She shook her head, and he moved cautiously anyway, stepping into the kitchen and then stepping out again less than a minute later.
“Mess and kitchen clear,” he said into his comm unit. He did a head count. “Can report eleven people; four unconscious and one conscious but injured.”
The guard who had curled into a ball when the shooting started had propped himself back up, arm held close to his chest. “Those two are the prisoners,” he said, pointing at her and Ethan.
She sent him a bland look and he shrugged and closed his eyes, lay back down on the ground.
“Prisoners?” The soldier walked over to them, laz up and pointed at them and bent his head close to the comms unit on his shoulder. “Someone says two of the eleven are prisoners.”
He obviously got a response confirming it, and narrowed his eyes. “Why aren’t you restrained?”
“Ask the Caruso,” Velda said from under the table.
The soldier blinked, reassessed, and then moved to the door. Whatever he was told through his earpiece, he suddenly focused back on them. “Come.” He gestured to them.
“That’s not good,” Ethan said quietly.
“It was always going to happen,” Velda said. She’d seen it coming the moment Linao had been taken prisoner.
The Cores were going to swap them, no question about it.
The Caruso were about to get their hands on Aponi’s Head of Defense.
19
They were aboutto be exposed as very useful hostages.
Ethan knew it was wrong to blame the guard who’d outed them, because Linao would have mentioned who they were in a heartbeat if it helped her, but he gave the man a hard look as they were shoved down the passage toward two other armed Cores men who’d taken up position at the far end, weapons pointed around the corner toward the bays.
“We’re doing an exchange,” the soldier herding them forward said to his two colleagues. “The Caruso are being told about it now.”
He forced them to stop just behind the two soldiers, and after a moment, one of them turned, made a motion with his hand.
“You first,” the soldier said to Ethan. “Walk toward them.”
Ethan gripped Velda’s hand, squeezed, then stepped out around the corner.
Two Caruso stood with Ritter and Linao, and the one with Ritter moved forward, pushing Ritter in front of him.
Ritter had recovered a little from the laz strike, so it must have been on a very low setting, but he was still stumbling and out of it.
“Come forward.” The Caruso held Ritter upright, and when Ethan was within grabbing distance, he shoved Ritter toward the soldiers, grabbed Ethan, and walked backward, Ethan up against his chest.
“They don’t care about shooting me,” Ethan said. “I’m not an effective shield.”
The Caruso grunted, glanced over his shoulder at where his friend held Linao. “They care about the other one, though?”
“Yes,” Ethan conceded. “They care about the other one.”
Velda had obviously been told to approach because she stepped out and walked toward him.
In the last day she’d lost some weight, he noticed. Her face was a little leaner, her clothes looser. She carried herself lightly, as if she could jump, and gravity would have no real hold on her.
“Stop.” The soldier behind her called out, and she slowed, then stopped, looking back.
“Bring the other prisoner forward,” the soldier shouted.
Ethan noticed they didn’t use Linao’s name.
