Blaine raised his pistol, finger curling over the trigger. He pulled it without aiming first, which made Raziel jerk to the side and turn toward him, still standing, still alive. A knot formed in Blaine’s gut, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead despite the heat of the day. “There isn’t any other laboratory entrance, is there?”
Raziel didn’t seem concerned he had a pistol pointed at her. “You’ve quite a bounty on your head, but I’d have brought you in even without it.”
His mouth went dry at her words. “You’re with the Daijalans.”
He couldn’t think about how many other wardens might be as traitorous as her—couldn’t think about what kind of danger Caris was in with bombs raining down and the enemy within.
Something small and round was flicked away from Raziel’s other hand. When it hit the ground and shattered, a cloud of chemical smoke erupted right in front of Blaine. He breathed it in before he could stop himself, coughing harshly, whatever it was stinging his eyes and throat. He fumbled for his gas mask with his free hand, still keeping his pistol up.
He saw Raziel’s shadow through the smoke and fired off another shot, but he didn’t hit his target. The world had gone blurry, and he stumbled back, intent on running, when a high-pitched whistle sounded through the air for a few seconds until it cut off.
Too close, he thought frantically, trying to stay out of Raziel’s reach.
The bomb was too close.
The building directly across the street from them exploded, the blast wave throwing Blaine off his feet. He landed on his back hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs, but it couldn’t fix the way his vision spun. The chemical smoke wasn’t thick enough to hide the debris flying through the air and crashing to the ground from the damaged building.
He lost his pistol when he landed, the gun sliding away across the ground, out of reach. Blaine tried to scramble to his feet, to move, but he wasn’t quick enough. The crumbled piece of concrete that slammed down onto his outstretched left arm drew an agonized scream from him, pain whiting everything out.
He collapsed, tried to pull his arm free, but the agony that stabbed through the rest of his arm and into his chest made him stop. Blaine lay there, gasping for air, heart rabbiting against his ribs. The white-hot pain from his lower arm overrode everything. The smoke he’d inhaled only moments ago stole his ability to think, black spots pricking the edge of his vision.
A shadow fell over his face, and Blaine turned his head, breathing rapidly like a trapped animal. Raziel knelt beside him, and he flinched back, tried to get away. Nausea made him want to retch, but he swallowed it back.
He blinked up into Raziel’s grimly determined face and tried to speak, but his throat felt as dry as the Wastelands must be, and his vision swam. “Rionetka.”
“No,” Raziel said as something cold and sharp pricked his neck, a coolness spreading through his body from whatever she’d injected him with, numbing the shock and pain. “Just a warden who was offered a better road.”
He lay there, trying to stay awake, as she somehow levered the debris off his arm, pulling him free. Blaine got a glimpse of the damage done below his elbow before he had to turn his head away, gasping, thinking,I can’t fly like this.
He couldn’t feel his fingers.
He didn’t know if that was from the drug now coursing through his veins or the injury itself. His ability to think became difficult, everything fuzzy and distantly sharp-edged. Raziel hooked her hand beneath his good arm and dragged him forward, past bodies, to the gate. She left him lying on warm stone, cheek pressed to the ground, breath stuttering in his chest as he watched her access the levers and winch that would undo the barricades locked into place over the gate.
Raziel opened the way for whoever was beyond, but they were only shadows to Blaine’s worsening vision, pain bleeding through it all. Darkness smeared across everything, the sound of Zip guns like thunder in his ears, but Raziel’s words were clear enough.
“The debt collected, as promised. They’ll be expecting him in Foxborough,” Raziel said.
“We were told you’d have the girl for us as well.”
“Change of plans.”
Blaine parted his lips, trying to find words to protest or maybe scream, but nothing in any language came to him. A tall figure came to stand by his side, face indistinct to his drugged mind. Unconsciousness was grasping at his focus, threatening to pull him under, anything to save him from the heated agony of his left arm, but he still tried to turn away from the hand that reached for him.
The last thing he heard was someone shouting amidst the crack of gunshots before everything slipped away.
Ten
HONOVI
“Get the guns ready,” Honovi snarled as he yanked at two different levers on the control panel. “We’re launching hot.”
Air force Captain Caoimhe of Clan Sky stood right beside him, radio in hand as she barked out orders to the crew, her altitude mask dangling from one strap of her flight helmet. “I want all turrets out, best shooter on the Zip gun, and bombs ready to drop. We’ve got ordnance incoming. Brace for fast flying, stay hooked to your anchor wire, and everyone better have their jump vests on.”
Caoimhe was around his age and had been an officer in E’ridia’s air force for over a decade. He hadn’t protested her posting to theCelestial Spriteand he trusted her ability to command the military aeronauts that made up the crew. His job was to keep them airborne.
“Anchor is clear!” someone bellowed from the open deck. “Hangar roof is open!”
Caoimhe clicked the radio on, her voice echoing through every active speaker on the airship. “Brace for launch.”
