Heist Royale (Thieves’ Gambit #2)

Chapter Fifteen

Fifteen

Ice crackled under my boot.

I sucked in a sharp breath. My brain screamed to jump back onto the safe ground behind me, but I fought it, taking another baby step.

The ice made another unsettling crackle. But no spidering, not that I could tell.

It was solid. I was fine.

Inching forward, I quickly glanced over my shoulder at the facility. Already, I’d made it farther than I thought—at least five yards now. Maybe my adrenaline had carried me this far. Noelia was gone; only a closed door was left behind.

My breath blew out in an icy cloud. I slid forward. The ice crackle-popped under me, making my heart stutter. I gripped my shoulder straps and kept going. Carefully. Slow wasn’t so bad. Since the idea of anyone breaking in through the water side was a new level of insane, there weren’t any cameras facing this way to worry about. I could take my time.

One step, then another. Smooth, easy. Don’t lose balance. The pack strapped behind me felt even heavier with the all-encompassing cold pressing in and numbing my limbs. I almost felt myself teetering when I was at the halfway mark, but I caught myself.

Chill, Ross.

No pun intended.

Almost across—I could do this.

A streak of a sound broke into the night. I stilled, arms out to keep my balance. Even over the blaring of the lab’s alarms, my ears were honed to recognize a sound like that. Hinges moving.

The back door where I’d left Noelia was still closed, a threadbare layer of snow now beginning to cover my messy footprints.

If not that door, then…

I turned my gaze toward the adjacent facility. Rounding the back came a figure. Tall and wrapped snugly in all black. We were too far apart to see each other clearly, but I knew she was looking at me, just like I knew I’d felt her eyes on me earlier.

Diane. Again. And just like last time, she was headed straight for me.

Oh, no you don’t.

I had a head start—all I needed to do was keep moving. Gripping my shoulder strap with one hand and keeping the other out for balance, I inched forward again. Diane hesitated for less than a second before sliding onto the ice. Catching on to my short and careful movements, she mimicked me, sliding over the ice in an annoyingly graceful way.

I gritted my teeth and looked toward the edge of the frozen water. The collection of rocks was, what, one hundred feet up and to the left of me now? It’d be an easy climb to the cove behind them. I just had to get there. Having exited the safe way, Noelia should already be waiting with Mylo.

Get to the cove. Don’t break the ice. Don’t let Diane catch up. Those were the only three rules of my life right now.

I slipped forward. The ice groaned. No time for fear.

Diane was getting closer.

My breath did catch when I risked a look back at her. Distance was double-timing me, but Diane was featherlight, while I had what might as well have been a bag of dumbbells strapped to me.

I bit my lip, though it was so chilly I hardly felt it. I needed to speed up, but it wasn’t like I could take bigger steps. I tried to just move faster. Slide, maybe. My boots blazed through the crunchy, paper-thin layer of snow above the ice. I ignored the hollow hum of sound waves bouncing against the ice beneath me. If it cracked, I’d just have to outrun that too. Stopping wasn’t an option.

What would happen if Diane caught up to me? Hell or high water, ice or snow, I wasn’t handing this target over. But it didn’t look like she was just going to rock-paper-scissors me for it either.

Letting her catch up to me meant an altercation. Altercation meant movement.

Too much movement meant shattering ice.

She was playing chicken with me. Little did she know how reckless I was these days.

I kept gliding, pushing myself forward over the ice like I was on slow, miniature skis. But I wasn’t fast enough. Diane was getting closer and closer. It was like in a horror movie when each time the lights click back on, the slasher is even closer than before.

The rocks were maybe twenty yards ahead. Diane was more like four behind me.

At this rate, she’d catch me.

Glancing back again, I saw her pull something out of her coat pocket. Small and silver, it glinted in the moonlight. She pressed the side, and a blade punched out the top. A switchblade.

She wanted to use it to cut the straps. That had to be what she was going for. It was what I would do.

As she drew closer, I felt that phantom barrel from the end of the Gambit at the back of my head. The point of the blade was precariously sharp, gripped in her thin gloves with intent…

Or maybe she wasn’t going for the straps. After all, she was doing all this because she wanted my mom and me dead. Who would stop her from doing it now?

Oh crap.

Panicking, I turned around. Her lower face was hidden behind a mask, but those furious eyes, now close enough to make out, would have been enough to raise my hackles even without the knife.

In that same split second of panicked reflection, I focused on the sheet of ice under my soles. Why does ice crack? There’s too much force on it. Force is weight divided by area. If I could redistribute my weight, it would decrease my chances of breaking through the ice or catching an already-splintered part.

I unclicked the straps of the backpack, slinking it off, then unclipped the ski rods weighing down the pack. Like a starfish, I sprawled over the ice. Only ten or so meters away now, the turn of events even made Diane’s steps stutter for a second, and it was just the kind of momentary slipup I needed. I javelined the ski rods in Diane’s direction. She threw her hands up in defense, but I wasn’t aiming for her. One, and then the next landed point first into the ice. The splintering sound might as well have been as loud as an avalanche. Diane dropped into a crouch. I kept my weight sprawled and held my breath. But the splintering drew to a stop at my feet.

Carefully, I tilted my head up. A long and precarious crack divided me and Diane. It had worked.

Irritated but not defeated, Diane was already going the long way around the lengthy splinter. Really, I’d just bought myself time. I scrambled on my back a few yards away, then carefully stood, restrapped the target on my back, and resumed the pace I’d been at before. Sprawling was safer, but I needed speed again.

The edge of the rocks beckoned me ahead. I flew forward.

Ice still surrounded me; in a warmer month, I would have been on the edge of a lagoon, but now there were just the rocks wrapping around me. Ahead, a smaller patch of them jutted into the air, begging to be climbed. I panted, unsmudging my frosty goggles.

To the rocks. Over the rocks. To the Zodiac. I had the target.

I was going to make it.

Then a thunderous crackle roared behind me. My head snapped around just in time to see the ice buckling and shattering like fractured cubic zirconia.

I ran. The frozen air dug into my throat. My heart pounded into the cold. More ice was splintering under my weight, but screw it. I needed to get away.

A few more yards until solid ground. And I was sprinting.

The rocks were almost close enough to jump onto. Just an arm’s width away. I blew out one last time, and grabbed on to the first bumpy crevice.

It happened like a dream. The ground underneath me was there…and then it wasn’t. The crashing and buckling sound of the ice reached a crescendo. And the next thing I knew, I wasn’t standing on anything at all.