Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not a spy.”
“Whether you are or aren’t is irrelevant. I’m not risking it.”
“Then make me.” Her sliding-note accent resonated with challenge and even a hint of humor, which seemed odd, considering the situation. She set down the resort food she was still carrying and moved away from the group until there was more free space around her. She shifted into a fighter’s stance, her fingers curling to coax me toward her. Her lips curled also. Definitely a smile. “If you can lock me up, I’ll stay there. If not, we work together to plan whatever is in your future, Daraja.”
My brows flew up like rockets. “Me? No thanks. You must think I downed a stupid pill this morning. Merrick can do the honors.”
Merrick grinned and cracked his knuckles. “How rough are we getting?”
Sanaa laughed as if Merrick had just told a great joke and she loved it. “Rough doesn’t bother me.” She blew a kiss at Merrick.
His eyes flared. A flush wasn’t visible on his dark skin, but I could have sworn his color heightened. He stalked forward, not smiling any longer.
We gathered the food and coolers and backed up against theEndeavor, clearing the space around them. As they faced off, I started to have second thoughts about this. It was only for four days. Couldn’t we just avoid her?
“Seriously, Sanaa, we don’t want to hurt you.” I tried again to reason with her. She was clearly capable—a total badass, to be honest—but Merrick was a super soldier. “Just go to a room on the ship. In a few days, we’ll take care of business, and you can go back to my uncle. End of story.”
Sanaa Mwende’s mirthless chuckle skimmed toward me on a chilly air current, raising goose bumps. She and Merrick started to circle. “Your uncle wants me to protect you. Until he calls me back to him, I’m your bodyguard. Deal with it.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard. Also, you don’t have to do what he tells you.”
“No, I don’thaveto.” Her night-sky eyes briefly scraped over me before jumping back to Merrick. “And that’s exactly why I listen to him.”
I let that sink in. Absorbed it. She listened because Nathaniel Bridgebane wasn’t a tyrant like the Overseer, no matter what I’d believed for the last eighteen years. The relationship between Sanaa and Uncle Nate wasn’t at all what I would have expected from the hardened general or this woman, who clearly didn’t take shit from anyone.
Merrick lunged first and Sanaa dodged with incredible speed. My eyes sharpened, and I stood up straighter. So did Shade. We glanced at each other.
“You need all the help you can get, Daraja. Accept it gracefully.” Sanaa danced out of Merrick’s reach with an ease that left him frowning.
I took a step forward, my senses prickling.
Merrick studied his opponent more carefully, looking her over with dark-eyed concentration. After a lull that brought total silence to the hangar, he feinted so quickly I barely saw the movement, and then slid the other way just as fast, trying to catch Sanaa off guard and subdue her without violence. Sanaa avoided him neatly and delivered a spinning kick that knocked Merrick away from her.
My jaw slowly dropped open. Merrick recovered, moved in fast, and got down to business.
He jabbed. She blocked. He punched forward like a boxer and she slid, ducked, and countered like a ninja, finishing with an open-handed smack to the sternum that left Merrick gasping.
“Don’t leave yourself open like that,” Sanaa barked with a scowl, treating Merrick as though he were in training at some Dark Watch boot camp she was running. “Your throat was wide open. The same hit there, and you’d be dead.” She tapped the front of her neck, her eyes flashing.
Merrick drew a tight breath through pinched nostrils. “What batch did they give you? I couldn’t tell until you started moving. An upgrade? Something different?”
It was obvious: Sanaa Mwende was a super soldier. Shade, Jax, Fiona, and I exchanged worried glances.
Merrick charged in a blur, not waiting for her answer. In a blink, Sanaa got behind him. She kicked him in the small of the back, and he stumbled forward. Merrick turned with a growl, his jaw clenching.
She smiled, her ebony skin gleaming under the long tracks of industrial overhead lighting. Strength and vitality infused her. Sanaa had just powered herself up like a weapon and vibrated with enough energy to annihilate things. Her grin widened. “I’ve missed sparring. I don’t get to play with the super soldiers, and everyone else just breaks too easily.”
“We’re not sparring,” Merrick grated.
“Oh yes, we are, darling.” She winked at him and looked Merrick up and down, both appraisal and appreciation in her sparkling-eyed perusal. “You’re fast. You’re big.”
“Don’t forget strong.” He shot out a hand and gripped her forearm. One hard yank sent her airborne and fifteen feet across the hangar.
Sanaa spun in the air and landed in a low crouch, her smile only growing. “You must have Batch 4—the finished product. Trial 3 made people angry. Trial 2 created deformities. Trial 1 simply killed you.”
“Then what are you?” Merrick asked, jerking his chin at her.
“I’m the one and only.” Rising, she swept a hand down her bowstring-tight body. “No great height or bulging muscles, but I’m the weapon of our century.”
