Too Far

27: Game Preparations

"I just don't understand why Robbie would take her there if he knows you're with us and that you know that he and your dad went there," Selena said for the tenth time as we drove. We were slowly going towards Baltimore, and I grew more nervous as we went. She claimed we were only twenty minutes away now, and my mind went haywire with possibilities. Whether or not she was dead, if she would be on the brink of death, if they would be dead and she'd be halfway to Timbuktu...

The possibilities were endless with Louise, after all.

"So what are we expecting?" Jay asked, disregarding Selena's complaint.

"A big, ugly business building that draws too much attention to itself. Then, on the inside, it'll be a lot of tile and black and white. Then, in the basement, it'll be a lot of red."

"Red?" Selena asked, frowning in confusion at the color choice.

Katherine gave her a flat look. None of us bothered to correct her again.

"Which one of you is best at shooting?" Katherine asked.

I didn't raise my hand. Jay shrugged. "I used to hunt with my dad."

"I'm assuming Selena doesn't shoot, so just give this one to Jay," I put in, grabbing the one in the console. She didn't object and Jay took it with an excited glint in his eye.

"Aim for the head, not the heart," Katherine remind him.

"Try not to aim for either. She gives bad advice," I said, overriding her piece of information. "It's best to just shoot the leg. They collapse and might bleed out, and we don't have to worry about murdering anyone."

"But then they could still shoot us!" Katherine snapped. "Headshots only. Hear?"

"Headshots if they're armed, leg if they aren't," he deduced, nodding. "Thanks."

There was so much city surrounding us, and the traffic was crazy. There were so many cars, I wondered if twenty minutes was just a distance estimate. If there was no traffic, it would take twenty minutes. This?

We wouldn't be there for over an hour.

I told Katherine this. She snorted and gave me a let-me-prove-you-wrong look. Then, we were suddenly turning into an empty, sketchy alleyway and she was flooring the gas.

The next few minutes, we were turning down a twisting network of backroads and alleys. I didn't even know those existed in Baltimore, but Katherine managed to take them for a lot of the journey.

Then, we turned and had to go towards the heart of Baltimore, where we'd find Robbie and Louise/Louise's body. I was still hoping it wasn't the latter. Katherine strongly believed it would be, though. Selena was betting on the former. Jay was just floating along, hoping he didn't have to deal with the latter but not being as emotionally involved as Selena and I.

I knew Katherine didn't have a sensitive bone in her body. She told it like it was. She was no longer shy like she was when I first started talking to her, but bold and frank now that I knew her. She never failed to remind me that nothing was stopping him from killing Louise now that she was here. He'd made a safe getaway.

But he'd also forgotten that Katherine knew a lot about him.

When we arrived, my foot was tapping and my heart was pounding. "Disguises?" Selena suggested.

"That's the first non sucky idea that you've said," Katherine said.

"All of your ideas suck, but we go along with them anyway," Selena reminded her, rolling her eyes.

My lips twitched, but I don't say anything and turn to face them all. "What kind of disguises?" Jay asked, tilting his head. "Business suits?"

"That sounds good," Katherine said. "Selena can put our hair into more..." She glanced at my mess of curls, unkempt and uncut. "More professional styles."