just swept this store.” I close my eyes. Open them—meaningless in this dark, but it helps me think. “I think it’s safe to say they’re out of the Zamboni Bay.”
“The what?” Cole says.
“We can’t stay here,” I whisper. “They’ll be back.”
“We have to get the laptop,” Beckett says. “And then get out of here.”
“We need the portable battery first.”
Time is running out. And the next time they come looking, they might just find us.
“So we split up.” My words slip out before the thought is even fully formed. “You and Cole get the battery. I get the laptop at Hearthstone. We meet back up?—”
“At Basecamp Outfitters,” Beckett cuts in. “It’s big. It’s got lots of places to hide, and I think it’s got a skylight—should be enough ambient light to move around. If there’s any store you could find signal in, it’s that one.”
My heart is racing again, dreading the idea of going anywhere without Beckett. But we’re in the third act now—there’s no room for fear.
“I’ll go with Everly,” Cole says quickly. Ah, self-preservation. Hearthstone is close. The guys looking for us have already searched this area. I get it.
I can almost feel Beckett’s entire frame tensing up. “So you can throw her under the bus to save yourself? I don’t think so. You’re with me.”
There’s a long pause. A brutal and lethal argument runs its course through the silence. Finally, Cole says, “Okay.”
Beckett finds my arm again, his hands running over my shoulders, pulling me close. “I’ll see you soon.”
My hand squeezes his. “Same bat-time?”
“Same bat-channel,” he says.
Oh, I want to kiss him, but he gets away before I can.
Shoot. Next time.
BECKETT
I should leave him.
The thought arrives fully formed—no preamble, no moral handwringing. Just the clean, cold calculation of a man who has ceiling-crawled, been betrayed, closeted, and chased. And the math is suddenly very simple:
Leave Cole at a junction. Walk away. The thugs find him. They get what they came for. I get to the electronics store, get back to Everly, and we’re done. Problem solved. Everyone gets what they’ve earned.
It’s not a villainous thought. It’s an exhausted one. The thought of a man who’s been running on adrenaline for six hours. The filter is gone. This man destroyed your career, framed you, locked you in a closet, and the people hunting him are not your problem.
The thought isn’t fleeting. It sits. It’s comfortable. It makes perfect, defensible, rational sense. C’mon, you’re with me, right?
Cole walks behind me, his steps loud and clunky.
“Keep it down,” I turn and hiss.
Cole’s eyes meet mine with a cold, withering glare. But his footsteps soften.
I turn back. Keep walking.
The concourse stretches ahead—long shadows, grated storefronts standing like sentinels. The dead-end hall to the electronics store is thirty feet out. A straight shot through the dead zone.
I kill my flashlight and step into the dark.
We navigate on instinct, fingertips trailing the walls.
