The paper scratched against the inside of Mia’s wrist as she walked.
She put two blocks between herself and the terminal before stopping beneath the weak spill of a closed shop sign. It didn’t look like she’d been followed.
She took out the paper.
A phone number. Two words beneath it.
SAY: MERCY.
And below that:
THE LAST ROUND ENDED EARLY.
Mia looked back toward the terminal. Someone had known exactly where to find her.
Valdés’s people could be trying to find out whether she was worth talking to before deciding to kill her.
Police crossed her mind, but only briefly. She knew they wanted her. But if they’d known where she was, they wouldn’t have used a teenager.
Whoever had written it knew how to reach her without showing themselves.
That was the part she couldn’t ignore.
Her eyes dropped to the phone number again. She stared at it for a moment, then folded the note and pushed it back into her sleeve.
She wasn’t about to use her own phone and alert the police to her location.
She kept walking.
She remembered the pay phones near the luggage lockers inside the terminal, but she wasn’t going back there.
Three blocks later, she spotted a pay phone beneath the awning of a closed corner shop. The plastic hood around it was scratched and clouded with age, but the receiver was still attached and the display lit when she lifted it.
Mia looked up and down the street before stepping beneath the awning.
Apart from a homeless man asleep in the recessed entrance of a closed shop, the street was empty.
She took out the note and fed coins into the phone and dialed.
It rang once.
The line clicked open.
Nothing.
Mia held the receiver to her ear. She could hear someone breathing on the other end, slow and quiet, but whoever had answered wasn’t going to speak first.
She waited.
The breathing continued.
Mia looked down at the paper in her hand.
SAY: MERCY.
“Mercy.”
A pause.
“The last round,” the voice said.
Mia frowned.
The line went silent again, nothing but the faint sound of the man breathing.
She looked down at the paper.
THE LAST ROUND ENDED EARLY.
Oh.
“Ended early.”
“I was hoping you’d call, Mia.”
“Who is this?”
“Someone who can help you,” the man said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Mia tightened her grip on the receiver. “How do you know who I am?”
“You called the number.”
“And what do you want?”
“We’ve seen enough to know you needed another option.”
“Who’s we?”
A short pause.
“People who’ve been watching what’s happened over the last few days.”
“You’ve been following me?”
“Not exactly. But right now, we may be the only people who can keep you alive.”
“What happened at the gym?” Mia asked.
“Whatever happened there had nothing to do with us.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe it or don’t. Right now, you don’t have many other options.”
Mia said nothing. She looked at the note in her hand, then at the empty street beyond the pay phone.
“Stay on the line,” the voice said.
A click followed, then music came through the receiver. Low brass over a slow bass line, old-fashioned and heavy, the kind of thing that sounded more at home in the back room of a nightclub than on hold.
Ten seconds. Maybe fifteen.
Then the music cut out and there was a brief silence.
“Mia.”
A different voice. Male, lower than the first, controlled and almost soft.
“Who are you?”
“Daniel,” the voice replied.
“So what do you want?” she said.
“To talk. That’s all this is right now.”
Mia’s ribs ached with each low, steady breath. “You work for the police?” she asked.
“No.”
“Valdés?”
“No.”
“Cruz?”
“No.”
“Then who do you work for?”
“At the moment,” Daniel said, “you. If you’ll let me.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Mia said.
“You’re injured,” Daniel said. “The police are looking for you, and there are people in this city who want you dead.”
Mia’s grip tightened around the receiver.
“I can get you off the street tonight,” he said. “Treatment and somewhere they won’t find you.”
“And you’ll do that out of the goodness of your heart?”
“I’ve seen what you do when the easy choices run out,” Daniel said. “It’s more than most people could manage.”
Mia said nothing.
“I see a great deal of potential in you, Mia.”
“Potential for what?”
“Look,” Daniel said, “you can hang up this phone and take your chances. Or you can trust me and get somewhere safe, get that wound treated. After that, when you’re in better shape, we can talk about what comes next.”
“And if I don’t want what you offer?”
“Then you’ll be free to go. You have my word.”
“Your word?” Mia gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t even know who the fuck you are.”
Daniel exhaled slowly, the sound faint over the receiver.
“What’ll it be, Mia?”
Mia looked down the empty street.
“And I’m supposed to trust you.”
“No.”
The answer caught her off guard.
“You shouldn’t trust me. You don’t know me.” Daniel paused. “All I’m asking is that you come and see what I’m offering. You don’t like what you find, you walk away.”
Mia said nothing.
She could put the receiver down. Find somewhere else to hide. Keep moving until morning.
Except she had no idea where she would go.
“You said I can walk away afterward.”
“Yes.”
“If I get there and I don’t like what I see, I leave.”
“Nobody stops you.”
Mia thought about it for another moment.
“Okay. No restraints. No drugs I don’t know about. And nobody puts me on a plane without my permission.”
“Agreed,” Daniel said.
“So where am I going?”
“You know the Meridian Theatre?”
“Yeah.”
“Go to the Meridian and take the street on the left as you face the theatre. Walk down there and then the second alley on the right.”
Mia closed her eyes for a second, fixing the route in her head.
“There’s a gray metal door on the left about fifteen feet into the alley,” Daniel continued. “No sign. No number. Knock once and wait. Someone behind the door will say ‘it’s about time. Did you bring the key?’ Tell them ‘Daniel said the door would be open.’”
“OK,” Mia said.
“It’s important Mia. ‘Daniel said the door would be open.’”
“What’ll happen when I get there?”
“Someone will look at that wound. You’ll get somewhere safe to sleep. Nothing happens after that unless you agree to it.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“If this turns out to be bullshit…”
A faint sound came through the receiver, almost a laugh.
“Then I imagine I’ll regret giving you my name.”
The line went dead.
Mia replaced the receiver but didn’t move. She looked along the street in both directions, then across it, checking the parked cars, dark windows, and recessed doorways for anyone paying too much attention.
Nothing stood out.
She gave it another few seconds before stepping away from the phone and starting toward the Meridian.
She kept to a steady pace, resisting the urge to hurry. Every few blocks she checked the reflections in shop windows and parked cars, watching for any sign of movement behind her.
The Meridian Theatre came into view at the end of the street, its name picked out in large letters above the entrance. The building rose above its neighbors, with a curved stone facade, tall arched windows, and a broad entrance beneath an old-fashioned marquee. It looked like it had been built for crowds.
She stopped across the road and watched for a moment before crossing and heading down the street beside the theatre.
Mia passed the first alley on her right. Twenty yards farther on, the second opened between two dark buildings.
She turned in.
The alley was narrow and deserted. Trash cans lined one wall beneath rusted fire escapes, their lids crooked or missing altogether. Black bags had been piled beside them, some split open.
A rat disappeared behind a dumpster. Another stayed where it was, watching her for a second before slipping into the shadows.
Mia kept going.
She saw the gray metal door.
No sign. No number.
Exactly where Daniel had said it would be.
She went to the door and knocked once.
Nothing happened.
Mia waited.
Then a voice came through from the other side, muffled by the metal.
“It’s about time. Did you bring the key?”
Mia stared at the closed door.
“Daniel said the door would be open.”
Bolts moved on the other side, more than one.
“Quickly,” the woman said, opening the door.
The room beyond was quiet. A plain chair, folded clothes on a table, the low chemical smell of antiseptic beneath something warmer, like reheated food.
Mia hesitated on the threshold.
The woman stepped back to let her through. No visible weapon. No one else Mia could see.
She could still turn around.
But the wound at her side was bleeding again, and there was nowhere left in the city she could think of that was safer than this.
Daniel hadn’t given her anything real to trust. Only his word and the promise that someone inside could patch her up.
For tonight, that would have to be enough.
She stepped inside.