One2's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The army was bought, but the block was closed. One2 stood at the edge of his old territory and saw the change. Vane had learned the truth. Every corner had guards now. Barrels blocked the streets. Men with rifles watched the rooftops. The block boss knew a soul-stealer was coming, and he had sealed the whole place shut. One2 could not walk in. Not even a dead man walked through that. Rex lowered his rifle and spat. "He's ready for us," he said. "That runner talked. Vane thinks you're the devil now." He nodded at the barrels. "We push in there, we die in the street. Even you." One2 turned away from the light. He led them back through the weeds to a broken building his crew used long ago. The new hideout. Inside, dust covered the floor. He set a candle down and waited. Beno Lace filled the doorway. His white jersey glowed in the dark, the number one stark on his chest. He kept his pistol out, thumb near the hammer. "Vane locked it down tight," Beno said. "My boys can't move a crate on his corners. He's scared. Scared men shoot first." His gold teeth caught the candlelight. "So how's a dead man plan to crack that?" Ladybug slid in behind him. Red jacket, red boots, black dots down her sleeves. She smiled the way she always did, sweet on the mouth, cold in the eyes. She ran a finger through the dust and rubbed it off. "My girls counted forty guns on his block," she said. "He's turtled up in that fancy building he took. Gold doors. Marble front." She looked at One2. "Front doors are for fools. You want him, you go under." One2 could not speak. He crouched and drew in the dust with one gray finger. A square for the block. Lines for the streets. He tapped the barrels, then dragged his finger around the edge, past them, into the old tunnels under the block. His crew had run debts through those tunnels years ago. Rex leaned close and understood. "The service tunnels," Rex breathed. "They come up inside the old buildings. Vane can't wall those. He don't even know they're there." One2 tapped the center of the square. Vane's fancy building. The plan was plain. Let Beno's guns hit the barrels loud from the front. Let Ladybug's thirty women push the corners. While Vane looked outward, One2 would climb up through the ground behind him. Beno grinned wide. "A dead man crawling up out the floor." He holstered the pistol at last. "I like it. My boys make all the noise you want." Ladybug crouched by the dust map. "And I get his corners." Her cold eyes met One2's. "Kill him clean, monster. I stay. Miss him, and I'm gone with my girls." One2 pressed his finger flat over Vane's building. The plan was set. Tomorrow night, they went under the block.