Tyler Kyle's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Tyler stayed in the alley shadow after Rashid walked off. Two factions now carried the same lie in their pockets, and the rift would spread without him. But the district had turned into a trap. Angello Fredricksen — the hunter who had chased him from the market three nights back — had his face memorized and was working the sewer hatches one by one. Every lid Tyler had used to escape Obsqora's hut was now a lid Angello would check. He had to be out of these streets before dusk. He cut through a back lane toward the row of tall brick houses on the east edge of the district. Narrow fronts, three windows across, stone steps up to painted doors. He picked one with a dark door and a lamp still unlit. He climbed the steps and sat on the top stair with his back against the door frame, hands in his jacket pockets, bangs low. To anyone passing, a tenant waiting for a key. Not a man in a bounty sketch. Boots on stone. Tyler did not lift his head. He watched from under his hair. Angello came around the corner alone, short and square in a black coat, crosses stitched at the chest, a belt of pouches at his waist. He walked the way a man walks who has lost the same target three times and will not lose him a fourth. He stopped at the base of the steps. "You live here," Angello said. Flat. "Waiting on my sister," Tyler said. He kept his voice low and bored. He did not move his hands. Angello studied him. The bangs. The pale jaw. The cheetah fur collar tucked down inside a borrowed scarf Tyler had wrapped at the throat two blocks back. Angello's hand rested near a stake at his belt. "Look up," Angello said. A door opened two houses down. A woman leaned out and called a name Tyler did not catch, annoyed, waving at Angello like he was the one blocking her steps. She started down toward them, still talking. Angello's head turned a quarter inch. One second. Tyler stood, slow, and stepped past him down the stairs on the woman's side, using her body as a wall. He did not run. He walked to the corner and turned it. Then he ran. He went four blocks before he stopped in a doorway to breathe. His hands were shaking inside the pockets. Angello had not seen the eyes. He was sure of that. But Angello had seen the jacket, the height, the jaw, and Angello did not forget. The district was closed to him now. Obsqora's lane, the sewer hatches, the row of brick houses — all burned. He had bought his way out of one street and lost the whole quarter. Wherever he slept tonight, it would not be here.