Free Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrián Page B

been rendered in deep black paint. Probably gang markings, or the stylized signatures of the kids who’d been here before her. A discarded spray-paint canister lay in the corner, along with a smattering of cigarette butts, broken beer bottles, and other debris.
    Gabrielle took out her camera and looked for a good angle for the shot she had in mind. The light wasn’t great, but with a different lens it might prove interesting. She fished around in her bag for her lens cases, then froze when she heard a distant whirring noise coming from somewhere beneath her feet. It was faint, but it sounded impossibly like an elevator. Gabrielle stuffed her gear back into the bag, her ears tuned to the vague sounds around her, every nerve flooded with a chilling sense of foreboding.
    She was not alone in here.
    And now that she was thinking about it, she felt eyes on her from somewhere nearby. The prickling awareness raised the fine hairs at the back of her neck and sent a spray of goosebumps along her arms. Slowly, she pivoted her head and looked behind her. It was then that she saw it: a small closed-circuit video camera mounted in the shadowed upper corner of the corridor, monitoring the stairwell door she had just come through a few minutes before.
    Maybe it wasn’t working, just a leftover from the days when the asylum was still in operation. It might have been a comforting thought, except the camera looked too well-maintained and compact to be anything less than current issue, state-of-the-art surveillance. To test that idea, Gabrielle took a long step toward it, placing herself almost directly beneath the camera. Soundlessly, its base mount tilted, angling the lens until it was staring Gabrielle in the face.
    Shit
, she mouthed into that black, unblinking eye.
Busted
.
    From deep within the empty compound, she heard the metal creak and crash of a heavy door. Evidently the abandoned asylum wasn’t quite abandoned after all. They had security at least, and the Boston PD could take a few response-time lessons from these folks.
    Footsteps pounded at a steady clip as whoever was on guard started coming for her. Gabrielle turned back into the stairwell and took off sprinting down the steps, her gear bouncing against her hip. As she descended, light grew scarce. She gripped the flashlight in her hand, but hated to use it for fear of creating a beacon for security to follow. She hit the last stair, pushed open the metal door, and plunged into the dark of the lower-level corridor.
    Back on the stairs, she heard the monitored door swing open with a bang as her pursuer thundered down behind her, running hard and gaining on her fast.
    Finally, she reached the service door at the end of the corridor. Throwing herself against the cold steel, she rushed into the dank basement, and raced for the small window that was open to the outside. A blast of fresh air gave her strength as she slapped her hands onto the casement and hoisted herself up. She vaulted through the window and tumbled onto the pebbled earth outside.
    She couldn’t hear her pursuer now. Maybe she had lost him in the dark twisting hallways. God, she hoped so.
    Gabrielle shot to her feet and ran for the breached corner of the perimeter fence. She found it quickly. Diving to her hands and knees, she scrambled under the snipped section of wire, heart pounding in her ears, adrenaline jetting through her veins. She was too panicked: in her haste to flee, she scraped the side of her face on a rough edge of wire. The cut burned her cheek and she felt the hot trickle of blood running near her ear. But she ignored the searing sting and the bruising crush of her camera case as she wriggled on her belly through the fence and out toward freedom.
    Once clear of the fence, Gabrielle leaped up and made a mad dash across the wide, rough lawn of the outer grounds. She spared only the barest glance behind her—long enough to see that the huge security guard was still there, having exited from