Page 37 of Broken

“Define friend.” I pointed at his shirt.

He glanced down and grimaced. “A really good one.”

I had no idea if he’d stolen this or what, but I didn’t care right now. “We need to get to Vix and the Cobras ASAP. Our meeting spot is close to the Spiders’ area, so I guess we’ll have to approach it from the opposite side.” I archedan eyebrow at him.

He grabbed one of the guns and offered it to me. “No.”

“No?” I took the gun and tucked it into my holster, wondering if I’d heard him wrong or if he’d misunderstood what I’d said. “But we can’t parade right in front of the Spiders’ noses.”

“We’re not going to parade. We’re going to sneak around.”

My brow furrowed. “I’m not sure if hiding in plain sight willwork this time. They’ll be on alert and looking for us.”

“Yeah, they will, but they’ll be monitoring all the other areas more because they won’t really believe we’d dare come near them. Walter must’ve told them I might do something like that, but we haven’t been seen for days now, and they’ll think that we’re already out of the city or trying to get away. And didn’t you say Vix will make itlook like we’re planning to run?” He tilted his head at me.

“Well, yeah, but I’m not looking forward to a run-in with the Spiders.”

“Relax. We can do this.” He checked his gun. “We just have to avoid places where they could attack us easily.”

“Okay.” I sighed. Even if Walter believed Theo would risk passing very close to the Spiders’ territory, he might think that Theo would neverput me in danger like that or that I wouldn’t want to go there. Maybe this was the right thing to do, after all. “Do I look weird in this?” I could barely put my jacket on over the vest. It was a good thing this wasn’t one of my regular jackets, because they’d never fit over the vest.

Theo gave me a long look. “Nope.”

“Don’t lie to me.” I rolled my eyes and tugged my baseball cap downto shield my face.

“I’m not lying. You’re always gorgeous to me. And we’ll be trying to avoid people and being seen. You’re not worried what the Spiders will think of you if they see you, are you?”

I thought about it for a moment. “No, I guess not.”

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”

“I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR this,” I said as we walked down a plank that connected two rooftops.

“Don’t look down.” Theo grasped my hand tighter, and I tried really hard not to do the opposite of what he’d just said. “This shortcut is going to make things a lot easier for us.”

If one of the roofs wasn’t being repaired, there wouldn’t be all these planks lying around, but at leastthe workers weren’t anywhere in sight. Maybe they were on a break or on the other side of the building.

A shuddery breath slipped out of my throat as our feet touched solid ground again, or, well, the rooftop. Theo made his way toward the edge and leaned on the low wall, looking down at the street. This wasn’t an overly tall building, so we could still see what was going on down there withoutneeding binoculars.

“Is the coast clear?” Recognizing people’s faces from up here was still a bit difficult, so I squinted my eyes.

“Yea...” Theo’s voice trailed off as his face grew serious.

“What? Do you see something?” I glanced at the rooftops and windows around us, wondering if maybe Walter was somewhere around here, although that seemed unlikely. But since Theo wasn’t divingfor cover, I assumed whoever he had seen wasn’t looking in our direction or wasn’t able to reach us.

“Look at that car.” He indicated a black car that was parked at the curb in front of a restaurant. A group of men in suits was waiting around it.

“Do you think it’s Jerome?”

“I’m not sure. This isn’t where he usually goes.”

“It doesn’t matter even if he’s here, right? We can finda different path.” Jerome wasn’t the only rich guy who had a ton of bodyguards who were with him wherever he went, so it could be someone else. A politician or a businessman. But even if it was Jerome, I didn’t think he’d spot us if we stayed out of sight. His guards worried about his safety, not about us. I started toward the door, but I stopped when I realized Theo wasn’t coming. “Shouldn’t weget away from here before he comes out of that restaurant?”

“We can stay for a few more minutes and see who’ll come out.”

“If Jerome just got here, then he’s not going to come out anytime soon.” I ducked because one of the guards lifted his eyes toward us, and Theo crouched. “Do you think he saw us?”

“No.”