Read Where There's Fire (Panopolis Book 2) for Free Online

well. That was the emotion I wanted to communicate, not the nervousness.
    I’d picked my own bank to rob in the hopes that the familiar setting would make it easier. But now all I could think about was that I’d be coming face-to-face with former friends, deceiving and betraying them even further. That didn’t sit well, but it was too late to change the plan. I needed to do this; I had to know that I could. If that meant burning a few more bridges on the way, well, then I’d have to learn to live with that.
    The manager showed up right on schedule at 8:45. It was Larry Bries, the only manager who’d never been amenable to switching shifts with anyone else. Larry was regimental in the extreme, right down to timing bathroom trips and actually re-ironing his shirts over his lunch break. He was also a neat freak, and exactly the sort of person I wanted in charge today.
    Larry unlocked the door and nodded to the night security guard, who immediately headed for the break room. It was, after all, the end of his shift. I watched him go, then took a deep breath, caught the door a second before it shut and followed Larry inside.
    “Excuse me?”
    Larry turned with a frown on his face. “I’m sorry, sir, the bank isn’t open for business for another fourteen and a half minutes. You’ll have to wait outside.”
    “I know, I know, but I have a nine-o-clock meeting that I mustn’t be late for,” I said apologetically, moving carefully closer to him. “It won’t take but a moment.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Please leave.”
    One more refusal and he’d be on his guard. I had to close the deal. “I will, I certainly, will, I just have to—” I bobbled my balancing act with briefcase, cane, and coffee, and stumbled over nothing, sending my coffee cup flying at Larry. The lid popped open and sprayed the front of his lavender dress shirt with pale-brown sludge. “Oh no, what have I done?”
    Larry appeared stunned into immobility, which was perfect because it gave me the time to take his hand. I packed all my anxiety about the job into Inside Me and took a deep breath, filling Outside Me with a sense of profound peace. The lines in Larry’s forehead smoothed instantly, and he didn’t yell for the guard.
    So far, so good. I needed to move fast from here on out: my reverse-empathy didn’t let me put words into someone else’s head, and my ability to control actions remained limited and unreliable. I was in charge of Larry’s emotional state while I was touching him, but that close proximity would be hard to maintain once the bank filled up. “We’re going to go to the vault, Larry. How’s that sound?”
    “Oh, I love the vault,” Larry confided happily. “It’s like an enormous spreadsheet, only better because the numbers never change.”
    His response drew a smile out of me—it was such a Larry thing to say. I tapped my earpiece. “On my way to the vault.”
    “Good work.” Raul sounded genuinely pleased, if surprised. I tried not to be annoyed by that.
    I let Larry lead the way, keeping a light grip on his wrist as we made our way to the vault. We made it past the guard room without its occupant even raising his head, thankfully, and by the time we got to the back I was feeling pretty buoyant.
    The vault’s door had a combination biometric and traditional lock, which was why I had to have Larry with me, instead of picking his pocket and going back myself. Larry pulled out his key ring and started thumbing through them, searching for the right one. He made a distressed sound at their damp, coffee-drenched state.
    “Hey, it’s all fine,” I murmured, pushing more peacefulness at him. My own, less sanguine emotions thrum beneath my barrier, struggling against it. I shut my eyes for a moment and shoved them away. “The keys will work fine as they are.”
    “They will once I tidy them up a bit,” Larry agreed, reaching for his pocket square. That was wet too, and he frowned at it. Given the