"Sshh!" Jessica snapped right as I glimpsed a peek at the fluorescent light from beyond the vent exit. "There's someone here."

I instinctively started to back away, back into the bowels of this dark, dusty labyrinth of a tunnel. Jessica grabbed my ankle before I could back myself right into her face.

"No, you idiot. We don't have time to go back."

I didn't understand. She wanted to jump into that room with those mobsters in it and do what? Make a run for it? Get shot in the back? Become hostages to the Ten Dragons? My heart was racing, and I felt like I was about to pass out with anxiety. There was a bomb to our back and goons with guns to our front. We weren't going to make it out of here alive.

I didn't know I was capable of being even more anxious than I had been this morning as the Evenhell family members debated if they wanted to put a bullet in my head and throw me into the Hudson River. Apparently, now, there was a state of anxiety that was worse.

No, at least with the Evenhells, I knew they would just do the job, and it would be over quickly. They might have found me irritating, an unnecessary complication, but they didn't have a vendetta against me. Now, we've gone and planted a bomb in the lair of the Ten Dragons. No, if they found us, they were going to tear us from limb to limb.

"God, I wish I left you in the car," Jessica snapped as she shoved herself past me. She gave me an elbow in the chest as she crawled over me. I opened my mouth to protest as she smeared herself all over me, generous breasts and all. She came at me like a torrent of soft flesh and sweet smells. I was pretty sure, in comparison, I smelled like a wet sock, and my body felt brittle and angular that of a neglected weather-beaten Halloween skeleton. How could I possibly compete with her? I knew both she and Ashlen denied they were ever involved, but suddenly, I wished I wasn't in the running at all.

If there was one thing we could agree on, I wished I had stayed behind in the car as well.

Jessica stomped her way out of the rest of the vent. She jumped out from the opening and right into the fray. I couldn't linger behind in the safety of the darkness. Time was running out. In fifteen minutes, this entire building was going to be smoldering ash. We had to get out now, or we would be toast. At least Jessica was out there. Perhaps I could run while they were distracted by her shining crimson locks and cartoonishly sexy lips.

"Bunny, what are you doing here? Boss having trouble at home again?"

"Shut up, asshole," Jessica snapped. "I'm just exploring my options in case the Evenhells don't make it through the night."

"That bad?" the male voice said. I neared the entrance to the vent. I could see Jessica talking to an elderly, bald Asian guy wearing a construction vest. It didn't look like he was an off-duty construction worker. Was that something the Ten Dragons had taken off one of their victims? Or was it just something they swiped from one of the black market shipments that had found its way to this dock?  "You here meeting with old Nine Fingers must mean the Ghost has one foot in the grave. What makes you think they'll take you back after what you pulled?"

"Ruse, they always take me back. I'm like a spotted lanternfly. Wherever you go, across the ocean, over mountains, to where the ocean meets the sky, you'll never get rid of me."

"I can see that. Now you're leaving, just like that?"

"Gotta go. The meeting was good. May see you again sometime. Don't tell the others. You know things always get back to his frigid wife."

With those words, Jessica headed straight to the door. Her scheme worked. That greasy old man, Ruse, seemed to believe she was crawling around the vent because she and Nine Fingers were having an affair. Even though she managed to convince him of her story, how was she going to explain why I, too, was in the vent?

Wait! Wait. I couldn't believe my eyes. Was she going to leave me here?

The seconds were ticking by. Of course, she was. Jessica was a low-life criminal like the rest of them. She was going to abandon me here.

"Wait!" I exclaimed and tumbled out of the vent.