The Great Below

The Robbery: Part 3

Octavia could no longer see Alex through the kitchen doorway, so she lifted her bowl of ice water and backed toward the sliding glass balcony doors. She had to step carefully so her bare feet wouldn't squeak. She crouched low with the bowl, heavy and wobbling in her hands. One big tip and the water came rushing out. The ice cubes clinked, but they would be worth the noise. She hefted the whole thing over, spun, and unlocked the door.

Either it was heavier than she remembered, or the track was full of dirt. It was the panic. She grabbed tight with both hands, still a little numb from the ice, and yanked the door across. First came the stomping, fast and confident. Then a slide and a wet crash into the refrigerator – she didn't turn to look, but a blur of color had collapsed there and was clamoring to its feet. She ripped open the screen door and sprinted onto the balcony.

"Stop!" Alex bellowed, pain clear in his voice.

In a few short steps, she reached the outer railing. She thrust one knee against it and started to climb over.

"Wait," he cried from the doorway. He lifted both hands in truce. "A jump from this height? You're not thinking."

Octavia froze, straddling the rail.

"We're three stories up. At the very least, you'd break your legs."

She looked down to a welcoming bed of dead grass and crumpled leaves. It was a little farther away than she would have liked. The sting returned to both hands and she looked down at the ground and imagined herself sprawled there. He was right. Her ankles would snap and her shins would crash up into her thighs and she would never walk again. She had to hope that acquiescing was better than destroying herself from the waist down.

Alex stepped onto the balcony, hands raised in front of him. As the distance between them vanished, there came the social discomfort of keeping his eye contact and the abrupt intimacy of staring face-to-face as she struggled with the urge to fling herself away from him, toward painful freedom. His suit was wrinkled and splattered with water. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

"I don't care about anything in the house," she replied. "I don't. You could take it all." It was a small bluff. Most everything in the apartment belonged to Victor. She was looking into Alex's eyes and losing her nerve. She slid her raised leg down off the railing, turned and pressed her lower back against it instead.

Nick approached the screen door, dress shoes squishing. "I don't mean to alarm either of you," he said, "but somebody's water broke."

"It's okay," Alex told him. "It's my fault. I frightened her."

Nick made a face, lifting one foot and then the other. "Gross."

Alex waited until Nick had retreated into the apartment. "Thank you for not jumping. I'm having a bad week, and I don't think I could have bounced back from that."

Octavia frowned. "I should be more thoughtful," she said.

"No, that's not what I mean." He ran a hand over his forehead and back through his hair. "Let me ask you: where would Victor hide something valuable?"

Nick's voice drifted in from the living room. "We don't have all night."

Octavia glanced once more over the railing, wondering if he had exaggerated the nature of the fall. That was when he lunged for her. Alex hooked both his hands under her arms and lifted her toward the door in one fluid pull. She went rigid against his touch, locking her elbows at her sides. She tangled her burning fists in the damp cotton of his shirt, but still, he forced her inside.

#

"Bad news," Nick said.

Alex stood at the center of a one-man hurricane. In the living room, Nick had toppled most of the furniture, pulling out drawers and overturning them in mounds on the floor. On the coffee table he had piled their unimpressive treasure: a small sum of cash and an Armani watch that, on the day it had been purchased, was worth two-hundred bucks.

"There's nothing here," Nick continued. "I mean, if we were inclined to take them, we could have a kitchen full of outdated appliances. That's about it."

"Nothing in the bedroom?" Alex asked.

"Or the closets, or the bathroom or the kitchen."

Alex turned to the couch, where Octavia sat glaring at the money on the table in front of her.

"I hate to say it," Nick began, "but I think we can stop looking."

Alex rubbed his shoulder, where pain still radiated from crashing into the fridge. He took a fistful of papers from the armchair next to him and tossed them aside. "You're right, we're running out of time. I'll call Dominic."

"No, Alex. I mean...we can stop looking." Nick cast an unsubtle glance at the girl on the couch.

"I doubt she'll tell us."

Nick sighed. "Remind me never to play charades with you. What exactly did Dominic say on the phone?"

"He said Victor has something of value and that it's usually in his apartment, and..." Alex looked at the black-haired girl. There was scar tissue forming on her hands, scrapes on her wrist and the hint of a bruise under her makeup. The trap door gave out in his stomach. "He said that I'll know it when I see it."

"She is the only thing Dominic might find valuable here."

"Person, not thing. She's not the recruit. Why would we recruit her?" Alex asked.

"He didn't say recruit. He said valuable."

"Nick, goddamn it." Alex kicked at a heap of discarded books. "My first recruitment job and he asks me to kidnap an underage girl?"

"I'm twenty-one," she volunteered.

"Have you picked up women for him before?"

Nick glanced outside, where he probably wished he was at the moment. "I'm not saying it's normal, but Dom isn't celibate, either. I never took any woman like her."

"Oh, Christ." Alex kicked more debris out of his path, looking for his cigarettes. He found his pack damp and half-empty on the kitchen floor, then lit the driest one he could find.

"If he'd told you the truth, would you have agreed to pick her up? Look at it from his point of view."

Alex laughed a cloud of smoke. "Bullshit."

"You don't have to do it. We could say she wasn't here or that something went wrong. We'll get rid of her."

Octavia's eyes widened and she retreated deeper into the cushions. As Alex advanced, she curved her shoulders protectively, hands cupped in her lap. He found that he could still see the damage there when he closed his eyes, as if he'd looked too long at the sun. "Why did he burn you?"

"The answer won't make this any easier," Nick warned.

Alex barely heard him. He was close enough to listen to her breathing, to see the way her chest rose and fell as she watched him with pale, anxious eyes. He noticed her delicate frame and her soft hair and all of the things that made her distinctly female, and realized how long it had been since he'd stood this close to a woman. She pulled her knees up to her chest and curled her toes over the edge of the sofa. "I told you, it was an accident."

"You don't have to lie."

"Okay," she said. "Then it's none of your business. Now let me go."

Nick clapped his hands together. "See? Even she appreciates that time is a factor. Do we keep her or what?"

How was it that she could be so frail and stubborn at the same time? So much of her appearance was sharp – the drop from her cheekbones, the thin pointed elbows that had fought him coming in from the balcony, the way she stared at him even now on the couch, when she could have easily won him over with charm instead. He'd only seen her relax for one instant: when her burns were submerged in fresh ice water, he'd caught a glimpse of vulnerability.

Dominic would hate that he'd taken an interest in her.

"Get a blanket," Alex replied.