The first five minutes feel like an eternity.

The windows of the SUV are rolled down. I’m gulping long breaths of cold night air, and that helps. Aiden is supposedly just leaning his elbow against the shoulder of the passenger’s seat, but in the cover of the darkness, he’s slipped his fingers beneath my beanie, and is gently playing with my hair. That helps, too.

But the warehouse sits right before us, impossible not to look at, refusing to let me forget what we’re doing here.

It’s free of any extraneous decoration, void of character. Purpose-built, and like most law enforcement buildings, designed to look severe and imposing. While the front is brightly lit, especially around the checkpoint and the doors, the sides and the back are left in the shadows.

There’s been no sign of Calla, or of any movement from inside.

I’ve gotten rid of the gum, because I was stress-chewing it to the point that my jaw was starting to ache. Otherwise, nothing has changed over the course of the last five minutes.

I run through the plan in my head, trying to think if there’s anything we’ve forgotten.

“Should we do the clipboard?” I ask.

Aiden nods, reaches for it. He unclips the paper we had on top, the forged delivery paperwork with this location and address. He puts it behind the other version of the paperwork, the one we'll need later. Then he drops the clipboard back on the dash.

There’s a brief silence.

“That kept us busy for about two seconds,” I groan, and Aiden huffs out a pained laugh.

“I know. Feels like every second is just crawling by.”

“Well, I need to do something,” I grumble. “Just sitting here is killing me.”

“You wanna make out?” Aiden suggests, startling a laugh out of me.

I slump back in my seat, shaking my head at him. “You. Dumb. Idiot.”

Aiden rests his hand on the nape of my neck again, and I stir in surprise as the connection shivers open.

What are you doing? I ask, looking over at him.

Feeling you, he murmurs. Time always passes faster this way. Flies by, actually. Too fast.

Before I can answer, Aiden lets out a slow, gentle exhale. Not physically, but through the connection. I take his breath from him, swim peacefully around in it for a moment, and send it back.

Energy and emotion and breath and heartbeat flow softly between us, back and forth, over and over. Each time, it all grows smoother, calmer, sweeter.

Then a rush of something else comes through from Aiden, something that pours instant warmth into my chest. Realizing that I’ve closed my eyes, I open them again.

Aiden is looking at me, blue eyes wide. He glances up at the checkpoint booth. When he’s sure that the officer is turned away from us, his gaze goes right back to mine.

I hold very still as Aiden puts the pad of his thumb over my lips, stroking them slowly, like he’s mapping out a path to follow later.

I just sit there, gazing back at him.

Beautiful, he says softly, through the connection.

I blink at him, my cheeks starting to burn. Then I watch him realize he spoke it right into my head, and his cheeks start to burn.

He quickly faces forward, drops his hand from my neck. The connection closes, right as his embarrassment starts to seep through.

I let out an affectionate, quiet laugh through my nose, more of an exhale than anything. Reach over to put my hand on Aiden’s thigh, give him a squeeze. He glances shyly at me, but bites down on a smile when he turns to look out through the windshield again.

Then he freezes, his eyes widening.

“Jamie,” he whispers. “Look.”

I follow Aiden’s gaze to the building, then freeze, too.

The warehouse doesn’t have a lot of windows. The few it does have are all on the top floors of the building. Presumably because the third and fourth floors have offices, whereas the rest of the space is allocated to secure evidence storage.

From the parking lot, our view is of the side of the building. And at the very top floor, the last window on the left has just swung open.

As Aiden and I watch, a figure in a black hoodie leans out of it, then pauses to scan the ground below for any unexpected security.

Calla.

“There she is,” I breathe. “Aiden - how much time-?”

“It’s been nineteen minutes,” he answers, before I can finish.

I can’t believe how quickly that amount of time just went by, when the first five minutes felt like ages. But there’s no time to think about that. If nineteen minutes have passed, then the senior officer we need to speak to will be out of his meeting at any second. It should take him a few more minutes to get downstairs, so we might still have enough time for Calla to make it to us in the parking lot, but - it’s going to be extremely close.

I didn’t realize how much my mind and body had calmed down from having the connection open with Aiden. Now I realize all at once, because the fear comes crashing back into me full-force.

Aiden and I watch in tense silence as Calla slips out of the window. She dangles from the windowsill for a perilous second, holding on by her fingertips. Then she swings gracefully to the left and gets hold of a long metal drain pipe that extends down the side of the building.

She begins climbing her way down, slowly and carefully, so as not to dislodge the pipe from the building.

A flash of light catches my eye, and I turn. My heart leaps so violently that you'd think the SUV’s airbags had just deployed and exploded in our faces.

An officer is on patrol, striding along the front of the warehouse. It’s clear from his trajectory that he’s about to turn the corner, and doing so will most definitely put him in sight of Calla.

She can’t see the beam of his flashlight, not from where she is. She’s slowly working her way down towards the ground, unknowing.

He’s not even thirty feet away from turning the building, and seeing her.

“Aiden!” I gasp, tugging on his sleeve.

His wide, panicked eyes tell me that he’s already seen the problem.

“Oh, shit," he whispers.

I seize his hand and open the connection. Babe, you have to do something!

Yeah, but what? Aiden sounds frantic, even with his inside voice. What the fuck do I do?

I don’t know, just - you’re a Heliomancer! Think heat, or light!

He stares at me, breathing hard, then looks up at the approaching officer.

Shining, ice-blue magic swirls to life in Aiden’s eyes, casting a soft glow over his cheekbones. He reaches across the darkened interior of the car, towards the officer on patrol.

Through the connection, I feel Aiden draw on his energy.

I whip around to look at the officer, and see the beam of his flashlight stretching out, as if reaching back for us.

The light stopped about ten feet ahead of the officer before, but now it reaches all the way to the corner of the building.

Aiden turns his hand. At the same time, the now very extended beam of the flashlight curves itself around the side of the warehouse, though the officer is still walking along the front.

The officer isn’t paying attention to his flashlight. He’s busy scanning the high concrete walls, looking out at the lawn, the checkpoints. But Calla, who is just over halfway down the pipe, now - she spots the approaching light as soon as it snakes around the side of the building.

She stops short, considers for a split second. Then she kicks off of the wall, springing into the air.

My hands fly to my mouth, my breath stopping in my chest. I fully expect to see Calla crash horribly into the grass, but she lands in an effortless cartwheel, and lets herself roll further down the hill.

The moment that Calla is clear of the wall, Aiden releases his magic. The officer’s flashlight beam retracts back into itself, returning to its previous state. The officer turns his head to look forward again, and fails to notice anything amiss as he rounds the corner.

Calla holds perfectly still, flat on her stomach, nothing to hide her but ankle-high grass and the shadows of the cloudy night.

I can only make her out because I saw her fall there. If I didn’t know where to look, I’d never notice her. But then again, I’m not a trained officer, with a flashlight.

The officer walks along the side of the building at a relaxed pace. I cringe as the flashlight beam almost sideswipes Calla, who hugs the ground, motionless. The officer goes past her, then jolts to a sudden stop.

He’s looking up at the open window that Calla slipped out through. He raises his flashlight, focuses the beam on it.

Calla starts very slowly edging away from the officer, who unclips the radio from his belt and lifts it to his mouth. The windows of the SUV are still down, so we can just barely hear him say:

“Dunbar, come in.”

There’s a response, too obscured by radio static for us to make out.

“Boss left his window open again,” the officer says. “Can you go close it?”

When he gets an affirmative crackle of an answer, he gets moving again. He rounds the side of the warehouse and disappears.

Aiden runs a shaky hand through his chestnut hair. “Jesus Christ.”

I let out a breath that I’ve been holding for too long. Calla pushes herself upright, ready to bolt for the SUV.

“Hey!” someone shouts.

Startled as hell, I almost leap the fuck out of my seat, but I narrowly manage to get control of myself. Aiden and I both twist around to see an officer leaning out of the second checkpoint booth.

“Boss will see you now!” he calls, beckoning to us. “Pull up right here!”

Calla hears him, and freezes, still hidden in the darkness. Nowhere near close enough to get into the SUV.

We have no choice, so Aiden starts the car and drives it up to the checkpoint booth right in front of the warehouse. The shadows swallow up Calla, and I lose sight of her.

Our twenty-minute window has closed.

We have a backup plan for this, though. I just hope we can execute it. One wrong move could cost us everything.

The senior officer is already waiting for us, just outside of the warehouse doors. He’s a tall, bald man, not in uniform like the others. He’s in a dress shirt and slacks, but like everyone else here, he’s got a gun and a badge on his belt. We know his name without needing to see his patch, because Calla was digging around in his schedule earlier: Senior Property and Evidence Officer Richard Letcher.

The SUV lets out a pitiful croak as Aiden rolls it to a stop, and Letcher winces.

“Wow, son,” he says, frowning at Aiden through the window. “Someone ought to put your car out of its misery.”

Aiden pops open the door and gets out, clipboard in hand.

“Couldn't agree more," he says. “I tried to requisition a Ferrari, but the boss said no.”

I blink in surprise as Letcher lets out a booming laugh.

“That would get your deliveries there faster, that’s for sure,” he tells Aiden.

I hop out of the car, too, and go directly to the trunk. I retrieve the cardboard box we’re supposedly here to deliver, then set it down on the pavement. It’s in view of Letcher, but Aiden left his car door open, which blocks it at least a little bit.

“-sent you highballing all the way here with evidence for a case like that?” Letcher is asking, when I straighten up. He sees the box, and waves a hand at it. “Reckless endangerment, minor in possession? Not exactly life without parole, is it? That’s a few weeks of community service, at best. Why are they so motivated about this one?”

“City needs its trash-pickers,” puts in the officer at the checkpoint booth, leaning his shoulder against its doorway. “Somebody’s gotta clean up the freeway, right?”

“Punk probably mouthed off to the arresting officer,” Letcher chuckles, shaking his head as he turns back to Aiden. “Anyways. I double-checked, and we don’t have a delivery scheduled. There must be some mistake.”

My heart briefly stops. From the corner of my eye, I just caught a movement. It’s Calla, sneaking up towards us through the darkness. No one’s seen her yet, besides me.

So far, unbelievably, the backup plan is going off without a hitch.

Calla is staying low, coming up from behind us. Letcher is facing Aiden - which means his back is to me and Calla - but he could turn at any second.

Aiden is showing him the paperwork for the delivery. Thank god we remembered to put the copy with the wrong location at the top of the clipboard.

“Well, here’s your problem, son,” Letcher says, pointing to it. “You’re at Evidence Unit AF402. This says that your delivery is for AC402. Alpha Charlie, not Alpha Foxtrot.”

Aiden and I both let out a loud groan.

“Oh, my god.” Aiden grabs two fistfuls of his hair. “The boss is gonna kill us.”

“AC402 isn’t that far from here,” Letcher says, sympathetic. “You can still make it.”

Calla is creeping up closer and closer behind me. Aiden must see her, too, because he quickly glances around for a way to distract everyone.

“Now I really wish I had that Ferrari,” he says. “Is that yours over there, by the way? What a beaut.”

He points to a car parked in a prime spot right in front of the warehouse. Not a Ferrari, but it’s shiny and slick and clearly well-loved. Letcher’s chest puffs up with pride as he turns to face it.

I don’t catch what he says to Aiden, because all I can hear is the soft rustle of grass, a sound that means Calla is right behind me.

I double-check that both the checkpoint officer and Letcher are turned away, then open the box as swiftly and quietly as I can.

Calla darts around me, steps into the box, and drops down. There’s the faintest crinkling sound from the crushed cans, but Letcher is busy telling Aiden about his car, and he doesn't notice.

I rush to close the box, and straighten up right as Letcher turns around to face me again.

“Anyways, you’d better get going, if you want to make it to AC402 tonight,” he tells Aiden. “I’ll radio Harris, tell him to let you through the checkpoint.”

“Thanks so much,” Aiden says. “And so sorry to bother you with this.”

“No problem. You have a good night, now. Don’t forget your evidence box.”

Aiden strides over to collect the box. It’s significantly heavier with its new cargo inside, but Aiden lifts it as if there’s no difference whatsoever.

Bicep boy, I think, and nearly let out a hysterical laugh.

The thunk of the car doors closing, the shaky click of my seat belt fastening. The road, the checkpoint, the gate. It all passes by in flashes, blurs that I don’t even fully process.

And then we’re driving down the gravel road, the warehouse lost to the trees.

I turn slowly to look at Aiden, my face blank with disbelief.

“Um,” I say, “Did - did we just fucking do it?”

Calla wriggles her way out of the evidence box, grinning from ear to ear, so hard that her brown eyes close.

“We fucking did it!” she laughs, and leans forward to smack both me and Aiden on the shoulder.

I don't know if it's Calla's contagious laughter, or my giddy relief, or what, but I start laughing, too, and Aiden is right behind me. We have to pull over for a minute before we take the on-ramp to the freeway, struggling to get ourselves together.

I’m dying to ask Calla about what happened when she was inside, but with the adrenaline dried up, exhaustion comes for me by force. I can’t even gather enough energy to speak. And Aiden and Calla feel the same way, apparently.

We drive in relieved, happy silence, all the way back to Ketterbridge.