Chapter Three
October 23rd. 8:15 PM.
It was late fall, and already dark, and particularly dark in the dense woods where Margot had parked her car. She turned off her lights and the engine and she and Erin sat in total blackness.
"Okay," Margot whispered. "We're here."
Erin looked out the window. She couldn't see a single goddamned thing.
"Alright," she said. "And where is 'here'?"
She unbuckled her seatbelt, which caught for a second on one of the flaps on her white utility belt. She patted the flap down and bent over to rummage through a large backpack.
"The forest. Outside of the drug house," Margot said.
"Okay, well I know that."
Erin lifted her mask out of the backpack and begin to fasten it around her head.
"You brought the night goggles, right?" Margot asked.
"Not my first rodeo, partner," Erin said. She bent down again to pore through the contents of the backpack. She rose seconds later with a pair of what looked like sunglasses in her hand.
"I put the map to the house on your phone," Margot said. "We're about half a mile out right now. But I didn't want to get any closer. The element of surprise is crucial here. We don't know for sure what's going on in that house. Or how many men are there."
Erin set the sunglasses on her face and clicked a small button on its side. The world suddenly turned green. It was odd-- it never stopped being odd-- but see could see. She looked at Margot sitting in the driver's seat.
"I love these things."
She stared at Margot. She was in civilian attire: a black turtleneck sweater, tight blue jeans, brown boots, and her brown, large-rimmed glasses. She had taken her hands from the wheel and was trying to stare at Erin. She, of course, had to wait for her eyes to adjust.
"You know," Margot said. "Sometimes I wonder why the Blue Lynx gets all the cool stuff."
Erin smiled. "Well, the Blue Lynx does have the best partner in the world."
"Without a doubt," Margot said. "You need me to go over the plan, again?"
"I think I got it," Erin said, stretching out her spandex-clad arms and her rubber-gloved fingers. "I follow the map to get to the house. I sneak inside. I find evidence of the drug operation and I take a photo. I avoid being seen or beating anyone up. I get out of there, we go home, and we get stupid drunk together."
"Well, that's the simplified version, but you got it," Margot said. "Remember. It's pretty important you don't get seen by whoever's in there. It'll be too easy for them to say it was a set-up or something."
"And you're just gonna wait here, right?"
"You bet. But it's alright, I brought a book. And I know I have a flashlight around here somewhere."
"Great," said Erin, opening the passenger side door and climbing out of her seat. She looked down at her boots, already deep in mud, and sighed.
"I miss the city," Erin said.
"Me too," Margot said. "It smells funny out here. And it's so dark and creepy."
"Indeed." Erin looked up into the trees. The skinny trunks stretched into the night sky all around her and Margot and their car. She had never been in this kind of rural forest before. It was gorgeous. But it was also, in a way, unnerving. When Margot had described her plan over coffee yesterday, the whole thing sounded romantic and new and wild. But now that she was here, in the cold, black forest, the whole world in the green light of the night vision goggles, she wondered if they hadn't made a mistake leaving the city limits.
"Listen to me, Blue Lynx," Margot said. "I'll be tracking your movement on my phone. But if things get hairy in there..."
"I know, Margot, I know," Erin said. "We go over this every single time. Emergency button on phone."
Margot sighed. "Okay. Good luck, Blue Lynx."
"See ya."
On to Chapter Four
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