Title: New School (Part Two): I Was a Teenaged Fugitive.
Featuring: Desade
Date: Couple weeks back.
Location: Seattle and San Francisco

Prologue: Where I Recap A Lot
I'm Quinn, and this is my story. If you weren't here with us last time, it's okay. I know I'm not exactly memorable.

My mom is famous... well, kind of, at least. She is one of those people you'd see on the street and say, "Hey, it's that girl from that thing we saw that one time." Some of her colleagues have parlayed that recognition factor into real celebrity, appearances on TMZ or low-rent television shows â€" reality, usually, but somebody has to play the monster of the week on the CW. Others are recognized because they're "that blonde chick that wrestles" or "the crazy redneck that put a nail through that other chick's cheek."

Not Alex Pierce. Despite it all â€" the GTT tournament win (yes, I know that's redundant), the title matches, that she's one of the faces of a semi-well-known wrestling federation with a cable deal, being one of the few people (nevermind women) who can do what she does, or that she's one of the few out lesbians on TV â€" people don't swamp her on the street. They don't do this for two reasons:

1.) She's a super private person. She doesn't go out, doesn't give interviews, doesn't grace magazine covers or anything like that. If she's in town, she's pretty much at home.

2.) She's an international secret agent. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous â€" James Bond in tights getting beat up on TV? But I've seen it, seen her sink into roles, seen her step into a bathroom and a whole different person come out. People don't recognize her when they see her on the street because, by and large, people don't know it's her they're seeing.

I'm her baby girl, only child, and biggest weakness, which is what led her and the guy who fathered me (I refuse to call him my dad â€" my dad is a music teacher who lives in the Dallas suburbs) to send me to a place called the Ellis Academy. Ellis is like Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, only instead of superpowers, we have parents with security clearance, which is, trust me, not nearly as cool.

"Great," I thought, being your typical teenaged girl. "That sounds like boring wrapped in ivy-covered walls."

Turns out it was a little more complex (and a lot less boring) than that. On my orientation weekend, some of my fellow classmates spirited me from Berkeley to Seattle, where I got to see the sights of a city that many wrestlers think is cursed (long story, don't ask), and, oh, by the way, we knocked over a jewelry store that may or may not have been funding a group of bad guys.

So... that happened.

And then this did.

---

One: Where I Yell A Lot
It was just over ninety minutes, two car rides, and a change of clothes after my first real heist that I knocked on the flimsy door to the (frankly skeezy) roadside motel room we'd rented. I hit it hard enough that the sky blue paint flaked away, drifting down to the concrete like off-color snowflakes. I watched them to distract myself from how piss-poor my mood was.

Lionel caved right after Ian hit me, capitulating to the boys' demands while I sat on the floor with my back to the display case and a makeshift cold compress against my cheek. (It would've been nice if he'd pulled that punch a little.)

After they'd gone, Lionel showered me with apologies that bordered on the obsequious. Notably, he didn't call the police, however, and he promised me the moon if I wouldn't either, saying he'd "rather handle things internally".

If you're anything like me, a part of you just muttered, "Uh-oh, THAT doesn't sound good."

I sat there all the while, nodding mutely, attempting to be as "shell-shocked" and "dumb blonde" as I could manage given the speed at which my mind was whirling. Once he was sure I wasn't going to run out of the store screaming, Lionel begged me to let him hire a car to take me anywhere I wanted to go, an offer I only took because I couldn't think of any reason I could say no that wouldn't raise suspicions.

It turned out that his idea of "hiring a car" was to get his cousin's boy Scott (no shit, Lionel called him "Scooter," though he quickly amended that, saying I should stick with Scott) to drive me, which would have been fine if not for the fact that that he spent more time using the rearview mirror for purposes other than safety. (Seriously, a girl puts on one miniskirt...)

This was the part where I had to improvise. I knew where I was meeting the rest of them â€" assuming they didn't bail with a few thousand dollars in jewelry â€" but I couldn't just go there. He might've seen something, might've told Lionel where he took me. I had Scooter drop me off at a thrift store (it's Seattle, there's more than a few), claiming I had to finish my shopping. He snorted like I was a typical woman â€" held up at noon, back to shopping by two â€" and let me off at the curb.

He didn't even have the courtesy to open the door.

I ducked inside and threw together an outfit with an eye to the cheap â€" Mom might have the contract worth beaucoup bucks, but I live on a not-so-big teenager's allowance. It wasn't something I'd wear to school (I don't go for the whole thrift store hippy chick look), but the lot of it only set me back like twenty-five bucks, and it was different enough from the glammed-up girl who'd come in that I figured it wouldn't draw a second glance.

I asked the guy behind the counter if I could use the changing room, and he agreed without looking up from his Avengers trade paperback. It wasn't very big â€" barely more than a closet with a thin rectangle of a mirror. It wouldn't do much to tell me how I looked, but at least I'd be sure the outfit was on straight when I left.

Besides, the key was getting rid of that hair. I know that in the movies or on television, people just slip off a wig like they're wearing a hat, but it doesn't work like that, at least not if you're planning to wear the thing for any length of time. That requires hairpins â€" lots of them if you have as much hair as I do. Removing those pins in that cramped fitting room was a little like surgery, and I lost more than a little of my own hair in the process.

It wasn't the first time I was thankful for inheriting my mother's obsessive-compulsive attention to detail, but it felt like it. I left that room sure I'd picked every goddamn hairpin up. It's not like I was expecting them to do a DNA sweep of the place (or, come to think of it, that I wanted them to, because, y'know... eww), but I also didn't want to leave anything for anyone to find. Nevermind that it's rude or that Avenger Hipster would have to clean it up â€" it just doesn't pay to leave a trail, especially when I knew the investigation would be "handled internally" (though I didn't know what that meant).

With my glasses back in place and a honest-to-goodness flower in my hair, I left the way I'd come. I was gratified to know that Scooter was still in the parking lot, though whether he was there because he was spying or he just wanted in the spoiled debutante's pants I couldn't know.

I walked for almost two blocks before I hailed the cab to the hotel. I am way too much like Mom for my own good. The cab brought me to the motel, and that's where I banged on the door.

Pavel opened the door for me, casting it aside as if it weighed no more than a piece of paper. He was big, broad-shouldered and hefty â€" not in the way that guys in the wrestling business are, but more like the linemen that protect Tom Brady on Sunday afternoons. The muscles may not be as pretty, no peaks and valleys for the ladies to sigh over, but they were functional, and I wouldn't want him to hit me any more.

Thankfully, the big Ukrainian was as gentle as a kitten. "New girl!" he exclaimed, yard-wide grin splitting his face. He threw his arms around me. I'm no wilting flower â€" I'm only sixteen, but I'm already as tall as Mom, and I train with her at least twice a week â€" but still, Pavel managed to engulf me completely. "Is good to see you," he said, clapping me on the back hard enough that I was sure I'd have welts. "I thought perhaps you had... how you say... run away with tail between your thighs."

"Legs," I said absently. I'm not sure how much of Pavel's language problems were legitimate â€" there's a certain benefit in pretending to be dumber than you are â€" but he reminded me of an overgrown dog that just doesn't know it's too big to sit in your lap anymore. "It's between my legs."

"Is what she said," he said with another smile, stepping aside so be didn't block the doorframe. I laughed helplessly as I slid by, because what else could I do?

Inside, the room looked as if it had been decorated in the late 1970s and then promptly forgotten about. It was dingy, all egg yolk yellow and storm cloud gray, mottled like a robin's egg â€" or, worse, as if what color there was had been puked up by a particularly nearsighted drunk.

I guess what I'm saying is it was god-awful â€" so bad it literally stopped me in my tracks. "Oh... my god," I said. "It's like the Island of Misfit Colors."

"We were thinking they were going for, like, bad Picasso," said the girl seated at the table in what passed for the sitting room. Maritza "Itze" DeMarco was a lot of things, chief among them "hot" and "all too aware of that fact." It was the type of thing that usually set my teeth on edge, reminding me too much of my godmother in all the worst ways. But Itze had a certain impish innocence under her uber-sexual façade that Aunt Kathi didn't even bother to try faking.

Either that or I'm a closeted lesbian, and I don't even want to think about that, thanks.

"You did really well, you know." Itze didn't look up; she held a jeweler's eye to her left socket like he knew what she was doing as she examined our ill-gotten gains. That wasn't really a surprise, since Lionel was her stepfather, a fact I didn't understand and that didn't really add to my good cheer.

"Thanks," I demurred. "I still don't think it came off right. If I'd had more time, I could'veâ€""

The bathroom faucet cut me off, running briefly before the wafer-thin door opened with a squeal I imagine a slaughtered piglet might make. "If you had more time," Ian Spencer quipped. "Then I think the only thing that would have come off were that guy's pants."

"Ian!" Maritza reached out to swat ineffectually at his arm. "That's my dad, you know."

It wasn't a very stinging rebuke (Itze had helped me pick out the wardrobe, after all), but it was more than I could manage, momentarily struck mute by the sight of him. Ian was literally the kind of boy girls dreamed about (if by "girls," you meant "me," and if by "dreamed about," you meant "had thoughts she's too ashamed to share.")

He was, in a word, gorgeous. In four more: tall, dark and handsome. His eyes sparkled with roguish charm, and that haircut all but guaranteed he'd be up for the role of Han Solo's son in any future Star Wars movies.

(Yes, I am nerd enough to know his name would be Jacen. Shut up.)

"Stepdad, and I'm just saying she's a natural, Itze," Ian said, and the compliment made my ears burn. "Better than just drama club good, even..."

He pinned me in place with his eyes, coming back around to the same question he'd asked several hours ago when we were getting ready. "Your folks are with the Company or something, right?"

"Uhh..." I stammered for an answer, unable to avoid it this time. "Or something, yeah." My brow furrowed, and once I'd found my tongue, it proved impossible to stem the tide. "We really, really need to go."

"Go?" Ian flounced onto the bed, the hem of his shirt riding up slightly, just enough to remind me there were abs under there and they were doubtlessly fantastic. His smile crept over the border into "insufferable" when he caught me looking. "You just got here."

Itze looked up from the haul finally, her brows lifting. "Our flight is at seven," she said, lips twisting into an impish little smirk. "Relax, we'll be back before anyone misses us."

"Relax? Relax?!" It was way easier to be mad at Maritza than at Ian. "In case you forgot, we just robbed your father's jewelry store. Now is not a good time toâ€""

"We have done this kind of thing before, you know." She shrugged diffidently, and in that motion, I saw the truth: they hadn't.

I spun on a heel to face the table. "You've done this before, have you? Done it lots of times? Which is why we had such a great plan, right? Which is why we flew all the way to Seattle and had no time to tell the new girl what the fuck was going on? What would your great plan have been without me?"

"We would have thought of something." Ian reached across to the other nightstand for the TV remote. "Listen, Quinn... just because we don't have a lot of field expertise. You're sixteen â€" how much can you have?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed. Here we were again: how much could I tell them? How much should I tell them? I hadn't had time to think â€" if I had, I probably wouldn't be here â€" and I didn't know these people at all. (Which makes me question why the hell I got dressed up and went through with it to start with, but that's neither here nor there.)

In the end, I stuck to the script. "We have to get out of here before they come looking for us."

Ian casually flipped through the channels, only sparing half of his attention or so for me. "It'll take the cops a while to figure out what happened. By the time they've got anything concrete, we'll be back in Berkeley, and it's not like they'll suspectâ€""

"Don't you get it?" Man, I hate it when people don't listen. "Lionel didn't say anything about the cops. He said he'd handle it internally, which means the people you stole from are going to look into this themselves. They're probably already looking into it. They're not going to be interested in due process or habeas corpus or any of that. They're going to be looking for those gems, and they're not going to care what they have to do to get them."

That drew Ian's eyes to me, a glimmer of something in his eyes other than that unparalleled confidence I was already so used to. "You're overreacting. We'll be fine. We're teenagers. It's Itze's dad's store. They're not going to put this on us."

"With all due respect, you don't have a clue what people like this are going to do."

"And you do?" Ian muted the TV, sitting up and twisting so he could look up at me. "Listen, Quinn, we needed a girl to tug Lionel's heartstrings. That's it, okay? I don't know what you think you know, butâ€""

I shot a plaintive look over my shoulder to Maritza, who at least was smart enough to pack up the spoils. "Look, Ian, you just have to trust me, okay? There are some truly awful people out there, and maybe you're right and they won't think it's us, but maybe I'm right and they will. I'd ratherâ€""

"Enough!" Pavel's voice was deep and resonant and, even with the accent, the words were clear. "Enough with the chitchat and the arguing and the yelling so loud in my ears. Krasivaya says go. She sounds like she knows what she is talking about, and this hotel room, it smells like pig sweat and the television has only seven channels on it. We go."

"Krasiâ€"" I started, the Russian going over my head completely. "I do know what I'm talking about."

Ian stood, shirt falling reluctantly back into place, as if it didn't want to cover him back up. "Even if I agreed, it's not like we could change our flight so quickly. You can't just wave your hand and... and make things happen."

"As a matter of fact, I kind of can" This was where I grinned â€" it's not easy work or glamorous or without risk, but sometimes, this stuff is just downright fun. "I might know a guy. Uh, so... where did you guys put my clothes?"

* * *

The Vietnamese man went by the handle of Vulture, and, at heart, he was just a comic book nerd. He was short â€" the spikes at the top of his red-and-black mullet added an inch or so to his height, but I was still a hair bigger even without heels.

He met us outside security at the airport, his smile broad and relentlessly cheerful. His t-shirt was red with the bronze lightning bolt logo of Captain Marvel (you know, the Shazam! Guy) across the front. "Harlequin," he said, flashing a grin as he took me by the shoulders. "I didn't think I would ever hear from you again."

"I didn't think I would ever call." I shrugged a little, enough to dislodge his hands.

Vulture was a part of Mom's world, a hacker and a computer terrorist with a history of causing more trouble than he was worth. I owed him about a boatload of favors, most of them stemming from some trouble over the summer that â€" trust me â€" would take way too long to explain. Suffice it to say, he's never let me down, but in the world Mom comes from, I'm kind of like a golden child. Like Anakin Skywalker, except I was never as annoying as Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen. Or a whiny douche.

(...and I just outed myself as a total Star Wars geek again.)

"You got yourself a new crew, I see." Vulture looked over my shoulder at the tiny copse of teenagers lingering nearby and pretending they weren't listening.

"Hmm?" I turned to follow. "Not... uh, not really. They're my classmates."

Vulture's grin widened; he looked like a Pez dispenser. "That's right, I forget you're just seventeen, girl."

I didn't correct him, just hooked the strap of my duffel bag higher. "Look," I said. "Thanks for coming all the way out here. I know you must be busy, and this is really last minute and all."

Vulture waved a hand negligibly. "Don't fret, precious, I'm here," he said, reaching into his coat to tug out a blue and green ticket jacket that had clearly seen better days. "Was able to get seats on the next flight." He handed me the packet. "You'll have to backtrack a little, connect in Phoenix, but you get into San Francisco about ninety minutes earlier."

I nodded, perusing the papers as if I knew what I was looking for. To all appearances, they were perfectly ordinary plane tickets â€" maybe a little old school, since I don't remember the last time I didn't have an e-ticket. "First class?" My eyebrows arched over the rim of my glasses. "I thought the object was to stay under people's radar?"

"Consider it an early Christmas present." He flashed that crooked smile again. "And the object is to stay off radars â€" that doesn't necessarily mean under them or that you can't have a little fun."

"What about our other reservation?" I hadn't even heard Ian approach, but it's harder than you might think to keep track of a guy without watching him. "Those were some expensive tickets."

Vulture shook his head slightly, just enough to set his many earrings to jingling. "No way, kid," he said. (He's never called me "Kid".) "If she's right and they're onto you, the best thing you can do is make them think it'll be easy. You cancel your tickets, and they start looking somewhere else. You keep them, they'll focus here andâ€""

"And we'll already be gone." Ian finished it for then, still faintly oozing his disdain. "You don't have to patronize me, man. I'm a year older than Quinn is."

"Really." Vulture's left eyebrow (also pierced) came up as he folded his arms. "Then maybe you'd better start acting like it, instead of like some damn muggle."

"Muggle? This isn't Harry Potter, man."

"Yeah? That explains why you don't have the cool lightning bolt scar."

Ian sighed out his frustration, grabbing my elbow as he turned away. "Let's go, Quinn," he rumbled. "I don't know who your boyfriend thinks he is, butâ€""

I jerked my arm out of his grip, my voice coming up despite my best efforts. "He's not my boyfriend!" I shouted. "He'sâ€"" Their alarmed expressions caused me to look around, suddenly acutely aware of all the eyes I'd attracted. "He's not my boyfriend," I repeated, and though it felt like I was quieter, I'm not sure my little high-pitched whisper was any less noticeable. "Ian, please... just trust me."

I could tell he was thinking about it. "I barely even know you," Ian said.

"I could say the same thing, and yet I helped you with Lionel."

Ian sighed again, combing the fingers of one hand through his hair. "You're not like other girls, are you?" he asked, his charm leaking back through.

I smiled shyly, but I remember that Vulture barked a sharp laugh. "Kid, you have no idea. Harlequin is one of a kind." He meandered down the concourse as we took our place in the line. "One of a kind," he repeated, disappearing into the sea of holiday travelers.

He was still laughing when I lost sight of him.

---

Two: Where I Run A Lot, But It Doesn't Matter
I should have known something was up the moment we stepped off the plane in San Francisco, but in my defense, I was a little bit distracted.

The flight from Seattle to Phoenix was relatively uneventful, if a little bit late. In the end, we had to hurry to make our connection, and they'd overbooked the first class cabin due to a canceled flight earlier in the day. That left only room for two of us, and Itze and Ian claimed them, posing as a couple with an ease that made me ask how much truth there was behind it. That left coach seats in two different aisles for Pavel and I, and I gave him the aisle in the back for the legroom, so I was stuck in the middle of a family taking an early holiday.

Still, it suited me just fine, because anyone who pieced together what had happened in Seattle would be looking for a group, so the enforced separation would serve as another layer of insulation against detection.

Or it would have, if Maritza hadn't waited for me, making a show of rooting around in her bag until I came through the curtain. "Hey," she said, filing in behind me. "I didn't want to carry these across the airport alone."

I nodded without turning, smiling a farewell to the flight attendants stationed at the door. Itze caught up in the jetway, the well-worn carpet doing little to muffle the sound of her quickening strides. "Uhm, I... I wanted to talk to you before we got back to school," she said, a little bit hesitantly. To her credit, she didn't turn her head.

"Sure thing," I said, coming abruptly to the halt to let a pair of businessmen whip past, their wheeled suitcases rumbling behind them. I screwed my lips up into a confused pout, digging out the ticket jacket. It served as an excuse for us to be talking. "What's up?"

Maritza caught on quickly, pointing at the thing. "I just..." For the first time, the aloof, too-cool-for-the-room teenager fell out of her expression. "I don't want you to think that I... that I set my dad â€" stepdad â€" up or anything. I'm notâ€""

I gave her a little smile. "I know you're not," I said, touching a hand to her forearm â€" the closest I could come to a comforting gesture. "I've met so many really horrible people that I've got like a sixth sense for these things. I think you're one of the good ones."

"Really?" She tried to keep the hope out of her expression, but it was like the sun had come out from behind the clouds, and I think it was all she could do not to hug me. "You mean that?"

"I do." I gestured down the jetway, raising my voice just a little. "Could you maybe show me where it is?" I furrowed my brow a little, affecting a confused expression.

Again, Itze took the hint, moving ahead smoothly. She kept her voice low. "It's just... ever since we found out his store was involved, I've been just so... so..."

"So sure you'd turn out just as bad?" I finished the thought for her. "Sure you were carrying it, like... like some kind of disease?"

"Yeah!" She glanced quickly back over her shoulder, smiling sheepishly. "I mean, yeah." The second time was much quieter than the first. "How did..."

I lifted a hand dismissively. "Let's just say I have some experience with the subject," was all I'd offer, quickly changing the subject. "Where did Ian and Pavel get off to?"

"He..." Maritza squinted into the distance, trying to pick them out of the crowd. "Ian said he was going to get a car."

"A car?" My brows came up. "You man like a rental or something?"

"No, I think... I mean, he generallyâ€""

I didn't realize how frantically I was looking for Ian until Pavel threw one arm around each of us and I nearly jumped out of my skin. "Gah! Dammit, you scared me!"

"Sorry," he said, arm dropping off of my shoulder, but he was laughing. "How did you not hear me coming up? I am not sneaky like ninja."

"I don't know, I just... can either of you see them?"

Pavel shielded his eyes with his big ham hock of a hand. "Lots of little people running around in a hurry, just to sit in airplane."

"Maybe he's in baggage claim?" Itze offered. "That's where all the drivers are, right?"

I nodded, scratching at the back of my hand. Something bothered me, something that ran and hid in the shadows of my mind every time I tried to get a closer look. The three of us made our way to baggage claim (ordinarily a useless stop, because I don't check luggage), finding it almost completely barren. Not a single person lingered at the carousel, and just a few lone bags circled listlessly.

Things got better, and that's when I should have started looking in mouths.

"There he is," Itze said, surreptitiously pointing to the barricade separating us from the rest of the airport.

I glanced over my shoulder, andâ€"yeah, I'm never going to mistake Ian Spencer for anyone else, okay? He lingered beside a chauffeur who held a white placard reading, "JANE". He lifted a hand in greeting, beckoning us over. Itze took a half-step that way, but I stopped her with a hand on her forearm.

"What?" She glanced back, brows coming up. "He's right there, and he's got a car. Let's go back to school before Robert tells Headmaster Halverson that we stole you."

"Why isn't he coming to us?" I asked. "I mean, he sees us, so why stay over there?"

Pavel lifted a hand to scrub at his chin. "Ian is a strange man," he concluded. "Perhaps he is, how you say, hooking the bait?"

"It's over, Quinn," Itze said. "Done with, and Ian got us a ride back to campus."

I skimmed my gaze over the rest of the patrons; none of them were paying too much attention, just a bunch of travelers going about their business, but there was something thatâ€"

And then it hit me like a bolt from the blue. "There's no one else in baggage claim," I said. "Not a single one."

"So?" Pavel's smile flattened. His arms were still folded, which stifled his shrug somewhat. "Airlines charge for these bags now. People who fly, they do not want to pay."

"Not even one?" I glanced back to the entrance. "No, something doesn't feel right."

Itze sighed, shaking her head. "Someone did a number on your head, girl." She stepped towards Ian and the man with the Jane sign.

"Itze!" I called.

Maybe it was the volume or maybe it was the overall tension of the situation, but too many eyes turned to look. Two of those eyes belonged to Maritza DeMarco, whose eyebrows arched over those pretty brown eyes. "What?"

"Run!" I shoved Pavel in shoulder, sending him barreling towards the gate.

He took the hint, leading the way like a fullback. The first baggage handler didn't stand a chance, catching a shoulder in the sternum, which sent him sprawling. I didn't look back, but it didn't seem like my instincts were off, because that's when the shouting started.

"Stop! Stop where you are!" It was a deep voice, resonant and used to being obeyed.

Footsteps pounded behind us, hard-soled shoes on the tiled floor. Probably dress shoes. I don't know why that thought occurred to me as I ran, but it did.

The thing about foot chases is it's only about which one of you is faster for the first, say, thirty seconds or so. Yeah, I'm pretty fast. (Just watch one of Mom's matches â€" she moves like greased lightning, and genetics have been pretty kind to me.) But that wouldn't matter much on a flat racetrack, and it mattered even less in a crowded airport of frantic travelers and jumpy security.

Two lessons my mother taught me popped into my head, chasing out thoughts of my pursuer's shoes.

1.) Don't look behind you when you're running.
It doesn't matter what's behind you, it matters what's in front of you. Looking back only lets you see how many people are chasing you. Knowing how many people are chasing you can only serve to psych you out.

Mostly, though, you just can't run as fast while glancing over your shoulder as you can with your head pointed the right way. Don't believe me? Try it â€" run pell-mell from here to your bedroom, then back. Then traverse the same course looking back to your monitor. Assuming you don't fall flat on your face, I'll bet you a nickel the second time takes you longer.

So it didn't matter what was behind me. It didn't matter that they probably had Ian or that they'd probably caught Itze by now. It didn't matter that there was no way Pavel could keep up; the saying wasn't "fast as a bear," after all. All that mattered was that I get out of here, that I call Mom or Amy or Kieran or whoever would answer the damn phone. They could help. That was what I was counting on.

And I might've gotten away with it, too, if not for you crazy kids.

Or â€" more precisely â€" if it weren't for that fact that it was a freaking airport, which brings me to the other lesson.

2.) Don't run a con in an airport.
Airports are scary for a criminal. They're full of cops and metal detectors and x-ray machines, and all the entrances and exits are watched by people who are actively looking for trouble. If anything goes wrong â€" like, say, people with bad intentions start chasing you â€" your options are limited and your adversaries increase exponentially.

If they'd come at us at the gate, I would have been screwed, because they could have closed off my only exit, and then I don't know what I would have done. By coming at baggage, I at least had a few extra doors I could slip through.

If I could get to them.

"Krasivaya," Pavel huffed next to me. His breath was coming short, and I was really starting to outpace him. "I will not win this race, but I can make sure they lose. You go, run from this place."

"No." I shook my head. "We just need to get outside."

"They will have people waiting. You will go, come back for us."

I broke rule number one, turning back over my shoulder in time to see Pavel wheel around to bull into the man chasing us. The man was tall and bald, with thick mustache that, in other circumstances, I might have termed epic. He looked like that guy from Major Dad â€" I used to love that show when I was little.

He looked like a crash test dummy when Pavel hit him, literally flying through the air backwards a good three or four feet. He slid across the tile in his expensive suit, coming up against a thick pillar. Pavel tossed me his grin, wide and full of teeth, just on the verge of laughter. "You go, Krasivaya!" he repeated.

The automatic sliding glass door flew open at my approach. "What does Krasivaya mean?" I asked, waiting a little longer than I probably should have.

"It means 'beautiful girl.'" Pavel raced towards Major Dad's brethren, who were bearing down on us.

"Oh." That took the wind out of my sails as I darted outside. "I'll come back for you."

I want you to know that I meant it when I said it.

I found a traffic cop out in the lot, and didn't have to feign my breathlessness or my worry. "Help!" I begged. "There's someone chasing me!"

Cop mode went on immediately, his gaze turning sharp as he looked me over for signs of injury. "Slow down and tell me what's happened."

The sliding doors opened again; it'd take my pursuers just a few seconds to find me, so I didn't really have time to tug too hard on this guy's heartstrings. Mom would've used a scalpel, but all I had was a sledgehammer. So I screamed, shaking my head. I staggered backwards, pointing. "That's them! That's them, they're going to get me!"

The cop did what cops do â€" he told me to wait right there and he went after the bad guys. A little piece of me was nervous, hoping whoever was chasing me wouldn't shoot the poor cop on the spot. That piece of my heart wasn't nearly as big as it should've been, though (I'd go so far as to term it "troublesomely small"). After this was all over, I needed to sit down and figure out where my head was.

I promised myself I'd do it the first chance I had, which wasn't right then because I had some more running to do.

Parking structures are great places to hide. They're tall and large with tons of little nooks and crannies, not to mention that they're full of cars that you can hide in, on, or under, and the one at SFO are pretty spectacular for that.

So I ran that way. The traffic cop turned back to me (while he was running forward, tsk-tsk), shouting for me to stop, but I didn't listen. I turned up the ramp into the building, and then I had to slam on the brakes.

I had to do this because there was a car there, shining its brights right at eye level. The sudden light blinded me, and I stood there, literally like a deer in headlights, trying to figure out what I should do.

I chose to bolt, making for the stairs. My pulse thumped in my ears, and I'd long since tuned out the shouts and exhortations to stop. I went down â€" most people go up, but if they were waiting here, they'd probably be ready up there and the only way I could get out would be to jump.

You're probably thinking, "She's a smart girl. She wouldn't jump out of a parking structure!"

I will counter with, "If I was such a smart girl, I would've just let the dweeby kid give me a tour instead of ditching him and robbing a freaking jewelry store."

So anyway, I did that cool thing where you leap over the banister to skip the landing, coming out onto the lower level of garage. I glanced back up to the stairs, but other than the bang of the car door, I hadn't heard any other noise, and there was no one coming down the stairs after me. I had a few seconds, long enough to catch my breath and think. I wasn't sure where I could go or what I could do. I jogged away from the stairs, combing my hand through my hair.

Something came out of the shadows, hitting me like a little wrecking ball. I stumbled into a wall, and my assailant pinned my arms behind my back. "Don't move," my assailant â€" a woman â€" said. I heard the click of metal against metal and imagined handcuffs. "Don't you move."

"I'm not moving." I said quickly. "This is me, not moving. Just don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me."

Another set of footsteps echoed in the garage, slow steps down the stairs. They came with agonizing, intimidating slowness, a click and then softer, follow-up clack â€" high heels, not too tall, not stilettos, but solid and firm. Probably boots.

I think way too much about shoes.

The other woman kept me pinned against the wall, not hard, but enough that I couldn't turn back. My Adam's apple bobbled with the nerves of it. "Please..." I whispered. "I didn't do anything."

The sound stopped and all I could hear was my own breathing. They weren't talking, which maybe meant that the newcomer had an accent I'd recognize â€" maybe Russian or Chinese. If they'd figured out who I was, they wouldn't want Mom to know who they were.

The small woman turned me around to face her, shining a penlight in my face. I tried to remember Mom's lessons about breathing, tried to think about being calm. Tried to be calm.

It didn't work out so well. Hey, I'm good at this for a sixteen-year-old, but I'm still just a sixteen-year-old, you know? I'm not going to lie: I might've been crying a little when the light went away, my eyes squinched shut. But just a little.

"Open your eyes," the small woman said. Her voice niggled at me, big and brash and speaking of a life on the street.

I mustered up enough courage to be brash, trying to imagine what Mom would say. What Amy would say. "If it's all the same to you, I'd really rather you kill me with my eyes closed. I kinda don't want to see it coming."

"Kill you?" The woman puffed a small laugh, more amazed than insulted. "Why the hell would I kill you? 'Open,' I said."

I opened one eye and then the other, glancing down to the woman. She looked as tough as she sounded, but she was still young, with a fall of dark hair, brown highlighted by lighter shades. She had a little, upturned nose and hazel eyes that hadn't died from the crap she'd seen in her job.

The worst part was: I knew her name, but I still asked like an idiot. "Erica?" Like somehow I'd be wrong or this would be some game. "I don'tâ€"" I glanced from her to the boss, the lady I had imagined as a Russian mobster.

I saw my mother instead, arms folded, leaning all of her weight slightly on one side. One eyebrow lifted gently, adding new angles to her already chiseled-from-stone features, her red hair bound behind her head. I think you could literally have knocked me over with a feather, and I braced myself for a lecture, for her disappointment, for some answers.

"So what do you think of the place?" she asked instead.

"The... school?" I tried to put the jigsaw puzzle together, but it was like a dog had been at the box, eating some pieces and damaging others so they didn't fit together very well. "I guess it was fine."

Mom nodded briskly. "Good, good. Look, I'm sorry about this, but we need to talk."

"You can say that again." Now I really wanted those answers.

She spun away on a heel. "Agent Baptiste is going to walk you out of here in cuffs. There are probably reporters upstairs, but don't worry. She's got a sweatshirt to put over your head so they won't see your face when they take your picture. I want you to keep your head down and don't say anything until we're fully out of the airport."

"What's going on?" I demanded. "You've got to tell me something."

She glanced back, and I guess my forlorn expression prompted the full turn. Mom is really pretty awesome under that icy cold shell, but she doesn't really know how to live without it. She touched a hand to my shoulder. "Just... trust me, okay? We'll get through this."

"Get through what?" I asked, but she'd already turned away.

Her lips were screwed together tightly, but the words still slipped through. "Your first undercover assignment."

That sure shut me up.

---

Epilogue: Where Stuff Happens I Don't Know About Yet
All of the major news channels ran the story about the ruckus at the airport. Fox News blamed the TSA for not being strict. Talking heads debated what the government would have to do to keep flyers safe over the busy holiday travel season.

Thankfully, our names were never mentioned.

But I found out later that the story was playing in a high-rise office building outside of Houston. The nameplate on the door read "Frank Lobo," but like much about the man who worked there, that was a lie. The man in the cavernous office watched the reports, and he'd smiled like it all meant something to him. Like a lot of things meant something to him.

Lobo was short and slightly effeminate. His eyes were blue, set off by thin spectacles that made him look rather erudite. His brown hair was just light enough to be called bronze, and he wore it in a tight tail. He reached out with one finger, pressing the intercom that would summon his personal assistant ("secretary" didn't quite cover her duties).

"Diane," Frank the bronze-haired man said. "I need you to pull all of the files for an old operation. They'd be in the archives, but you may have to call Rome for them."

The nasal voice on the other side of the line sounded slightly perturbed by the prospect, but she did not object. "Which one?" she asked.

"Operation: Fagin." He spelled it, just to be sure.

Diane didn't respond or assent â€" she didn't have to, both of them knew that she'd do what she was told. Satisfied, Frank Lobo leaned back in his chair, resting his feet on the corner of the desk, thousand-dollar loafers crossed at the ankle. He lit a cigar, pillowing his head with his hands.

And he watched the chaos unfold.
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