Chapter 8 #3
A low howl cut through the night air, and the sound of metal shrieking pierced the quiet sounds of her breathing.
Vesperin stiffened. "What was that?"
"You know what it was, wife. I don’t think you’re that naive, are you?"
"There’s Rogues here. I don’t think Lucien would approve." Vesperin’s lips were pinched, as though she didn’t mean to say that.
Rhyden’s red eyes tracked over the fence, searching for blind spots. If Rogues were on the other side, they’d have to be careful. He shook the fence, hearing it rattle, trying to test the Rogue’s proximity. A howl echoed, closer this time.
"I didn’t know your doctor owned you. I’m surprised you haven’t betrayed him, too.
" Rhyden held back a section of the fence, covering it with his arm.
The jagged ends snagged on his leather jacket.
He paused at the last second, reaching into his jacket and feeling for his holster.
He tugged free a smaller model of a gun—one of his.
The glowing chamber was visible through the opaque grip.
He tossed it to her. "Don’t fucking lose that.
Shit was expensive. After you." He inclined his head to the hole in the fence.
Vesperin’s delicate fingers curled around the grip, the blue glow making her pale fingers gleam. "This is illegal!"
"Lower your goddamn voice," Rhyden hissed. "You didn’t have to come with me. Now go."
She held the gun at the ready as she ducked beneath his arm. He got a whiff of her soft cherry scent as she passed, the top of her head brushing against the leather of his jacket, and he wanted to fucking rip it off, feel her hair against his bare flesh, tangled in his fingers—
"Are you coming?" she asked from the other side of the fence.
Rhyden followed, gun in hand.
Inside was a towered maze of ship scrap and stacked cars, blocking out the little light of the moon that struggled to break through the heavy fog.
Vesperin’s shoulders were tense, but he heard her even breaths.
"The others are goddamned fools for thinking you’re weak."
Vesperin glanced away from her careful perusal of the junk. "What?"
Rhyden shook his head, shouldering past her. Maybe he purposefully knocked into her a bit harder than he needed to. "From here on out, you do as I say. You can follow orders, can’t you?"
Her cherry red lips parted, an insult dripping from her tongue, but another Rogue howl cut through whatever she was going to say. Thundering footsteps sounded as though they were multiplied from the echoes of the metal maze.
His enhanced hearing allowed him to get a feel for more than Vesperin could. Her eyes were wild, on guard. Rhyden heard the footfalls break apart. Two sets.
Two Rogues.
Diverging, cutting apart to block them in.
Dammit.
He estimated about fifteen seconds before the Rogues were on them.
They grew closer.
Fourteen.
He held Vesperin’s eyes. "Go hide."
Eleven seconds.
"I’m not leaving." Her voice was firm.
Ten.
"It’s not because you’re weak, goddammit! You’re not! The Nova—I can’t protect you from them if you pass out." seven. "Go!"
Understanding fell over her face as she backed away to the tunnel formed between the fence and a stack of crushed, piled metal.
Rhyden turned back around just in time to see the two midlevel Rogues pounce into the small clearing before him. One skidded, falling to its side. The other tipped its head back and roared.
Shit. If the ones running the exchange didn’t know something was up, now they did.
Expertly, Rhyden swept out his right arm, aiming at the Rogue as he reached inside his jacket for the palm-sized gas bomb that he’d had cooked up—filled with enough siphoned Aether and other illegal chemicals to take down a horde of upperlevels.
He pulled the pin and threw it. While still shooting, he tugged the mask up from below his chin to cover his nose and mouth.
Purple and grey smoke filled the air, fizzing. It obscured his vision, and he backed up until he felt the rattling fence press against his spine.
Two loud thumps as they both dropped.
It was dead quiet.
He raked his hand through the smoke, calling lowly, "Come out."
Metal groaned, and he felt her before he saw her.
Her voice was muffled through the mask. "So this wasn’t just to conceal my identity. You’ve got a lot of tricks up your sleeve."
"So do you," Rhyden said gruffly. The smoke had cleared enough to reveal the heaps of the dead Rogues. He held a hand up, crooking his fingers. "Let’s go."
Vesperin caught up with him, not keeping to his back, even as he tried to shove her behind him. "You want to protect me?" she teased.
"Don’t feel flattered."
Auren stared at the sizzling, popping electricity. The heat pressed against his skin, but he could not burn.
At the towering top of one of Lunar City’s control towers, Auren stood, wind tearing through his cloak from the height. He swayed, but his feet remained planted. He was immovable.
He had just reaped the Soul of the man who had perished, tumbling from the tower’s peak into a tangle of crisscrossing wires below. Electrocuted.
The tips of Auren’s boots hovered over the unguarded side of the tower.
He stared down into the crackling nets. The man’s body lay face down, charred.
Smoke curled from his limbs, carried up to Auren on the wind.
The stench made him want to turn his head away.
Instead, he stared out into the city’s skyline.
Lunar City was gorgeous. It was undeniable, even with the crime that had tainted such a place, turning its splendor and attraction into a perverse echo of Solar City and its stunning brilliance.
Auren did not fear heights. Far from it. He found comfort in the solitude of being removed from those below. Most would freeze, envisioning falling to their death, bodies crushed against concrete. But he did not feel fear. Death evaded him. It was the one thing he could never have.
Kit pressed his gloved hands to the chain-link fence, staring through the hole.
He growled and gripped the links, pulling them apart. Chains snapped. He threw them to the ground.
His breath came hard. It was too loud. He swallowed the sound, but his heart…
It was beating so fast. Kit pressed his right hand over his chest and felt the beats. More of an echo of a sensation, thrumming inside him. He pulled his hand away, curled his fingers into a fist, and stepped over the broken chains.
She was here. He felt it.
Rin lay flat on her stomach in the rafters of the building, the concrete cold beneath her.
At the heart of the maze of junk had lain a decrepit warehouse. Only a few guards had lined the outside. She’d felt fear for only a second before Rhyden had fit a suppressor onto his gun and shot them with perfect aim.
It had been easy to break past their security.
Even easier scaling the outside wall of the warehouse.
Rhyden had helped her up first, letting her use his hands as a push-off point as he’d hoisted her up.
His palms had lingered on her hips. She still felt the heat of his rings searing through the fabric of her clothes—always pleasant, never too much.
Now, they waited.
Voices carried from below.
Rin’s shoulder pressed against Rhyden’s as she watched a man with a dark briefcase speak with a guard.
Rhyden’s movements were precise and silent as he shed his leather jacket, revealing the tight black shirt, clinging to him from the harness’s snug fit on his chest. From his back, he produced a compact rifle, snapping it out into full form with a low sound. She held her breath.
Rhyden’s red eyes met hers. "Did you doubt me?" He spoke so quietly, she had to strain to hear him.
Rin shook her head, then realized that could be taken as a compliment, so she settled on rolling her eyes.
He set up the rifle against a block of concrete before them.
She stared at the sleekness of the rifle; she’d never know looking at it that it had been small enough to be concealed at his back.
She reached for it, gliding the tip of her finger over the side.
The metal was warm from how it had been tucked against him.
Her elbow knocked into his ribs, and he exhaled audibly.
"Stop trying to fucking distract me."
"I wouldn’t be so curious if you would just tell me what this is about," she hissed. "Why are we here?"
Dust caught in the weak moonlight that filtered in through the broken glass window behind them—their point of entry.
"A drop that I didn’t approve." Rhyden’s finger tapped against the trigger guard.
"Noctis has priority on all arms trading. Anything having to do with arms or Aetherborns goes through me first. Some slip through, but I fucking try. Everyone in Lunar City knows to go against Noctis is a death sentence. I picked up on this trade happening, Aetherborns being trafficked by LunCo, outsourced to an out-of-city buyer. With deep fucking pockets. Even my hackers couldn’t find much info on it.
Only a cryptic posting for a group of undocumented Aetherborns being sold off here—" His eyes swung to the floor below as a vehicle rumbled, car doors slamming and guns cocking.
A ripple of familiarity washed over Rin—it was just like before, when she, Cyrus, Auren, and Rhyden had staked out in Nova Zone 21. This time, everything was different. Because when Sabine Blackfall exited the vehicle, Rin didn’t feel shock. Only rage.
She didn’t realize she was moving until Rhyden gripped her arm and yanked her back down so hard all the air left her lungs in a whoosh as her stomach hit the concrete.
"Back the fuck off, wife. Do you want to get yourself shot in the head?" Rhyden whispered harshly in her ear, lips brushing her piercings.
Rin’s eyes stayed locked on Sabine, as the woman whom she’d once called her adoptive mother shook hands with the man holding the briefcase.
The guards’ postures were uneasy as they watched the exchange.
"I’m going to fucking kill her," Rin vowed quietly.