Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

alcoves, a course of action her enemy would expect, Zawadi shimmied up the marble column as if climbing a coconut tree, clamping her thighs against the narrow cylinder and pulling with her arms. The smooth surface made it difficult to climb, but once she gained a few feet of height—still inside the smoke—she was able to thrust her body up and grab a lip of stone overhead. An experienced rock climber, she used the niches in the exquisite carvings to scramble onto the barrel tile roof.

The best position for a sniper above the Court of the Lions was directly across from her present position. Zawadi had calculated for this, knowing the fog would obscure a scope. Yet when she emerged from the dense mist, she was only ten feet from a man in black fatigues holding a rifle.

She did not think she had calculated incorrectly.

She thought they had placed more than one person on the roof.

You’ve underestimated your own reputation, Zawadi.

The man had been leaning over the roof, peering into the fog as he listened to the shouted orders from below. He was caught off guard by Zawadi’s quiet ascent. She closed on him, reaching for the knife at her side, which was easier to access than her gun.

As they collided, the man had no choice but to drop his firearm and wrap his arms around her, trying to use his strength to throw her off the roof. In the fog and darkness and speed of the encounter, he had failed to notice the knife. She stabbed him deep in the back while covering his mouth, to stop him from screaming. As she swept his legs and lowered him to the ground, she extracted the knife and ran it across his jugular, ensuring his silence forever.

Zawadi pivoted and took off across the roof. She reentered the fog to disguise her position and leaped onto a higher and more steeply pitched section of roof, then scrambled over the apex and down the other side. She expected a barrage of bullets, but none came.

They don’t want to alert the outside guards and the police unless they have to.

And they still want to take me alive.

This knowledge gave her confidence, as did her escape from the initial gauntlet. Now she just had to make it off the plateau that housed the Alhambra complex and into the town. The Alhambra was enormous, covering over twenty-five acres, an entire palatine city. Contained within the complex were former mosques, bathhouses, palaces, towers, halls, plazas, courtyards, gardens, and fortified walls enclosing the old castle.

To avoid the ravine and the danger of its isolated bridges, she had planned an escape route to the south, across the tops of the palaces, over the outer wall, and out through the woods. With the lights of Granada twinkling in the distance, she fled over the roof of the sprawling Palacios Nazaries with balletic grace, sometimes leaping twenty feet or more as she navigated the steep changes in height, careful not to slip on the dusty barrel tiles. She took a grim satisfaction that her rooftop perch kept her out of sight of the Alhambra’s security cameras, which Daiyu surely controlled.

Footsteps pounded all around her, searching for her position and trying to cut her off. She knew the Alhambra’s night guards were dead or paid off. There would be no help from outside.

After dashing along the roof above a reflecting pool, she scrambled to the precipitous heights of the Palace of Carlos V. Her plan was to drop to the ground at the last moment, scale the wall, and make her escape.

The darkness and the varying heights of the buildings helped keep her out of sight, but the footsteps from below were closing in. Zawadi withdrew a thin metal canister from her belt, which contained more smoke pellets. She fired as she ran, aiming the pellet gun a hundred feet away from her location, creating smoke screens in random locations to confuse her pursuers.

The long drop from the palace roof, aided by a windowsill halfway down, knocked the wind from her. With a grunt, she leaped to her feet, sprinted to the outer wall, and clambered over. Pistol in hand, she raced down the hill through the woods and wove through a neighborhood of historic homes whose security cameras—potential tools for Daiyu—made Zawadi nervous.

On one of the smaller side streets, she retrieved her rented motorcycle and sped back into the city. Now she was home free. On to a private airstrip and her next destination.

Behind her, the whine of a motorcycle interrupted her self-congratulation. At night, plenty of young daredevils prowled the city streets, even in sleepy Granada. Yet when she glanced in the rearview and saw a large black sport bike, aiming right for her and gaining quickly, she knew this was no joyride.

How did they find me so quickly?

As the rider raised a squat handgun, Zawadi ducked and swerved. The bullet smacked the pavement right beside her. She kept going, aiming for a tight corner up ahead. While her bike was not as fast as the crotch rocket running her down, she had confidence she could lose her pursuer in the tight confines of the city.

A muffled boom sounded ahead of her. A few seconds later, the ground exploded, throwing her off the bike. She tucked and rolled, stunned but protected from severe harm by her helmet and ballistic clothing. Confused at first, she realized with a chill what had happened.

He wasn’t shooting at me—he fired a smart grenade ahead of my position.

Which his sister detonated as I approached.

Shaken and bleeding in a dozen places, suffering from at least a bruised rib, Zawadi lurched to her feet as Jianyu leaped off his bike and tackled her from the side, causing her gun to clatter away. She squirmed out of his grasp as they hit the ground, then kicked him hard in the stomach.

Jianyu gasped from the blow as Zawadi leaped to her feet. They were on a two-lane street lined