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unnervingly close. As though it might be right outside the corridor with the safe rooms.
    “Come here,” he says, and loops a cord on his body harness through the backpack straps.
    “Don’t you have some sort of secret passageway out of here?” I whimper.
    “You’re looking at it.”
    “I meant INSIDE the building!” I cry out.
    “Just think of this as the express elevator down.”
    He grabs me tightly around the waist.
    I latch onto him, too, like I’m about to die.
    Which I probably am.
    He kisses me hard. “For good luck.”
    “OH GOD!” I scream, and close my eyes as he kicks us both out of the window and into the void.

3
    There is a horrifying moment when we are free-falling, and I think, So this is what it feels like when your parachute doesn’t open.
    Then, a second later, our descent slows and we change direction. Suddenly I hear CLANG, feel a jolt through my entire body, and we’re zooming out again at high speed.
    I open my eyes, which I probably shouldn’t have.
    The street below us is so small that the cars look like TicTac mints of all different colors. The people on the sidewalks don’t even look like ants; they look like dots.
    “AAAAAAH!” I scream, and grab onto Grant tighter.
    “We’re fine,” he yells above the wind whipping around us.
    I realize that we’re changing direction because he’s rappelling off the building. Every time we swing in, his feet hit the glass of some apartment building, and we kick off into nothingness and descend another 20 feet.
    I catch a glimpse of a wide-eyed cleaning lady as Grant kicks off the glass right in front of her face.
    “OH GOD!” I howl, and bury my face in his chest.
    “You’re doing great!” he yells back.
    “WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”
    “Eh…”
    “THAT’S NOT FUNNY!”
    He laughs grimly as he kicks off again.
    I gradually open my eyes a second time. Below us, the cars are no longer Tic Tacs but Matchbox cars, and are becoming bigger with every passing second.
    A group of people are standing around on the sidewalk, craning their necks and looking up at us in wonder, pointing and gawping.
    “Out of the way!” Grant shouts.
    The crowd parts like the Red Sea as we jolt to a landing on the sidewalk.
    Grant looks over at me. “See? Not so bad.”
    “Yeah, right,” I say, my legs wobbling so badly that I can barely stand.
    “Hey, is this for a movie?” a twenty-something hipster dude on the sidewalk asks.
    “Exactly,” Grant says as he detaches the safety harness and throws it on the ground. “Cut – that’s a wrap!” he yells to an imaginary cameraman.
    People look around for the invisible film crew.
    It would be pretty funny if a serial killer weren’t after us.
    There’s a taxi parked at the curb; the driver is out of his door and looking over at us, watching the commotion. Grant grabs my arm and hustles me into the backseat.
    “Drive,” he tells the cabbie.
    “Whoa, that was crazy,” the driver enthuses as he gets back in. “Are you one of them extreme sports – ”
    “DRIVE!” Grant yells.
    “Okay, okay – where to?”
    “Anywhere, just go!”
    The taxi takes off into the stream of traffic, and I sit there in the backseat shaking.
    “Where are we going?” I ask unsteadily.
    “I don’t know. For right now, we just need to put some distance between us and… them.”
    I realize something alarming.
    We’re in a getaway vehicle with no way to pay.
    “Do you have any money on you?” I whisper to Grant.
    “No, but you do.”
    I’m confused. “What? No I don’t. I left everything I own back in the penthouse.”
    Grant unclasps the plastic buckles on the backpack straps, which I had forgotten I was wearing, and pulls it into his lap. Then he unzips the back.
    There’s a jumble of different things inside. I see a passport, a cell phone, a bunch of plastic credit cards, some metal tools, some putty, what appears to be a switchblade knife –
    – and multiple bundles of cash with paper bands around