Killer of Giants

to get new plates and the serial removed.”

  Allie bit her lips as she stared out the window. She tugged my sleeve and pointed at a poster of Bruce Springsteen with a guitar slung around his neck. “I’m not saying this is a good idea, but how much would that guitar at school be worth?”

  Five years ago, Motown Records donated a Fender electric guitar to Cannondale, but it’d almost never been played. Guitars are so 1993, I guess. “Four hundred… maybe,” I said.

  “Steal the guitar?” Gordie sounded distant. “I don’t think we should do that.”

  Raj tapped Gordie’s arm. “Motown gave Cannondale that guitar so we could learn music, right? How are we supposed to learn if we’re too busy being beat up by psychopaths?”

  “Exactly.” I rapped my knuckles on the window. “We’d be like Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich to give to the needy, except we’d be the needy.”

  “How would we get it?” Gordie asked. “We can’t just walk out of the school with it.”

  The four of us sat without speaking for a while, Allie gripping the wheel, Gordie wheezing softly, and Raj tugging at his seatbelt.

  Buzz.

  WHATS IT GONNA BE FUKKERS?

  I held up my phone for them to see. “It’s now or never. If we do this, we’ll have to get the guitar, hock it, and get the money to Drac before tomorrow night.” I turned to Raj. “Gordie’s right. We’d never get the guitar out when school’s on, so it’s either before or after. I say we go now.”

  “Now?” Gordie sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  Allie switched off the ceiling light and released the hand brake. “This isn’t going to end well, but if you guys are serious, I’m coming.”

  Raj grinned. “So we’re actually breaking into the school right now?”

  Allie reached for the gearstick, and I put my hand on her arm. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do this.”

  “And let you guys mess this up?” A flicker of a smile crossed her lips.

  Having Allie on our side eased my feeling of impending doom. She was smart – she’d make this work. I thumbed a message on my phone:

  C U THERE

  I gave her a questioning look, and she nodded without hesitating.

  14. Spiders in the Night

  Occasional bursts of streetlight lit up the car as we crept through the night streets. This part of the city was dead, no sign of life for the last ten blocks. The school came into view on our left and Allie checked her mirror, easing on the brake.

  “Let’s head ‘round the back.” I pointed at the Grayson Street intersection.

  She turned the wheel and eased around the corner. Half a block up Grayson, she pulled into the curb near the school’s rear gate and killed the engine. The silhouette of Cannondale High loomed dark against the night sky. The Education Department was cutting costs, and nobody cared if the building wasn’t lit at night.

  2:21 a.m.

  Looking through the passenger-side window, I scanned the towering cast iron fence around the schoolyard. It had to be more than ten feet tall. Allie was right; this was going to be another one of those ideas that sounded good at the time.

  Gordie groaned and spoke in a cracked voice. “I don’t know about this.”

  The look of concentration on Allie’s face softened, and then creased into a frown. She turned to him. “We won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  I put my hand on her seatback and looked over my shoulder. “Gordie, I’ll go in with Raj. You stay here with Allie and–”

  “No way,” she said. “You can stay if you like. I’m going in.”

  I smiled. “Gordie, will you stay here and keep a lookout?”

  Shifting his gaze to the building, he gave a half-hearted nod.

  “Back soon.” I tapped his leg plaster and gave him a cheesy wink. “If you close your eyes and use your imagination, it’s almost as good as watching Netflix.” He gave me a look that told me he didn’t want to be cheered up.

  Allie, Raj, and I climbed out and pushed the doors shut, the freezing night air attacking our skin. Inside, Gordie lifted his leg onto the backseat and gave an obligatory wave.

  Burglary isn’t something I’d ever attempted, or even thought I’d be good at, and I wasn’t excited about my first time being a building that looked like a Bond villain’s fortress at night. We stepped onto the curb and moved along the sidewalk in darkness. Nearing the gate, the dim glow of a streetlight was enough to make out a padlocked chain wrapped around the bars. I clutched a bar and shook the gate.

  Raj craned his neck to look up at the top of the fence. “If we can get onto the crossbar we should be able to climb over.”

  The thought of Allie falling from that height made my stomach squeamish. I touched her shoulder. “I’ll climb up and help you over.”

  “Let’s just see you get up there first,” she said.

  I gripped the bars, my fingers instantly stinging from the cold, and climbed onto the crossbar. Adjusting my footing, my shoe slipped on the ice and my shinbone crashed into frozen steel. In sickening agony, I collapsed ass first onto the sidewalk, forcing back a scream and clutching my leg.

  Laughter broke out behind me.

  Allie brushed the crossbar with her sleeve. “There you go, Spidey. No more ice.”

  Cold seeped in from the concrete and worked its way through my clothes as I dealt with the pain. I rolled onto my hands and rose shakily to my feet, unable to keep a slight smile from my face. “Just wait for your turn, smartasses.” Stepping back, I wiped my hands on my jeans and jumped at the gate. My shoe gripped the crossbar and the gate rattled as I heaved myself up, shifting my hands up the bars and straightening my legs till my head was above the gate. The frozen metal murdered my fingers, and then gradually numbed them. I carefully lifted my leg and hooked my foot over the top as the gate creaked and shook.

  In a single, fluid movement, Allie launched herself onto the crossbar, pivoted over the top, and dropped gracefully down the other side. “Do you need a hand, or should I just wait for you here?”

  “Did you forget to mention you’re a ninja?” I dragged myself over the top and awkwardly slid down, straining my arms till I felt the crossbar under my shoes. Bending my knees, I let go of the bars and dropped onto the concrete.

  Allie slow clapped. “Well done, Chrisy. You did it all on your own!”

  In the short time I’d known her, almost everything I’d learned about her was incredible. I straightened and wiped my hands on my jeans. “It’s a waste that my skills aren’t being used by the Special Forces.”

  Thud.

  Something hit the concrete next to us, and Allie leaned over. “Raj?”

  “Stupid… slippery ass ice.” He climbed off the ground and rubbed his elbow.

  Staying close together, we moved up the path toward the building, each step taking us further from the glow of the streetlight. In near darkness, we arrived at the front door.

  Raj turned the handle. “Locked.”

  “Inconvenient,” Allie said.

  I scanned the building in both directions and pointed at a row of windows on the left. “Over there.”

  Bracing against the cold, we crept along the wall, stepping carefully in the darkness. Nearing the first window, my already tenderized shin struck something hard. “Shit… fuck… ouch!” I swept my hands out front and my fingers brushed against a metal trashcan. “Watch out here.”

  Allie laughed. “Could you boys be any more accident prone?”

  Any hope of impressing Allie with my physical prowess could be laid to rest. I limped around the trashcan. “If this is Karma, we’re in for a bad night.”

  The nearest window was three feet wide with the sill at shoulder height. A small lock at the bottom held it in place. I put my palms on the bottom of the frame and pushed upwards, working unsuccessfully against the lock. “Do you have any tools in your car?”

  “Just a tire iron, but Kyle would be an old man by the time you got over that gate again.” S
he gave a sly grin.

  Some guys wouldn’t like having a girl give them a hard time, but truthfully I liked it. She had a way of taking the edge off. Besides, it’s not like I dreamed of being an Olympic fence climber. “Raj, do you still have that knife?” I asked.

  Allie gasped and pushed my shoulder. “I was kidding! Don’t stab me!”

  Next to her, Raj dug his hand into his pocket, unfolded a four-inch blade, and handed it to me. “You can’t pick a lock with a knife, you know.”

  “I’m not going to pick it.” I jammed the tip of the blade underneath the lock and levered it with the handle, managing to move it a fraction of an inch, but not enough to break it off. I strained against the lock, bending the knife blade.

  Allie shivered, rubbing her arms. “There has to be an easier way in.”

  I stepped back and scanned the dark silhouette of the fire escape above us. My stomach sank with the thought of Gordie hitting the concrete from that height. “Maybe we can get up there.”

  “Not sure that’s a good idea,” Allie said.

  With one hand gripping the other, I wedged the blade under the lock and twisted it. A sharp crack sounded as the blade separated from the lock, and something clinked on the ground. Wood splintered on the sill where the lock had been, and the tip of the blade was missing. I walked to where Allie stood. “Hey, I think I–”

  Behind me, shoes crunched on asphalt and Raj called out, “Watch out!” With a dull clank of metal, he let out a grunt, and an almighty smash and tinkle of broken glass echoed through the schoolyard and nearby streets. The trashcan fell from the window and crashed onto the asphalt. Allie