Page 45 of Dragon 7

“Shh.” A few of those figures caught me.

Hand to hand, the Silent Ones lowered me through the dark like they were laying me into the earth.

Gravity drowned my senses.

I could barely move.

“Shh.” They had me.

I tried to break free but nothing worked. “What. . .are. . .you. . .doing to me?”

“Shh.”

Two of the Silent Ones gently grabbed my shoulder and I couldn’t even attack them as my lids fell heavy over my eyes. “Nyomi. . .”

“Shh.”

The last things that reached me, before the world hushed down to nothing, were the smell of her blood and the sound of her screaming.

And my whole body gave out beneath it.

I’m so. . .sorry. . .

And I feared that when I woke up. . .her ghost would be smiling at me.

Noooooo. . .

Chapter eight

The Soul Bond

Kenji

"Hiro?!" Furious, I scanned the darkness.

He had leapt off the cart and vanished into the black after a sound I never heard, and now I had no eyes on my brother and no eyes on my Tiger and a war pressing down on every breath I dragged in. "Hiro!!!"

Yoichi sped the cart down the gravel path. "Hiro is fine."

"How would you know?"

My brother had vaulted off the side a mile back, chasing my Tiger's scream that only he could hear, and now the seat beside me sat empty.

I gripped the silver guard of my guns and dragged my thumbs across them, back and forth. "How long before we are there?"

"Minutes."

“Hurry the fuck up.”

The night blurred past on either side.

The cart’s headlights cut a thin yellow road through the trees, and beyond their reach the island was nothing but shapes—black trunks, blacker gaps, the silver edge of the moon shining over leaves.

Salt and gun oil rode the wind into my face.

Yoichi's voice remained too goddamn calm. "Your brother and Tiger are now with your mother's people. They are safe—"

"And how do you know this?"