Rachel lurches side to side as Touch rears around potholes and garbage littering the streets as gently as he can while also speeding away from the scene. She leans over the girl, checking for wounds, and making sure she is secure in her chair.

  “What’s your name?” Rachel asks, going to her knees.

  “Anea.” She replies. Her expression blank, her voice flat.

  “Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “Do you mind-” Rachel catches herself the edge of a nearby seat to steady herself as the van lurches to the side, “-if I check real quick?”

  The girl looks up with a sudden, penetrating gaze. She looks Rachel up and down slowly, as if picking her apart under a microscope. Then, as quick as it starts, her eyes fall back to the ground, and she sinks back into her seat.

  “Sure, go ahead.” She replies, relaxing into the seat.

  Rachel quickly runs her fingers up and down her tiny body, gently pushing and prodding as she checks for signs of pain and blood. Then she buckles in next to the Anea.

  “You’re being very brave-” Rachel gets cut off as the girl jerks her head to the side, her braids flaring around her head.

  “Bad guys up ahead, to the right!” The girl shouts.

  A pause.

  “I see ‘em,” Touch replies “good catch. Hold on!” The van feels like it’s going to flip over as Touch throws it to the left, jumping the curb before bringing it back on the road.

  “Keep that up and we might just get out of this.

  If Anea’s fine, I need you up here wide-eyes.”

  Rachel's hesitant to leave the little girl alone. But she’s impressively calm, and obviously some kind of psychic. Anea doesn’t need her, so Rachel unbuckles and climbs into the shotgun seat. Rachel hears an engine roaring behind them before spotting it in the mirror.

  Touch hands her the shotgun.

  “I think if you shoot the engine, it should stop the car.”

  “You think?”

  “Not a car guy, wide-eyes!”

  Rachel takes the weapon, pumps a round in the chamber, and leans out the window. Just as she is about to line up the shot, the pursuing car jerks to the side and out of sight.

  “Good, keep pointing it at them. Just shoot whenever you get the chance, keep ‘em scared.”

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  Rachel keeps the weapon shouldered and hopes Touch doesn’t pull any maneuver that throws her out of the van, or crushes her ribs against the widow frame. As the city races past them in a tunnel of blurs, she sees the car creeping back into sight. She squeezes the trigger. The gun jerks against a small explosion. She can’t steady herself and the shot goes wide, but the car disappears back behind the van all the same. Rachel does this dance three more times before the driver finally hits a pothole and his front tire explodes in a burst of pressurized air and shredded rubber. She watches them fall away as the car slows, stammers, and swerves into a streetlight.

  Rachel crawls back into the cab and buckles up.

  “Nice work.” Touch is smiling.

  Rachel looks to see two navy blue cars with siren lights blocking the road ahead, hoods and windshields facing each other.

  Touch steps on the gas.

  “More guys up ahead!” Anea shouts from the back.

  “Uh, Touch…” Rachel says.

  “Don’t worry, I read this in a book. The theory is sound.” Touch has that look on his face, the same he had when planning the heist, the same when he was staring down that pile of vegetables in the kitchen. Rachel hasn’t seen that look in a while.

  ‘The theory is sound.’

  Famous last words, Touch.

  Touch gives the van everything it’s got, straight through the middle of the road. Everyone screams as the armored van’s pelted with small arms fire. Rachel flies forward, held back by her seat-belt digging into her shoulder and waist. As the van slams through the two cars, she’s thrown side to side as Touch brings the van back under control.

  Then they are off, toward the docks.

  During the drive, Rachel monitors the radio. They cordoned off the streets and guessed they were making a break for the docks, so they were sending enforcers there, and dispatching patrols to scour everywhere in between.

  Upon hearing this, Touchstone swerves the van and starts going parallel to the direction of the docks. According to the radio, a helicopter just went airborne, then the radio cuts out.

  “They blocked us out. Probably tracking us, too.”

  Touch grinds the van to a halt and everyone clears out. Touch and Rachel are sporting tactical belts and harnesses. Rachel holds a shotgun and Touch wields duel pistols in his hands. Rachel manages to tighten one of the soft body armors under a vest with ceramic plates around little Anea. She sighs but doesn’t object.

  Touch leads them through the city, Rachel watches over Anea, and Anea acts as lookout, giving last-minute warnings. Touch and Rachel became aware of people and vehicles before Anea did half the time, but she could tell friend from foe much faster than they ever could, and whatever powers she had worked through walls and buildings.

  As they close in on the docks, security gets tighter, patrols more frequent. They reach a place in between the docks and the Little Village, and enter the sewage and drainage systems that Touch uses to go unseen.

  They arrive at the gates of the little village, dirty and tired, leaving their guns in the tunnel. The three are ‘greeted’ by Yani.

  “You need to go.” She says, eyes piercing through the gate.

  “I know.” Touch says, “Five minutes to get our gear, our divs, and we’re gone.”

  He looks at her with his big, sad eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  She looks down at Anea. Then opens the gate.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  She steps aside and juts her chin deeper into the Village.

  “Now go.”

  The three of them sprint across the courtyard, everyone’s eyes boring down on them.