“Sorry I’m late.” He rolls up one sleeve and shifts so that the severe, black-haired woman managing the cash register can see his tattoo.

Her eyes dart to the door and she gives an almost imperceptible nod before she curls her lips into a frown. “Boxes are in the back. The three of you had better work fast or I’ll dock your pay.”

Atlas jerks his head toward the other end of the store. The girl with the hat and I follow him around several display tables filled with a treasure trove of brightly colored materials and shining jewelry to the back, where he pulls open a narrow door marked “Employees Only.” The three of us duck through, and when the door clicks behind us, I feel a small kernel of relief.

“Now what? Do we wait here for the Marshals to give up?”

“No,” Atlas says, crossing to the back of the room. “After what just happened, I doubt the Marshals will leave the area anytime soon. The best option is for us to get out of this neighborhood.”

I look around the cramped storage area, then back at him. “And I guess you know a way we can do that?”

He gives me the cocky grin I’ve come to count on. “Of course I do.” He points to a black, circular staircase that spirals up through the floor above and says, “It’s time to climb.”

My legs are like rubber. Each footstep on the iron stairs rings loud no matter how hard I try to stay quiet. I make my way up to the next story—into a small living room filled with comfortably worn furniture and a vase of flowers that look so perfect in color and bloom I’m guessing they aren’t real. The girl with the hat appears on the steps behind me and leans on the back of a deep green armchair, looking as if she is about to collapse.

But Atlas isn’t going to let that happen yet. He makes a beeline for the window, throws it open, climbs out, and after several long seconds pops his head back in. “Let’s go. Keep low when you reach the roof. Move.”

I crawl through the window into the warmth of the early-summer air and keep moving upward. There’s no way I’m letting the Marshals win today. They aren’t getting anyone else. Not if I can help it.

There are a bunch of chairs and empty bottles on the roof, which tells me we aren’t the only ones who have come up here. But we’re the only ones who have been up here recently because ours are the only footprints I can see.

“Stay down and go over the rooftops to the one on the end. Most of them you can step between. For the last one we’ll have to jump.”

Jump?

I trip more than once as we move from rooftop to rooftop, most separated by only a foot or two. The last is several feet lower and four or so feet away from the building we are standing on now.