Story code: ST-001311
Part 2: The Night Cycle
Mateo wrenched his arms downward, breaking her frantic grip. The rough concrete tore at his callouses as he let the cinder block fall. It hit the freezing asphalt with a sickening, heavy crack, splitting into two jagged chunks. The impact echoed off the narrow brick walls of the alley like a gunshot.
Mateo stumbled backward, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at Chloe, then down at his hands, which were coated in a fine layer of gray dust.
“Are you completely out of your mind?” Mateo hissed, his voice tight with disbelief and anger. “I’m not breaking your window.”
Chloe dropped to her knees, the hem of her camel-colored cashmere coat pooling in the dirty, salt-stained slush of the alley. She scrambled for the broken halves of the cinder block, her bare fingers slipping on the icy stone. She was sobbing now, a raw, ugly sound that completely shattered her carefully curated, polished image.
Mateo took another step back, toward the safety of his darkened bodega. The folded eviction notice in his pocket suddenly felt like a lead weight. This woman had bought into the building next door, accelerated the property taxes, and casually driven out the laundromat, the shoe repair, and now his family’s legacy. And now she wanted him to commit a felony for her.
“Do you know what happens if a patrol car rolls by?” Mateo asked, pointing a stiff, trembling finger at her. “They see me, a guy in a faded work jacket, smashing the window of the fancy new boutique. Who do you think goes to jail, Chloe? You? You’ll just stand there crying, and I’ll be face-down in the dirt in handcuffs before I can even open my mouth to explain.”
Chloe looked up, her mascara smeared in dark streaks across her pale cheeks. She didn’t argue. She didn’t offer a naive denial of how the world actually worked. She just hoisted one of the heavy, broken halves of the block against her stomach. “Then don’t get caught,” she wheezed, struggling to stand under the awkward weight. “Please. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
She awkwardly pinned the stone against her hip with one forearm and dug frantically into her coat pocket with her free hand. She pulled out a slim, designer leather wallet, fumbling with the brass zipper. She yanked out a thick wad of crisp bills, her shaking fingers losing their grip. Several hundred-dollar bills fluttered down, landing directly in the black, oily slush of the alleyway.
Mateo stared at the money soaking up the grime. It was an insult. A sick, detached insult. She had already taken his livelihood, and now she thought she could just buy his labor to act as her personal vandal.
“Keep your money,” Mateo said, his voice dropping to a hard, flat register. “I’m going home. You want your own window broken, you do it yourself.”
He turned his back on her and started walking briskly toward the street, eager to put the brick walls of the alley between him and whatever manic episode she was having.
“Wait!” she screamed, the sound tearing through the quiet night. “You don’t understand! If it’s not broken by 2:15, it’s over!”
Mateo didn’t stop. He reached the edge of the alley, his boot hitting the sidewalk.
Then, the sudden, blinding sweep of headlights cut through the darkness.
A white-and-blue NYPD cruiser turned the corner, rolling agonizingly slowly down the avenue. Its tires hissed against the frost-covered asphalt, the engine a low, predatory rumble.
Mateo froze. He was standing right at the mouth of an alley, covered in concrete dust, with a screaming woman behind him. The optics were worse than bad; they were a guaranteed arrest.
Before he could step back, a hand grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him violently into the shadows. Chloe pulled him behind the massive metal bulk of a commercial recycling bin. She pressed herself flat against the freezing brick wall, clamping her own hands over her mouth to muffle her ragged breathing.
Mateo pressed his back against the cold steel of the bin, holding his breath. The police cruiser crawled past the alley entrance. The powerful beam of its side-mounted spotlight clicked on, sweeping over the darkness. The harsh white light washed over the cracked pavement where he had been standing seconds before, illuminated the gleaming glass facade of Verdant, and then moved on down the block.
The cruiser’s taillights slowly faded into the distance.
Mateo exhaled sharply, his adrenaline spiking into pure fury. He turned on Chloe, keeping his voice to a harsh whisper. “Don’t you ever grab me like that again. I have nothing to do with this.”
Chloe lowered her hands. Her eyes were wide and completely bloodshot. She checked the gold watch on her left wrist, her hands shaking so violently the metal band rattled against her skin.
“Two minutes,” she whispered, her voice hollow.
Mateo looked past her, toward the spotless, warmly lit glass storefront. “Two minutes until what?”
“Until the automated steel security shutters lock down,” she said, her chest heaving. “Until the internal cameras activate for the night cycle. Until I can’t get in.”
“You own the place!” Mateo argued, utterly bewildered. “Just unlock the front door!”
“I can’t!” she cried, pulling at her hair with dirty fingers. “The management company remotely changed the digital codes at midnight. They locked me out.”
Mateo stopped cold. The management company. It was the exact same faceless LLC that had signed his eviction notice. Why would they lock out their wealthy star tenant in the middle of the night?
Chloe didn’t wait for him to process it. She scrambled out from behind the dumpster, abandoning the broken cinder block. She ran to the heavy metal grate covering a storm drain in the center of the alley. Dropping to her knees, she began yanking wildly at the frozen iron grate, tearing her fingernails on the rusted metal in a desperate search for a new weapon.
Mateo stepped out from behind the bin, fully intending to walk away. But as he turned toward the street, his eyes flicked back to the glass window. The interior of the matcha shop was bathed in soft, aesthetic light. But as he stared at the sleek oak counter, he noticed something he hadn’t seen before.
Beneath the register, hidden behind a neat stack of branded paper cups, a small, intense red light was pulsing steadily in the shadows. It wasn’t an alarm sensor. It was too bright, flashing in a rapid, unnatural rhythm that seemed to accelerate the longer he looked at it.
Mateo felt a cold knot form in his stomach. The eviction notice in his pocket felt completely insignificant compared to the sudden, overwhelming sense of danger radiating from the pristine shop.
Chloe gave up on the storm drain, her hands scraped and bleeding. She looked back at Mateo, her expression entirely feral in the dim light.
“If I don’t get it out before those shutters drop,” she whispered, her voice trembling with absolute, terrifying certainty, “we are both going to die.”