[2023 Wattys Shortlist, 2023 Amby Awards winner, Featured 3 times in Wattpad Picks lists]
Kaleth has worked as an agent of Luxarx for years. What the average person might see as an exciting, dangerous job has become the routine, and the only thing...
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It was as if time slowed down for a moment, and all Kaleth could do was stare at the plate of fries in front of him in shock. Thankfully, Rayni's voice brought him out of it almost immediately.
"Run?"
"Run!" Kaleth agreed, slamming what money he had in his pocket on the table and sprinting out of the diner, quickly pushing past a few people in his way as he and Rayni, Kara, and Mel ran to the car.
They hadn't parked right next to the diner because there hadn't been an empty parking space, and so it took them precious seconds to get to their vehicle. Before they even took off, he could see two black cars in the distance. Judging by the speed they were going, and by the color, Kaleth deduced two facts: one—they definitely belonged to the EFP, and two—there was no way they could ever fly faster than the EFP, which meant that trying to lose them was hopeless.
Kaleth knew Rayni, though—the woman never gave up, even when she probably should.
Rayni didn't fly up too far, just enough that she wouldn't harm any pedestrians before she started zigzagging between the many tall buildings the relatively large city had to offer.
Kaleth hadn't thought they'd last even five minutes since the EFP could watch where they were going from above the city, but Rayni managed to overcome this problem by flying through as many tunnels as possible. There weren't that many, especially since they were now used purely as bike paths, but some of them were pretty long and enough to disappear for long enough that it would seem like they managed to hide somewhere, or possibly like they weren't even in the city anymore. Especially if the EFP agents hadn't seen them enter the tunnel.
After about twenty minutes of still not being killed or arrested, which was strange because Kaleth knew for a fact that even speeding should have alerted the city police, Kaleth was actually starting to think this would work, and he was quite the pessimist. He had to begrudgingly admit that Rayni was the better driver, but Kaleth would still not say that out loud. He'd never hear the end of it.
"Do you think we lost them?" Rayni asked, taking another sharp turn into a tunnel, making two cyclists unfortunate enough to be in the area almost fall off their bikes.
Kaleth expected the two EFP cars to show up right as she said this, but once they left the tunnel, there was still no one around. Rayni slowed down a bit but didn't stop flying in places where cars generally had no business being.
"I haven't seen them once in the last ten minutes," Kara told Rayni, but her tone suggested she didn't think the EFP was gone. Kaleth would have to concur. "But it's odd that the regular police aren't after us yet. Someone should have reported you by now."
"I'm not endangering anyone," Rayni scoffed, and Kara grumbled something under her breath.
"I agree that it seems suspicious," Kaleth said, "but we can't stay here."
