No, not missing.Gone.
You poor, unfortunate woman,Gus thought at her sister.What a dangerous game you’re playing.
Jin was Kira’s closest confidant.Her partner in crime.And, Gus suspected, a mitigating influence against some of Kira’s more, shall she say, unwise impulses.The two were the definition of co-dependent.Where one went, the other followed.Gus didn’t think one could survive long term without the other.To be separated at a time like this, when Kira’s niece was in the grasp of the Tsavitee, was not just unexpected.It was unheard of.
Kira must be hanging onto her sanity by a thread.
“This is your only warning.Stand in my way again—and I’ll treat you the way I would an enemy,” Kira threatened before stalking out of the room.The drone followed with jerky movements that were nothing like the smooth operation of their youngest brother’s.
“Ahh, there she goes again,” Wrath crooned, pulling Gus’s attention away from Kira and Jin’s departure.
“Should we drag her back?There’s enough of us.We could probably do it,” Iris drawled.
The emperor’s Face bared his teeth in a threatening smile.“I would advise against that.”
He knew Kira’s secret.
At least, Gus thought he did.
Her gaze moved to Pallas sitting nonchalantly in the stands.Did he?
Gus suspected not.None of her siblings did.
What a sad commentary on the state of their relationship with their youngest sister; that Kira hadn’t trusted them with such explosive news.
Then again, in Kira’s place, Gus didn’t think she would have either.
As unified as the forty-three pretended to be, they were one argument from fracturing into a thousand pieces.Gus didn’t know when it had started, but factions had been forming.The forty-three were no longer those lost waifs who counted on each other for survival.
Not that Gus had ever been included among their ranks.Widely considered the weakest, she’d always stood on the outside looking in.
She was okay with that.
Sure, it was lonely sometimes, but she thought that was preferable to the scheming and backstabbing that sometimes happened when overly aggressive, violence-prone individuals with little in the way of social skills or emotional maturity spent time together in close quarters.
When you grew up the way they had, you learned that it was preferable to be the one to stab first rather than the one getting stabbed.
Gus rather liked the current status quo.Better to be overlooked and forgotten than noticed and toyed with.Your bones shattered and your spirit broken.
Ryan, the forty-three’s de facto leader, stirred among his shadows.
“We’ll put it to a vote,” he announced
As always, he started roll call with the strongest among them.
“Alexander, what’s your opinion?”
Their brother glanced at Selene, seeking her approval.
For a moment, Gus was enthralled with the way the air between the two seemed to spark and glow with a rosy warmth.She was inexperienced in such matters, but she thought that the feeling they always gave off when in each other’s vicinity was love.
“My decision was made months ago,” Alexander said after a moment of thought.“The forty-three face a new paradigm.I am willing to see where Kira’s path leads us.”
Ryan moved onto the next person.“Marie.”
“Against.”
“Cole.”
