Katharina clambered shakily to her feet. She was clearly denying everything, covering for us. Becker yelled loud enough that we could hear it through the skylight, calling her a bitch and a whore. Then he punched her, splitting her lip open. And still she shook her head. Why is she doing this?

But I knew why. Because she still had feelings for me. That’s why I’d ended it, because I couldn’t take the guilt of knowing that she loved me when I couldn’t love her back. Years on, she was still loyal. And now I knew what it was like to love someone. I wanted Katharina to find someone who felt about her the way I felt about Erin.

Becker grabbed Katharina by the hair. That was it: we had to go down there and stop this. But just as I got to my feet again, one of Becker’s men walked into the room carrying a magazine from one of our guns. It must have fallen out of a backpack. Shit.

Becker took out handcuffs and cuffed Katharina, then pushed her towards the door in her bathrobe, not even letting her get dressed. I jumped to my feet again. JD grabbed my arm. I turned and glared at him. “They’ll charge her with treason!” I hissed.

JD’s big blue eyes were sorrowful but, as always, he was keeping calm, thinking when I would have gone off half-cocked. “We can’t help her if we get caught,” he whispered. “The only way to clear her name is to take Becker down.”

I scowled, but then my shoulders slumped. He was right. But now what would we do? We’d lost our only sanctuary and we’d lost Katharina’s help.

I looked down through the skylight as Becker led Katharina out.

He turned to close the door, glanced up…and saw me standing there.

55. Danny

55

DANNY

We ran. The whole roof was covered with ice but we moved as fast as we dared, climbing over pipes and sliding down sloping sections of roof. We reached an air conditioning duct as tall as an SUV and Erin was too short to scramble over it. I picked her up by the waist and passed her up to JD, who helped her up and let her down on the other side.

Behind us, we could hear Becker and his men pouring out onto the fire escape and climbing up to the roof. We ran faster, slipping on the ice and staggering under the weight of our packs. I grabbed Erin’s hand and hauled her along. Snow crunched underfoot and I winced as I remembered her bare feet.