Seventeen.
I took a deep breath. Humidity wafted up my nostrils, invading my bloodstream, the mist a drug of steadiness to me.
Thirteen.
I exhaled the last bit of tension tightening my shoulders.
Nine.
My next inhale built a wall of ice between my brain and heart, separating my feelings and reasoning.
Five.
War was all about precision. Emotions could cost lives in battle. You had to fold them into neat circles, no loose edges or corners, stack the rings on top of each other and then crumple the cylinder into a ball. Once done, all that remained was to file the surface until its smoothness reflected the light instead of absorbing it, and then shove it down, so deep into the recesses of your being you could not locate your emotions anymore, not even after the fight was over.
You had to detach yourself entirely.
One.
Together, with my last exhale, I dropped my arm.
65
KALI
Ignoring the aches blooming in my joints like flowers in spring, I swiveled, blocking a large fist seeking my jaw. My forearm screamed as it sustained the hit.
“Coward,” the nameless soldier hissed at me, his insult as heavy as the gates Sadira and Ryder were controlling remotely. We had seconds left before they slammed shut.
And once they did, our tech team wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Everyone who’d managed to slip through the gates would become locked in, the band of them serving as our entire force.
Nowhere near enough. Not without the support of the city folks who opposed the regime the Head of Ilasall imposed.
“If the price of freedom is fear”—I kicked the soldier’s knee, and the satisfying creak of his bones as they gave way vibrated up to my toes—“then yes, I’m a coward.”
He fell, his uniform too synthetic and thin to cushion his fall. “Bitch.” Holding on to the wall of an apartment building, he slowly rose back up. The street stretched behind him, flooded with our people pouring through the gates.
“Having a rude mouth doesn’t make you better than me.” I ripped the gun out of the holster attached to my thigh. I still had one round of bullets left.
The rest of my supplies had assisted me in leaving a sea of dead near the gates when the first wave of us had breached Ilasall’s wall. I didn’t need to look to know a shower of scarlet bathed the road.
“The likes of you should be punished for turning away from us.” The soldier scrambled to find a weapon—knife or a handgun—but the two sheaths secured across his chest were empty, like his holster. “We should throw you into a cage, free for all to use until you get pregnant.”
My molars ground at the visual he’d conjured. The belief people were worth something only if their genitalia functioned properly, and even then, that it was all they were supposed to do with their lives, shaved my nerves, flaying them layer by layer.
“You’re wrong,” I said, crossing the few yards between us, my boots sticking to the asphalt from the drying blood. If I glanced down, I suspected I would find the black leather shiny. The puddle of red liquid I’d tripped into less than a minute ago had splashed my pants up to my knees.
I clicked the safety off. The weight of the semi-automatic handgun tested my muscles as I aimed the barrel at the throat of the man before me. “People are not toys for your government to play with.”
An abrupt, scratchy laugh punched me as the long-faced man balanced on one leg, the other bent at an awkward angle.
“You can’t see it, can you?” He clutched the concrete wall of a dwelling housing black-banded. “This”—the soldier waved to indicate the mayhem around us, the groans and bellows, the collapsing bodies and reverberating gunshots—“it’s not going to work. Instead of wasting our time, you should be doing yourduty.” Spit accompanied his words, and a splatter of wetness struck my mouth.
Nauseating warmth coated my lips as his saliva dribbled down my chin.
Pressing the muzzle still warm from the last shot under his jaw, I purred, “And what exactly would be that?”
“Having children,” he spat out. “Helping us to survive.”
