North's CYOA 2

Another shout rang out. North gave Luka a shove, and Luka rolled off him. North was still getting to his feet when Luka grabbed his arm and yanked him into a run.

They crossed the parking lot in the direction Luka had pointed—away from the highway, and toward the growth of trees and brush that pressed up against the edge of the parking lot. The sound of their steps seemed loud enough to hear from miles away. North kept his head down, focusing on his footing, checking for icy spots. Besides, a part of him thought, maybe if you can’t see them, they can’t see you.

Up a crumbling curb, across a span of weedy ground where a skin of snow still lay, and then Luka pushed his way between a pair of big bushes. He was still towing North after him, but North wrenched his arm free. He stopped and kicked one foot back and forth through the weeds. Some of the snow snapped and crackled, already frozen into a solid piece, but some of it blew up like dandelion puffs and settled down into their footprints.

The voices of men.

Flashlights swinging back and forth.

North gave the ground one last glance and elbowed through the brush. On the other side, darkness met him. He stood there a moment, waiting for his eyes might adjust to the even deeper darkness.

Not that there was anything wrong with his eyes.

His eyes were fine.

Luka hissed, and North turned toward the sound. He took a step, his shoulder catching another bush. Dry leaves clicked. Snow made a hissing sound as it dislodged and fell. Then a warm hand caught North’s, tugging him forward, and North crouched to move under low-hanging branches.

Silence.

And that deep dark like an asphalt patch.

At first, the only sounds were their mingled breathing, the occasional rustle of fabric when one of them shifted, the creak of leather. Now that they’d stopped moving, the cold started to work its way through the fabric of North’s hoodie, and he shivered. And after a minute of crouching, his knees started to ache, and something tightened in the small of his back.

It made perfect sense that at exactly that moment, steps clipped toward them from the parking lot. The beams of flashlights cut left to right, like blacked-out kaleidoscopes in the gaps between the leaves.

Then, on the other side of the bushes, the steps stopped.

Men breathing.

The dull thwump of someone kicking the curb.

“I saw something,” a man said.

“Deer,” another man said. “There’s a million of them out here.”

North’s back was still pinging, but his knees were on fire.

“I don’t know,” the first man said.

“Well, let’s go have a look.”

But neither of them moved.

He just needed to shift, change position. A fraction of an inch. Anything.

“Fuck it,” the first one said.

And their steps moved off again.

North waited until he couldn’t hear them before letting out a sharp breath and squirming out from under the branches. He straightened. Instant relief. Stretched one leg. Then the other.

Luka wormed his way out from their hiding spot like he was fucking Gumbi.

“Go on,” North said, massaging one knee. “Say one fucking word.”

“About what?”

North had an answer, but he grumbled it. Out here, there was enough ambient light for him to get a better look at the other detective. Dark hair. Dark eyes. The shadow of stubble. Strong brow, strong nose, strong jaw. Add it all up and you got someone who was too fucking pretty for his own good. The real problem was that sometimes, North honestly didn’t know if Luka knew it.

Luka, for his part, was at the line of brush, peering out toward the parking lot. Not stretching his back. Not easing his knees.

Finally, North burst out, “Are you for fucking real right now?”

Luka glanced over his shoulder.

For a moment, incomprehension. And then Luka shrugged. “Oh. Swimming.” He tilted his head toward the brush. “Good call with our tracks.”

North grunted. “Figured we didn’t need to make it too easy for them.”

“Good thing, because I’m not as light of foot as the elves of Lothlórien.”

North refused to respond to that. He settled for stretching his back.

“Legolas can walk without breaking the surface of the snow—”

“We get it,” North snapped. “You’re a huge nerd. You want Gandalf to stick his wand up your butt. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“In all fairness, North, I could ask you the same thing. Also, Gandalf had a staff as a sign of his power. Not a wand.”

“And Legolas was from Mirkwood, you giant cooze.”

Luka’s silence—startled, then focused, considering—was actually worse than if he’d said something.

Heat rushed into North’s face. “Divorce. The wife thought the husband was going to try to hide some assets. She was right; the dumbfuck had these guys pull right up to the house and load his ’63 Impala. Now you.”

“Insurance. Cars that go missing. Cars that are delivered late or never delivered at all.”

North rubbed one eye because of course it was his fucking luck that somehow Luka Meer was investigating the same fucking car hauler.

“Why’d they unload the cars?” Luka asked, turning to peer through the brush again.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

But North joined him, forcing apart stiff branches for a better view. The cars were still parked in the lot.

“Are they stealing the cars?” Luka said. “Is this some kind of chop-shop operation?”

North grunted. He was shivering harder now.

A man emerged from one of the buildings. As North and Luka watched, he loaded the cars one by one back onto the hauler. Engines hummed. Tires whispered against frozen pavement. The loading ramps creaked and grated. When he was done, he went back into the building.

“Fuck me,” North muttered—he couldn’t help himself. “What the fuck are they doing?”

“Call the cops?” Luka asked.

“And tell them what? Maybe these guys just like to look at the cars.”

“At an abandoned rest area? And they freak out when they think they see someone?”

North refused to take the bait. “When you were poking around inside that Impala, did you notice anything?”

Luka shook his head.

 “The way I see it,” North finally said. “We need to get a closer look at those cars. You keep a lookout, and I’ll run over there and check.”

Luka looked at North. Looked at his fucking knees. “Maybe I should run over there, and you should keep lookout.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Even Luka’s smile was too fucking pretty. “Don’t feel bad, North; everyone’s contribution is equally valuable.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Would it make you feel better to know that age is the perfectioner of wisdom?”

Will North (and his decrepit knees) run across the parking lot to inspect the cars? Or is it Luka’s time to shine?