Vicarious Read Free Page B

the wide sidewalk, blending in with the darkness like a pair of whispers. I slow a little as we pass a block of department-store window displays. They’re still decorated for Christmas even though it’s mid-January. Icicles hang like knives from the eaves.
    Next, the baseball stadium rises up before us, the redbrick corners cutting into the sky. Fluorescent emergency lighting glows from behind the locked metal gates. Something cold slaps against my cheek. I look up as I swat it away. A handful of rogue snowflakes swirl in the streetlight’s beam, remnants of last night’s storm blown loose.
    A strip of reflective buildings hovers a few blocks away, the nearest one topped with a ten-foot-tall iridescent ghost. It’s the local offices for a software company called Phantasm.
    Jesse and I are going to break in.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    â€œShit. It’s freezing out.” Jesse hurries along the sidewalk.
    I match my pace to his. “Explain to me why you couldn’t drive again?”
    â€œBecause Gideon didn’t want me to drive. Plus my car would probably break down at the worst moment.”
    I can’t argue. For one, I don’t even have a car. Gideon says it’s dangerous for me to drive because of the sedatives I sometimes take. Second, Gideon Seung is the smartest person I know. He left Korea to attend graduate school here in the United States, completing a neurobiology doctorate in just four years. In L.A., he worked as a research consultant. After we arrived in St. Louis, he cashed in his investments to buy our building and open Escape.
    Two years ago, he began selling a new kind of gaming technology out of the club. Ever since a business website did a feature on the tech a couple months ago, multiple software companies have been trying to buy it from him.
    My lips flatten when I think about how angry Gideon became when he saw the article. Somehow the reporter had gotten a picture of him and posted it along with the story. Gideon is very private. We all are. He says we must never tell anyone who we really are or where we came from. It’s a little paranoid, if you ask me. Kyung Cho, the man Rose and I worked for in Los Angeles, was probably angry when Gideon took us away, but he wouldn’t spend his time or money looking for us. He probably just sent his people out to find some replacements.
    I shudder. The idea that gaining my freedom might have doomed another girl to my former life makes me ill. I push the thought into a dark corner of my mind and do my best to lock it away. I’ll need all of my focus to be successful tonight.
    Jesse and I pause a block from the Phantasm building. I look up at the giant logo, take a breath, and center myself. “Escape route?”
    â€œI’ve got it figured out.” He touches my back lightly. “Just follow my lead, okay?”
    Jesse and Gideon always do whatever it takes to assure that our work goes smoothly. I’m just stalling. Tonight is different from the jobs I’ve done before. We’re not just committing some victimless crime—we’re taking something from someone else.
    It’s a tangible threshold, a decision that might lead to harder ones. Gideon said I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to.
    I want to.
    I would do almost anything for him.
    A figure in black exits the building and heads down the sidewalk away from us, a pair of handcuffs glinting under the streetlight.
    â€œSecurity guards?” I ask.
    â€œTwo,” Jesse says. “We’ll need to evade them.”
    We cross the street in front of the Phantasm building and settle into the plastic shelter of a bus stop, just as the security guard turns around. Another burst of snow swirls down in front of us, the silvery droplets melting into the dark pavement. Jesse leans close and pretends to show me something on his phone. The guard’s eyes flick toward us momentarily but then away. We’re just two kids waiting