The Paragon

Chapter Twenty

Tires. Vehicles approaching on the street below. It was the middle of the night, and it had been quiet so far. This wasn't a bustling city; there weren't that many cars from what I'd seen. Phoenix and I both immediately rushed for the building's edge, peering down to the street below.

No less than four Imperial vehicles had pulled up outside the warehouse. I felt my eyes grow wide as I saw gold-armor exit the vehicles—not the white of a monitor. These were real Imperial soldiers. "Phoenix," I whispered, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest.

His hand grabbed my upper arm so hard it almost hurt, yanking me away from the edge. "We've got to get you out of here now," he said. We both heard the banging on the door downstairs start. "Shit."

"Get the others," I told him, giving him a slight push towards the trap door with my free hand. "We can get away from up here." Already I was tracing the quickest route using the rooftops to get away.

Phoenix followed my line of thought and nodded. He hurried back through the trap door, leaving me on the rooftop. The pounding continued on the door on the street below and I could hear the Imperials demanding to be let in. "You are surrounded; open up now!" they shouted.

Had we led them here? What was going on? I shook myself as I tried to see which way to go in order to escape, and pulled my hair quickly and messily away from my face using the elastic band that was around my wrist.

Footsteps were coming back up the ladder; Phoenix was the first one back on the roof, quickly followed by the others. I breathed a sigh of relief to see my brother and Casp, both looking terrified and still with sleep in their eyes. "What's going on?" Eli demanded.

"Imperials," I said quickly.

"Can we get back to the shuttle?" Casp questioned.

"The shuttle could be compromised, but it's our best bet," Cora said. She didn't seem at all tired, simply intense. We all heard the unmistakable sound of a door being burst open on the street below. "Go, now!"

I gestured everyone to follow, then took a running leap from the roof to the next building. I turned to see Phoenix following first, making the jump easily, closely followed by Cora and Eli, then last of all Tabitha and Casp. "We can't take rooftops the whole way, Immy," Eli said, already gasping a little at the shock of his landing. "The buildings are too different from each other for us to follow."

He was right. The buildings were all different heights, designs, and roof styles. The next one was peaked rather than flat—I might have been able to figure a way up it, but I didn't want to put them at risk. "Let's get down to street level, quickly," I said, swinging my leg over the edge of the building and finding a pipe to climb down.

When I reached the ground and waited for the others to follow me down, I checked to be sure my knives were still attached to my side—they were, and I was thankful to remember I'd also retrieved my gun from the weapons cache we'd brought with us. At least all of us were armed.

"We were sold out," Eli said breathlessly as he came down after me. One of his hands gripped my upper arm and I could see the other reach up to hold onto Casp tightly once he reached the ground. "We had to be. But by who?"

Phoenix's feet landed on the ground next to me, quickly followed by Cora. "That's not important right now. What's important is an escape. We need to travel three blocks east, then go north to get to the dock," she explained. She was about to say more, then stopped at the sound of more vehicles.

"Shit," Phoenix said, right before headlights illuminated all of us.

"Stop there and surrender now!" came the booming voice from the vehicle. I saw, just barely with the light blinding me, figures getting out of the vehicle. If I'd had to make a guess—more Imperials, weapons pointed at us.