Free In Stone by Louise D. Gornall

breaths, Beau,” he chants at me. “In and out. In and out.”
    “You look like you’re in labor,” I say bluntly.
    He stops the breathing exercise and clears his throat. “Should we get this over with?”
    I follow as Jack strolls across the road. For some reason I tuck my head into my neck and stride on bended knee. I don’t know why. It feels more discreet I guess.
    “You think you know where the weapons are? I thought you knew.”
    “I know they use the top floor for storage.”
    We reach the fence, and Jack hops over it like a seasoned hurdler. I, on the other hand, shouldn’t have worn skinny jeans. Jeans are not the most flexible of attire; skinny jeans are worse. And wet skinny jeans, well they’re just plain rigid.
    “Beau, come on,” Jack urges as I stand and stare at the railings. With all the pluck and flexibility of an arthritic senior citizen, I flop over the fence and land, backside first, on a cushion of wet grass. My jeans soak up the moisture with the competency of a Kleenex. A wave of embarrassment encroaches -- no time for that. Jack grabs hold of my arm and hoists me to my feet, then drags me across the lawn to the side of the building. He pushes my body back against the brick wall.
    “Stay here until I tell you it’s safe,” he warns as he points to the wall above us. There’s a security camera bobbing about on a mechanical arm. Jack skulks over to it. He leaps up, his arms stretched above his head, and he snatches the arm. He swings himself up and on to the top of it. Impressive. Epiphany or startling realization; against the black backdrop of the night sky, he looks like a gargoyle perched on the ledge of a gothic castle. I wait while he fiddles around with the camera. It stops moving, and he beckons me over with a hand gesture. All is silent but for the soft drip, drip, drip of the rain. The whole CIA type atmosphere has me tingly -- there’s a slight bounce in my step as I tiptoe over to him. His tail is out and wrapping itself around the camera arm; he’s wrapping his legs around it, too. And then he’s hanging upside down and holding his hands out to me.
    “Jump,” he whispers. Jump. I don’t think I’ve jumped in over a decade. This is going to require a run up. I back up into the shadows. His face crumples. He looks confused, as if this is unnecessary, because we all have nimble bodies -- I think not. One, two, three. I start running, then launch myself off the ground. It’s a heave, but my hands slap safely into his. As if he’s lifting air, he pulls me up and on to the metal arm. My CIA fantasy is quickly kicked to the curb when I look down at the ground. My legs turn to elastic. I’m a regular climber of the pretty, wooden trellis that hangs on the front of our house. But this, this is very high, and I’m overtly aware that the small thong of metal we’re standing on is soaking wet. The sole of my Docs might as well be smothered in butter. The world wobbles and I fall forward into Jack’s chest. My fingers dig into his sides. He has to fight to peel them from him, but his strength wins out over mine, and he manages to get loose.
    “Whatever you do, don’t look down.” He winks.
    “You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?” I say as he loads me onto his back. I lock my arms around his neck.
    “Danger is my job. It’s what I was made for.”
    “Normal is my job. It’s what I was made for.”
    “Normal is extremely overrated,” he says, pressing his fingers against the wall. I watch kind of mystified, sort of mortified, as they morph into the bulbous stone fingers of a gargoyle, complete with claws that he uses to pin himself to the wall. And then his tail is touching me, slithering up around my torso and holding me tight against his back. I may never understand the world I’ve walked into.
    In the next breath, we’re moving; he’s crawling up the wall so quick you’d think someone hit fast forward. It’s as easy as strolling down a