With only one exit point, we were effectively trapped.
“They—” He panted, arm extended to prevent the door from bashing his face in. “They’re here.”
My heart stopped, the lack of beats promising doom, while Kali cursed, her focus set on the rectangle of dim light spilling from the entrance, her brain coming to the same realization as mine: we had nowhere to go.
He glanced behind him, at the stairway descending into the depths of the residential building. “They found u?—”
Right as my fists curled, a blade flashed in the yellow streak of light spilling from the roof’s entrance. The red spurting from Rowan’s throat pierced me like a shower of spears. I didn’t know the man, but knowing he’d guarded us had earned him respect in my eyes. And losing those I respected…
It fueled the muscles in my fingers to clench to the point of numbness.
Gurgles seized his speech as he clutched his wound. Scarlet streamed through his fingers, draining him of life and crawling inside me, coaxing my heart to restart, until he slumped on the ground, his hands twitching one last time.
Unlike Kali’s.
She adjusted her stance, her chest ballooning as she filled her lungs to the brim and then pushed it all out, slowly, deliberately, precisely how Gedeon had taught her mere months ago and me when we were teenagers.
Without casting us a look, the soldier emerging in the doorway kicked Rowan’s side. The corpse jerked, causing Kali to hiss, and he shouted into the stairway, “Clear.” Stepping over thebody, he gave us a once-over. “At last, we meet. My boss has told me much about you.”
Five more soldiers, all clad in uniforms matching ours, slithered out of the roof’s entrance. Their black plastic helmets blended with the night as they spread out.
Ripping my knife out of its sheath and maneuvering to cover Kali’s front turned out to be useless. Ilasall’s military had surrounded us, each of them adorned with dark masks. The plastic obscured their features from chin to forehead, the hard shell interrupted by a strip of mesh where their eyes had to be.
For now.
They were going to leave their nests soon.
And then meet their end between my teeth.
My core tensed as I forced my voice to remain steady. “That’s such a nice way to say he wants me. Or is it her?” I tapped my bottom lip as if in thought. “Though it doesn’t matter, I don’t fuck the city’s scum, in general.” I shuffled until Kali’s back pressed against mine. “You have a sour aftertaste. And I don’t fancy brushing my teeth five times a day.”
The first soldier, a crew leader based on the triangle golden patch stitched to his uniform, gestured at Kali. “I meanther.”
My grip on the handle of my blade tightened.
But Kali simply rested her boot against my calf, the weight pressing on my muscle, and pulled out her knife. “Is that why you hide behind your masks? So I can’t see how hideous you are?” she bit out.
Yet a slight tremor betrayed her nerves.
And kindled mine.
I couldn’t lose her.
I couldn’t.
One of the soldiers encircling us cursed. “You ungrateful bitch?—”
“Enough.” The crew leader raised his hand, and his followers stilled, his instruction having transformed them into statues.
Such obedient puppies.
It had been a while since I’d last had proper entertainment. And when Ilasall had brought it to me on a silver platter, how could I say no?
“Don’t flatter yourself,” the commander told Kali. Positioned in front of the doorway, he was blocking our only way out. We couldn’t leap off the roof and survive a ten-story drop. “Once we learned of how you cheated on your fertility test, we also became aware of the string of dead bodies you’ve left. This”—he tapped his mask—“is to protect our identities. My men and I prefer not to be hunted by the ones who’ve been helping you. I seriously doubt your blood is cold enough to have killed everyone yourself.”
Oh, her blood was cold. As freezing as winter’s embrace. As vicious as a morning storm. As deadly as the nonexistent edge of the world.
So scrumptious.
