Chapter 4

She checked in to her new lair, a hotel in a town neighboring Boston. It was a second floor room so that sweepers couldn't look in through the windows and she could repel out the window if she needed to make a quick escape.

Helping someone didn't make her feel good. While it saved someone else's butt, all it did for Dana was expose her whereabouts. She helped when she could, but then she had to move on as quickly as she'd arrived.

There were places she couldn't make herself go, even if she wore a disguise. Delaware was one of those places.

Eight months on the run and she was already getting tired of running. That's what it looked like to the sweeper who found her on her day off. Had it not been for Dana's magnetized limb getting stuck on a dumpster, the sweeper would have thought she was a homeless woman in her current disguise of salt and pepper hair, wrinkles, and dirt and ratty clothes covering her body.

I have got to get these bones switched out Dana thought.

She heard the sound of someone on their cell phone. The voice on the other end kept cutting out but she heard, clear as a bell, the words "Don't let her get away! Use the taser!"

Dana put her hand in her pocket, wrapping her hand around her remote. She pushed a button to demagnetize herself. The next part was either going to be fun or painful. Did she want to run and definitely get tased? Or did she want to pretend she was still stuck and get the drop on the sweeper, destroying whatever device was on the woman in the process?

She opted for the second choice. At least that way she had a fighting chance.

The female sweeper came closer, and closer. Her Centre issued pistol was trained on the young pretender who made the convincing appearance of struggling against restraints.

Dana pulled and pulled, letting the sweeper see real fear cross her face. Cries of "get away from me", "I'm not going back", and "I'd rather die" left her body.

The sweeper chose then to lift a remote into Dana's line of vision. It looked exactly like the one she'd stolen.

The sweeper was close enough to touch Dana. She kneeled down to the young pretender's eye level. As she reached for Dana's left collar bone, Dana opened her mouth and bit the woman's arm.

"Do you know what this does?" The sweeper asked sadistically as she tried to stop the bleeding. Dana nodded. "Oh, then you must know what this button does." She presses the button. Dana's wrist was no longer demagnetized, but it's strength doubled. Suddenly Dana's struggle was real.

The sweeper used her cell phone to let the Centre know Dana was in custody and waiting for someone to come and get her.

Dana guesses that the sweeper who found her was new because the woman seemed confident enough in her work that she left the alley, believing that Dana couldn't get away.

Foolish woman. I might be the death of her Dana thought as she once again demagnetized herself and looked for a way out. The alley's entrance wasn't going to be an option as the Centre was on its way to collect her. There were only two ways for her to go. Scale a building, or go down a manhole. If she went up, she could easily be spotted. If she went down, she could be trapped from every angle.

Dana didn't waste much time in making her decision. Based on her Jarod's Escapes simulations, she knew the Centre wasn't far off. Dana climbed up the side of the dumpster to gain some height so she could reach the fire escape and started climbing two rings at a time until she reached the stairs. She raced up two flights before finding an open window and ducking in just in time to see a Centre vehicle park at the alley's entrance.

She closed the window just in case there was something she didn't know the remote capable of doing.

A quick glance around the room Dana found herself in told her it was a nursery. She didn't waste any time getting out of the home she was in when she saw a baby monitor with a camera. She'd had enough of cameras as it was and left the apartment as quickly as she could.

The building's back entrance was her only out if it wasn't blocked by Centre people.

Now that her homeless disguise, and probably even her lair, was ruined she had to find a new one. To her luck, the first floor had a hair salon that wasn't open yet, but it also has no windows. The owner was there sanitizing the instruments when he saw her at the door.

"I'm sorry, Miss. we're not open yet," he told her. Dana placed a thousand dollars in cash on his counter. "But I suppose I can make an exception."

Dana went big with her hair. The kind of big that says I belong in the mansions of Los Angeles or the villas of Italy.

She wasn't sure why Jarod had never done disguises or used names other than his own. That piece of information was never part of simulations. The only way she was going to get answers or  figure out a way they could help each other was to find him. And she wasn't that desperate. Not yet anyway.