Chapter 71About Easy Escapism

The roof might be clean and not that cold but it wasn't comfortable. It wasn't just the concrete but the whole building was aggressive. Just a vibe of bad intentions that hung like a dark cloud up here. The dreams of children on the edge of hearing made it even eerier.

Goth thoughts again.

The police-car had stopped in front of the gate and the police officer stepped out of the car to use the intercom. I was still looking around, wondering if Kai had any better plan. I'm sure it was too far to jump. He had his laptop out and was smiling. Did he enjoy this? Would they be able to hear us up here? I hoped not.

"What are you doing?" I whispered as softly as I could.

He smiled. "Just wait."

The clear air made it easy to hear. "Car 47, there's a 480 on the highway near you, please respond immediately."

The police officer sighed. "On my way."

He stepped back in his car and drove off, sirens blazing. I had a feeling that was no coincidence and I looked back at Kai. He simply grinned and pointed at his screen. The lower right corner... wireless network? Oh! It wasn't that surprising if I thought about it. We had most of the passwords now and a modern building like this was sure to have something to reach all the doctors at all time. And a wireless network was great for that.

"Did you break into the police from here?"

Kai grinned and nodded. "Yeah, even better, I've left traces on purpose that they'll find in time."

Okay. I had to admit that was slightly brilliant. The police would come here to try and find out why they had a faux call that originated from the computers here. Knowing Kai he'd make sure there was no trace to our presence in the computers anywhere anymore. But what about the access card records?

"All done, no traces left anymore." Kai answered my thoughts.

He packed everything in again and stood up silently. He looked around again as if to judge distances and such and bit his lip. I hoped he wasn't seriously thinking of jumping over the wall from here. It was too far. There were two people roaming around the courtyard, searching for us? The gate had stayed shut all this time. I wondered if they thought we were real or special in any way. Well, they did think we were real, the guard even checked the bins for us.

I looked back again, to the back of the apartment building. We could jump in there, through a window, but that would get a lot of attention. It was just solid concrete, no windows, drains or whatever. And too high to jump up to. Kai looked back at me while I still knelt on the roof, motioning me to stand up. He motioned to the courtyard and then to the wall. I guess he was right, the easiest was to run across it and jump over the wall, hopefully without being spotted.

The guy in white went inside again so now was our chance. The guard was on the other side of the courtyard so I hoped he wouldn't see or hear us. We stood on the edge of the roof and looked at each other. A nod. Let's go.

As if it was practiced we both jumped off the roof in perfect synchronization. Our feet landing with only the softest of sounds. We ran across to the wall and jumped over fluidly. All without making a sound.

Our landing on the other side of the wall would have been quite silent too, if I hadn't landed on a glass bottle. It didn't make much noise and Kai's reflexes were to be commended, as he got me before I even hit the ground. But for someone looking for sound it might be enough. We ran.

Running through the streets was a very good way to get attention. And we so loved attention.

We slowed down after turning two corners. We hoped no one had the time to properly follow or report us. Quite sure that the guard never even glanced at us but just heard a weird noise. And considering the streets we ran through, we probably weren't spotted on camera. We slowed to a walk and stayed silent until Kai spoke. Ironically enough he brought up an idea that had completely slipped my mind.

"We should visit Isabel." His voice was slightly dark, angry perhaps.

I simply nodded.

We had to walk quite a bit through town, ignored by everyone as we were nothing special. Just a guy and a girl walking the streets. It was nice as it quenched our nervousness. By the time we saw another police-car we just walked on, not giving it a second glance. And they ignored us. We didn't talk at all despite the time. Half an hour, maybe more, it took to walk to the safe-house. We entered the street and immediately noticed something wrong.

It was probably the fire truck that gave it away or the police-cars or the ambulance. Or perhaps of course the crowd of bystanders looking up at the top floor of the safe-house where Isabel was staying! It wasn't on fire... anymore.

Jets of water were still aimed at the top floor. It hadn't been a big fire, but enough to make a large, sooted mess of the complete top floor. I tried to look around if there were any bodies found or anything else that pointed to the status of people possibly in the fire.

Just the top floor.

No one found.

Ruled accidental.

I wasn't sure if I was relieved or not that Isabel hadn't been in the fire. Her presence gave very mixed feelings to me. What had happened to her. Did she do this? Did Valerie or Khuna take her somewhere? Why was it burned. It felt too precise to be accidental. The fire hadn't destroyed anything but the top floor and apparently burned hard enough to burn anyone or anything inside, but not so hard that the floors below had any bother except for some smoke.

Why did everything just keep revolving around Isabel?

And where was she?