Reluctant thief Baz Barret is tasked with stealing from the formidable archaeologist Rei Collingwood--who happens to also be his college crush and rival--but when Rei goes missing after the burglary, Baz must find her before he's blamed for her disa...
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There was a difference between Gwen's aim and Jasper's. It was in Gwen's eyes, something shattered. Whatever might stop her from the most extreme actions, it wasn't there anymore. The veneer was gone.
Dying didn't scare him nearly as much as the idea that a bullet would just tear through muscles and joints. What if it wasn't fatal? What if it just destroyed his knee or shoulder? What if that meant chronic pain, pills mediating it forever? Once was enough. Once was hard enough. He couldn't go back to that. He'd almost prefer a fatal shot, blood pouring out too quickly to stop. It was better than slowly spiraling back downward.
Baz's hands shook, fitting key after key into the cabinet lock. They wouldn't turn. He kept trying. Maybe the next key... or the next... waiting for Gwen's patience to run out.
One clicked, the cabinet popping open.
Beneath the base, behind the sleek finished wood instead of behind glass, there was a folder. Kind of anticlimactic in appearance, but money and power didn't necessarily come in the form of briefcases of cash. Paper promises were worth killing for. Documents granting the ability to make money. Selling something intangible to fill bank accounts of electronic dollar signs. Without prompting, Baz reached in to retrieve the manila folder.
Behind him, an audible click spoke a louder threat than any broken voice could. Hunting season in Iowa came back to him vividly, a deer in a sight, the safety flicked off.
There was Gwen's reflection in the open glass: poised and postured like it was just a photoshoot for some action movie tie-in perfume line. She looked right through him, nothing more than one more way to hurt Rei. He had always been a tool, something with which to reach Rei.
Baz almost didn't see the blur of motion behind her mirrored silhouette. His senses fractured the sequence of events, first hearing the gasp, the clatter of metal against the floor, skidding out of reach. The pieces fumbled together into recognizable context. Rei stood over Gwen's body, laid out across the floor.
It didn't take much to knock a woman in stilettos off balance.
"Sébastien—" Rei said. Baz took the folder in his teeth, freeing both hands.
He moved faster than he could think, springing off the bench to take a leap for the upper edge of the showcase. His grip held long enough to paste one foot against the glass, enough for the little bit of leverage he needed to scramble atop the case.
What made him so useful to Jasper wasn't just his particular skill set. Looking down into the wide, shocked faces below him, it was so clear that Jasper and Cheng didn't know how to improvise. They were practiced men, used to plans. Baz moved too quickly for them to comprehend how to react.
Only Rei moved, lunging for the gun, just out of Gwen's reach.
Adrenaline pulsed readily through Baz's body, as if it replaced all the blood in him. His lungs could barely keep up with the ragged breaths. The break-down of motion was not unfamiliar to his joints. It was all variation of moves he'd done a hundred times in different contexts.
Like the leap he made to the hanging quote: 'So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.'
It pendulumed on its cables as he caught it, pulling himself up to a full standing position, a tightrope walker above the chaos. He took the folder in one hand, tucking it into his shirt.
"You don't have to do this!" Rei called up. She had the gun, but Gwen sat up, kicking off her shoes before getting to her feet.
"Look out!" Baz replied, not quick enough. Gwen lunged, more cat than woman, knocking Rei right though the arch into the Da Vinci gallery.
The lighting grid overhead, dotted with instruments beaming down on the arranged artifacts, worked not unlike a set of monkey bars, if monkey bars were placed four feet apart and upwards of twelve feet off the ground.
The consequence of missing the grid on a jump was likely dropping the entire distance to the floor, so Baz didn't miss. His fingers curled around the pipe and he swung for momentum, the same stakes as usual at play. Miss, and break something. If not a bone, an irreplaceable antique. It took seconds, not minutes, taking a leap of faith between pipes before coming over the walls separating costumery from science. An umbrella barred the door, a weak attempt at locking it.
Gwen wrestled Rei for the gun, a tangled heap of limbs and hands, scratching for purchase in skin. It wasn't a tidy Taekwondo match, no ref to call for foul play as buttons from Rei's shirt skittered across the floor, Gwen tugging on fabric as a hold on Rei.
It was Cheng who yanked them apart, ruffling his impeccable suit. For a moment, Baz couldn't see the glint of metal amid the bodies, not until he heard it.
The shot.
He flinched. Then he dropped, gasping. His hands reached for anything he could hold, closing around the cable supporting the flying contraption of Da Vinci's design. Baz hit the muslin hard. The bat-like wing bounced under his weight.
The manila folder flitted down, the pages within it easing to the floor like falling snowflakes. Rei sat up on her elbows.
"Take it, Gwen. It's all yours," Rei replied. Not defeated. Not conceding. It was almost like she was relieved.
Gwen walked like she won, gathering the sheets promising her whatever she wanted.
The creaking started slow. Even Gwen heard it, looking up. It spread, growing louder as it traveled the length of the frame until the final sickening snap separated the wingtip from the eye hook holding it to its cable.
Da Vinci's flying machine did not fly. No wind caught under its wings to glide it gently to the ground. One wingtip held fast to its cable. Not while Baz's weight skewed the distribution, gravity giving a distinct downward pull. He scrambled for a grip around something solid, finding the boning under the canvas as he slid toward the rapidly dropping wingtip.
The whole piece swooped, driven forward by Baz's weight and the dynamic load, battering everything in its path: including Gwen.
She went sprawling across the floor, everyone else scattering out of the way, voluntarily hitting the floor to dodge the strike and the shower of broken glass as showcases toppled to smash against the floor.
Another distinct snap reverberated through the hall and the entire beast came crashing down.
