Jack Thompson's Arc

Chapter 23 of 25

Jack ran until his bad leg burned cold under the black flame. Wolf prints showed in the dust ahead. Scout tracks, fresh, pressed deep. He grinned. 13 had come this way. He followed the paws around a corner and stopped where they ended at the base of a rusted water tower. The tracks circled the legs of the tower once and went no further. Jack looked up. Yellow paint, old ladders, a lookout cabin perched on top like a crow's nest. A trap, maybe. Or the doctor himself. Jack tightened his grip on Lady Luck and climbed. He took the rungs two at a time, shotgun banging his hip. The cabin door hung open. Inside: a chair, a thermos still warm, a pair of binoculars on a hook. No Owl. No 13. Jack's stomach dropped. He picked up the binoculars anyway. He turned to the window and looked where the lenses pointed. Across the way sat a red brick warehouse, doors chained, windows boarded. A single figure walked toward it from the far side of the street. Small. Red headband. Twin pistols loose at his hips. "No," Jack said. "No, no, no." This wasn't the trap. This was the chair the doctor sat in to watch the trap spring. Jack had climbed the wrong building. The warm thermos meant Owl had left minutes ago, probably down to meet his guest in person. Jack dropped the binoculars and threw himself at the ladder. He knew the direction now. He knew the door. He just had to beat a man with a head start, on legs that only half worked, before the chain on that warehouse came off and snapped shut behind his partner.