It looked like thousands of people were funneling into the Winston Concert Hall, but that was probably my dislike of crowds exaggerating the number. All of them were wearing clothes and outfits like Lizzy's. Mostly black, lots of purple, with a few other colors thrown in to add the smallest amount of variety. Tons of people were wearing dark makeup too, so Lizzy was spot on with her black lipstick, though she opted against putting it on before we left our hotel room. Outside of her natural beauty that typically turned a head or two, she wasn’t really going to stick out much. If only not sticking out in a crowd could have done anything to help her while wearing a sweltering outfit in the blistering heat.
I realized that the Andersons were going to be hard to pick out if they didn’t wear fancier clothes. They were both good-looking, conventionally but not exceptionally beautiful or handsome. When we reviewed all the video footage we had on them, they had this uncanny quality to almost change their appearance each time they showed up in a new place. Whether they both trimmed their brown hair, Robert grew out a beard, or Francine adjusted her makeup, they made themselves look just different enough to not raise any alarms when they appeared.
“See anything yet?” Lizzy’s voice crackled unpleasantly in my ear. Before we left our hotel room, we did a little testing for our earpieces. Annoyingly, while the noise-canceling features worked wonderfully, the audio quality wasn’t as high. Yep, a great use of Luna’s money crackling and popping in my ear.
“Nothing but a sea of people filing in. No one that looks like the Andersons.” Admittedly, there were so many people going in that I had a lot of trouble picking any specific person out from my bench across the street. “It’s hard to see from where I am. Not without looking like a complete weirdo.”
“Remember, they’re pros at blending in. Ow!” Lizzy stopped and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. “Sorry, some dick elbowed me in the ribs.” She made sure to raise her voice high enough to make her insult heard.
“You okay? Nothing broken?”
“I’ll manage,” she said, sighing. “I’ve already been elbowed in the shoulder and someone stepped on my toes. You might be taking me out of here in a body bag. Ugh, thank God I haven’t snapped my ankles in these heels yet. I guess the night is still young.”
“Have you seen anything worthwhile in there yet?” I asked, trying to keep us a little on track. People kept filling the concert hall, barely managing to not trample each other. For every person who made their way inside, it felt like three more people walked up to join the crowd outside. Just watching the crowd made me feel a bit queasy.
“Not directly, but I did see someone pay two hundred dollars for a few drinks, so that was kind of wild.” Lizzy gagged at her own statement. “These rich kids, I swear. Once everyone is drunk and high, that’s when it’d be most likely the Andersons strike, so I think it’ll be a bit. I’m kind of surprised there aren’t more people who pregamed before showing up. Oh well, I just have to deal with getting shoved around in heels.”
“You’re the one who chose the shoes,” I reminded her.
“They complete the outfit! I look great, thank you.” There were some muffled grunts and sounds like people hitting each other. When I didn’t hear from Lizzy for a few seconds, I started to get nervous. The unpleasant and loud crackling of the earpiece let out the tension that built up in my shoulders. “Yeah, excuse you, asshole!”
“Lizzy, I think you should find the quietest spot you can to take a breather. It won’t help anything if you end up getting in fights.”
“I know, I’m just miserable. My feet hurt, I’m melting, I’m bloated, I have cramps, and I keep getting pushed around.” Lizzy did take a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’ll be good from here on out. I won’t start any fights. Promise. They wouldn’t know to capture my good angle for my mugshot.”
It was silent between us for a while. I kept an eye out on the crowd as it gradually got smaller. Still no sign of the Andersons on my end, unless they were able to blend in with the crowd. I was frustrated that I couldn’t go in and check myself, but there was no way I could handle the crowd. The amount of progress I’d made in handling large groups of people had only gone so far. Plus, if the lady at the store could recognize me, someone in there definitely would. Even sitting on a bench across from the venue, I was worried some random person would realize who I was.
I had suggested Julio for the task, but Lizzy wanted to keep him out of danger as much as she could, mostly wanting him to learn from afar and be some emergency backup if needed. If push came to shove, she said it was mostly in my hands to be the muscle. I understood her wanting to protect him because he was a kid, though I thought he would have been able to move around a lot more without drawing attention to himself. Then again, I was probably safer to have around alcohol and drugs while keeping my nose clean than a mischievous kid enjoying his first visit to Las Vegas.
It took over two hours for the bulk of the attendees to get inside the building. A few stragglers were late to the party, and by the time they were going in, music was already blasting inside, vibrating my ribs when the doors opened up. Lizzy gave me some updates to keep me in the loop and let me know she was safe. To her annoyance, she hadn’t found anything of interest yet, unless one wanted to count lots of shoving and getting pushed around as interesting concert finds. Every time she checked back in, she sounded more desperate, like her plan was falling apart in front of her.
Finally, after a couple more hours, activity outside of the venue had slowed down to nothing more than a few people leaving the concert early. Getting antsy, I decided I wasn’t getting anything done just sitting on the bench. I was ready to give up entirely, disappointed in myself that I couldn’t spot the couple if they even showed up at all. I stood up to walk around, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement along the side of the building.
There were no lights on that side, so it was hard to make out any kind of motion without thinking it may have been a trick my eyes were playing on me. From what I could tell, it looked like a lady’s dress shimmering when it caught what little light it could. A door opened and it vanished as quickly as I saw it. There were no security guards over there, so I sprinted across the street after them, hoping no one saw me.
“Lizzy?” I whispered after tapping my earpiece once. I heard the faint rumbling of music come through her side. “Lizzy, I think they just walked in.”
“Where? How do you know?” Her voice was hushed, which made it harder to hear her. Despite the noise canceling, I could still hear some of the music over the device. It must have been head=splittingly loud.
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“There’s a side entrance on the east side of the building.” I got to the door and leaned up against the wall. I tried to listen for anything inside. For my trouble, all I got was the faint thumping of the music and some people yelling, so nothing new or unusual there. “I can’t hear anything. Want me to go inside?”
“Uh...” Lizzy hesitated. I wasn’t comfortable with her being in there alone, but she was the boss, so I wasn’t going to go against what she said unless it was dire. Her plan specifically kept me outside, but when the real deal was in front of us, I wanted to check again with her. “Come in and try to keep your head low. You’ll stick out. Besides having your face plastered on every major news station, you aren’t dressed to blend in.”
Nodding to no one, I did what she said and slipped in through the door. There wasn’t any security on the inside either, which was alarming, but it was to my benefit. If I was looking like I didn’t belong, I’d be thrown out in a heartbeat if I was checked for a ticket. I had to wonder if the Andersons paid off the security to not be at that particular door. Maybe security was just that lax to begin with.
Checking around, it looked like I was in a storage closet of some kind. I briefly stopped to wonder why a storage closet would have an exit to the outside before I went back to focusing on the task at hand. There were dusty shelves and boxes all around me in a cramped space. Yeah, it didn’t need to be connected to the outside of the building at all. I took a quick peek in a few of the boxes, unable to find anything useful in any of them. They all contained a bunch of cables and other things I didn’t recognize or have any use for.
When I left the room, I was hit by the full force of the music and the crowd. I was still down the hall from the actual concert area, and I was already feeling sick. I sucked in some air and held my breath, taking a few seconds to collect myself. Scanning the area, I didn’t see any other way the Andersons could have gone but forward. I crept along slowly, trying not to be afraid they’d pop out to attack me.
That didn’t happen, but when I got to the end of the hall and reached for the door, it flung open and hit me right in the face.
“Ow!” I grabbed my nose and stumbled back, instinctively putting my armor on over my body.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry.” Lizzy shut the door behind her and placed both her hands on the sides of my face. She turned it around and looked at it from a few angles. “I don’t think I broke it. You have a nosebleed we need to clean up.”
I let my armor down and got a good look at her. “Jeez, I could be like you. What the hell happened? You look like you got beaten up by a bunch of bullies.”
She touched her puffy eye and winced. “Well, I got elbowed in the eye. Some girl punched me in the shoulder. I was kicked in the back of the legs. Twice. I’m pretty sure I got kicked in my back, and I’m taller than you in my heels, so that was impressive. Oh, someone elbowed me in the chest and got nothing but boob. Judging by that guy’s personality after he hit me, if he knew he hit a DDD cup, he’d be bragging to his loser friends about touching it. I guarantee he’ll never touch another one again in his crappy life.”
“I’m begging you to stop saying these things.” I couldn’t hold back a laugh, as much as I tried. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll get some ice on my eye later. Don’t you worry that pretty little head about me, I’ll sleep just fine tonight.” Her face got serious. “They came through this way?”
“Yeah, but they were gone by the time I came in. Did you see them?” I wiped a small trail of blood from my throbbing nose. If Lizzy wasn’t complaining about getting pummeled in the sea of people, I wasn’t going to about a little nosebleed.
She shook her head. “I got here as fast as I could. Looks like they moved faster. Damn, they probably know the building well. I even swapped out my heels for some sneakers.”
“Good call. You’re not taller than me anymore. You can run without snapping your ankles too. Everyone wins.”
“Excuse you, I have impeccable balance.” Lizzy defiantly folded her arms over her chest.
“Girl, I watched you crotch yourself on a tool meant to show your balance. Sorry, but I’m still a little skeptical.”
“I’m telling Rebecca that you were mean to me.” She pulled up the back of her shoe and cracked open the door. “Oh shit, we have a problem.”
“What’s wrong?” I tried to peek over her head, unable to see much of anything.
There was a sound like a thousand windows being shattered by hammers at one time. I jumped back and covered my ears, recoiling from the sound. Lizzy didn’t jump, but she did clamp her hands over her ears. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before in my entire life.
“They’re out there!” Lizzy yelled, her voice coming through more as a muffle. She flung open the door and immediately stopped in her tracks.
In the main area, all the stage lights had been shattered, only leaving some weak emergency lights to provide limited visibility. Wicked glass daggers floated high above the crowd, pointed at everyone in the room indiscriminately, barely glinting in the dim light. A girl tried to run away, but a dagger flew down and pressed up against her throat, forcing her back in line. On stage was a good-looking couple, the man dressed in a nice suit, and the woman in a glittering gold dress, the fancy clothes clashing against the dark attire of the crowd below them.
“The heroes have arrived! Oh, aren’t you just dying to save the people here?” Francine Anderson twirled a piece of glass between her fingers. “Or maybe you just want to leap into action like you did in Arizona, huh?”
“Look, we know you’re not killers, so why don’t you just let the people go? We can handle this without spilling any blood.” They were both focused right on me, so I wasn’t going to risk creating any weapons or armor, leaving me essentially defenseless.
“You’re right, we’re not killers,” Robert Anderson said, pointing a few glass daggers right at my face. “But there’s always a first time for everything. Vegas is a fine land of opportunity, after all.”
“And why should we let them go?” Francine disappeared and then reappeared next to the girl who had tried to run away. She pulled the girl against her torso, the glass shard remaining pressed up against her neck. “We know all about what you can do, Ethan. A scary one in a fight. Never knowing when to quit. Someone whose willpower is stronger than his bones and muscles.”
The girl whimpered and tried to squirm free. “Please, l-let me go.”
Francine pushed the dagger against her skin, drawing a trickle of blood. The poor girl just winced, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Thank goodness she stopped trying to move. Reflexively, I took a step forward toward her.
“Don’t move!” Robert’s voice boomed, echoing in the nearly silent room. “Take another step and all their blood is on your hands. We’re taking every valuable belonging and piece of money in this building. It’s not like a beautiful necklace can’t sell stained in a little red.”
I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they’d crack, obeying his command to avert turning the concert venue into a slaughterhouse. Good to his word, at least to that point, no one was getting their throats slashed. I wanted to look around for anything I could use to handle the situation, but I couldn’t risk it. Even if they didn’t start killing people, I didn’t trust myself to use anything around me without hurting the people myself.
“She’s smarter than you, that’s for sure.” Francine nodded behind me at Lizzy. “She knows you two have no leverage here. Shame she doesn’t have an actual power she can use. Right, Lizzy?”
“How do you know my name?” Her voice was tight with tension, with a mix of sounding insulted.
“The same way we knew you were going to be here.” Francine’s face twisted. “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought. All beauty, some brains. Truth is, we weren’t going to touch this place until we heard you’d be here. Really, it wasn’t a bad assumption on your part. Crowded, druggies and drunks, and kids who have unlimited access to Mommy and Daddy’s money. Still, there are way too many people here for us to risk an appearance. Well, until we learned about the two VIPs that would show up.”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked, hoping to put the focus back on me. Lizzy was the leader, so I trusted her to cook something up.
“Wow, you seriously don’t have a guess for that one?” Robert sounded genuinely disappointed in my cluelessness. He turned and waved someone over from the back of the stage.
Lizzy gasped when she saw Julio walk forward, looking straight at the ground. I didn’t need to see her face to know it was twisted up in shock and horror.