Page 39 of Love at First Sighting
So, I don’t.
I’m hoping if he’s a government employee, he’s paid as badly as I am. I imagine someone would be less inclined to kill if the pay isn’t that great.
I hope El has taken this chance to get the hell out of here.
“You supposed to be in here, man?” The guard says, pacing closer to me. I’m duly aware of the barrel of his gun aimed right at the center of my chest. It’s making it really hard to think smart.
I have the right to remain silent, so I gladly take it. Which results in the guard shoving my face into the shelves. I get a mouthful of cardboard and a single handcuff around one wrist. It happens so fast I can’t act or protect myself. My cheek hits one of the shelf bars and I can already feel the shiner I’m going to have.
He pats me down, roughly groping at my pockets and waist, feeling for a weapon. I left my badge and wallet in the car, so there’s no way to identify me, thankfully.
“Whoa,” I say, “usually people take me out to dinner first.”
“You think you’re funny, huh?”
“Sometimes.”
Through the narrow spaces between file boxes, I catch El’s eye. She’s directly on the other side of the shelf. I hope I can tell her enough with a look that she needs togo.
She moves out of view, but the guard catches her movement and lets out a curious grunt. No, no, no. We can’t have this. I push back against the guard, throwing off his balance. His chest is firm and it takes all my strength to even move him. It takes about 3 percent of his strength to shove me back into the shelf. This time, he makes sure it hurts more.
The guard pulls my bad arm back, twisting it at an angle that makes me bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. I don’t let him get my other hand in cuffs, hoping I’m making a big enough issue to let El run and get out of here. Then she speaks.
“Can youdisablethe cameras?…I can work with thirty seconds.”
She must be talking to Leonard. She must have a plan. She mustnotbe fleeing like I want her to. Something moves on the other side of the shelf. There’s a faint wiggle and creak of the steel shelves and then a drag of paper. I glance up in time to see the box of files directly above me being pushed over the edge of the shelf. When the box drops, itmostlyhits the guard.
He lets out a baffled “HUH?” before he’s clocked in the face by a box of HR violations and lets me go. I scramble out of the way, toward the end of the aisle, to find El. The guard climbs back to his feet and actuallygrowlsat me. As he gears up to throw himself at me again, another box flies off the shelf and hits him in the face like a game of Whac-A-Mole.
Damn, this girl has good aim.
El finds me first. Her nails dig into my jacket as she pulls me toward the exit. I nudge her up the stairs, and she trips on one of them, but I catch her by the waist and get her back to her feet.
The guard is bumbling and yelling for backup. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Go. Move faster,” I plead. El reaches the top of the stairs and breaks into a full sprint for the steel door we entered through. Then I remember we’ve got another obstacle to cross. The drone.
El whips the door open and pulls me outside, slamming it behind us. I look to the sky and hold a hand across her.
“Wait.”
We listen, scanning the soundscape for any sign of the drones or cameras. All is silent, so we proceed. El and I keeplow to the ground and navigate through the brush until something whirs behind us and I pull El to the ground with me. We scuttle behind a large rock and I place my hat on her head, tilting it down to shield her face from any cameras.
El tucks herself into my jacket, holding on to one suspender. I can feel her heart racing as hard as mine is, but we both find some comfort as I tuck an arm around her back and hold her closer.
The whirring skirts around us and I slowly pull away. “We’re clear.”
She nods. “Let’s get out of here.”
We rush the final stretch down to her car and hop in. She turns it on and the self-help podcast we were listening to on our way here blasts through the speakers as she peels away from the side of the road and drives.
“Ifyoucan’t see the future you want, then how can anyone else?” the podcast says.
All I can see is El being hauled away in handcuffs. El in trouble. Someone laying a hand on her. There’s this overwhelming feeling that I need to protect her.
I glance across the front seat at her, flipping off another driver as he cuts her off and weaving between cars as we make our way out of the canyon. I don’t even have time to be nervous about her driving. El can handle herself. She took care of both of us just fine back there, but the prospect of something happening to her doesn’t sound an oh-that-sucks alarm in my head. It makes me feel enraged and terrified at the same time. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.
I try so hard not to care. Fair-weather friends, girls for a night or two. The fewer people I care about, the less it hurtswhen they realize they can’t love me back and leave. But here I am.
