The soldier blinks at me. Recognition dawns in her eyes, and her stance stiffens, but she doesn’t call out in alarm. Her voice stays quiet. “What?”
I hug myself, giving up my attempt at toughness to show the real nerves underneath. “I heard there are bombs coming. Are they already here in the camp? What if they explode before we can get out?”
The woman’s gaze twitches. “They won’t be on the ground here. They’re coming from the base up north?—”
Her mouth snaps shut around those words, but she’s said enough.
I bob my head. “Thank you for letting me know.”
I slip into the shadows once more, just as a much more forceful presence looms on me.
“So,” Rollick says in a terse voice that still manages to be a little wry. “You’re already chasing bombs. I should have figured.”
My defiance surges back to the surface. “We have to stop them.”
“I agree. And you’ve conveniently determinedwherewe need to stop them. I’ve heard enough myself to know which base she means. It’s a two-hour drive from here, so we’d better get going.”
While Rollick calls for one of his assistants to bring the largest van around, I hustle around our trailers, popping back into physical form. I nearly crash right into Gracie, who’s just coming around the corner.
She blinks at me, wide-eyed. “I heard—the army is going ahead with bombing the city?”
The acidic flavor of her fear mingles with my own queasiness. We’ve been keeping my old friend up to date on what’s happening around the city—the last news I passed on was about our public appeal on TV.
So much for that.
The current development defies even my immense ability for finding a positive spin. I swallow hard. “Yeah. We’re going out to the base where they’re prepping the bombs to see if we can stop them.”
Gracie’s posture firms with a lift of her chin. “I want to come with you.”
A different sort of fear flashes through my nerves. “It won’t be safe—the soldiers will have guns—they’re not going to be happy to see us.”
“That doesn’t matter. I came out here to help, and I haven’t managed to do that yet. Maybe they’ll listen more if you’ve got a few humans there agreeing with you.”
That’s why Jonah will come too, even though he’s just as vulnerable to bullets as Gracie is. I’d never say no to him… so it wouldn’t be fair for me to try to leave her out either, would it?
The van roars into view with several shadowkind emerging around it. Rollick appears and waves his arm toward the vehicle. “Let’s go! We don’t have time to waste.”
I glance at Gracie. “All right. Come on.”
Other than me and Gracie, “we” turns out to be my mates, Sorsha and her men, the shadowbloods, and a couple of dozen shadowkind associates. We all cram into the back of the van, those of us who can stay in the shadows doing so or we’d be pressed in tighter than sardines.
I find myself next to Vim’s bristly presence. When we were fellow students at the academy, she seemed to take offense toanything I said, no matter how well-meaning, so I ignore her and peer out the back window instead.
Cars are starting to pull Rollick’s trailers farther away from the city. My heart flipflops, and I pull myself out of the shadows to speak. “We’re leaving the camp too—I mean, permanently?”
Rollick takes a dismissive tone. “Better safe than sorry.” Then he turns to the assistant who’s driving the van. “Pedal to the floor. Fast as the engine can handle. If we get cops on our tail, Ruse can charm them friendly again.”
In tandem with the incubus’s chuckle, the engine roars and the van hurtles forward.
Sorsha leans back on one of the van’s benches and stretches out her legs. “Shouldn’t we come up with a plan of attack? I don’t think marching up to the base and asking them nicely not to bomb anyone is going to work.”
No? That’s a real shame. People don’t put enough value in politeness these days.
Despite my disappointment in that fact, I know she’s right. I’m not sure whatwouldwork on these military-focused humans, though. I don’t even know what a “base” is exactly, in this context. Will we have to go running through dim hallways with beeping doors like in a hundred different action movies?
Gracie’s mouth twists. “We have totryto talk to them. But… yeah, I don’t know if that’ll be enough.”
“They’ll be using planes,” Jonah says. “Dropping the bombs from above. If we can mess with the controls so the planes won’t even take off…”
