Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,79
by the handle and heft it, testing the weight, then turn it over in my hands. Part of me expects to find secret triggers for even more nonstandard modifications, but another part is barely surprised when I don’t. “She’ll probably want this back,” I muse, pricking my finger on the bladed tip. “Did you see where she ended up?”
When I look up, Gal’s giving me a look I can’t parse. Somehow my knuckles are already tightening around the umbrella’s handle before he speaks. “I told them they could send her back to Isla.”
CHAPTER 17
I’M OUT THE door before Gal has a chance to explain. The soldiers who escorted us here are only a couple paces down the hall, and none of them seem ready for the sight of a manic Umber deserter streaking past them with a rainbow umbrella tucked under his arm. I’m around the corner before they remember they have blasters on their belts.
I was stupid, so stupid. So fixated on Gal, on Archon, that I forgot we’re not the most vulnerable ones here. We had something to offer the resistance, but Wen had no bargaining power whatsoever. And she was still coming down from those hits she took, and she was so quiet during the negotiation, and I got so distracted by Iral. I should have noticed sooner.
I clutch the umbrella tighter as I plunge down the stairwell. I hear voices, footsteps, people in pursuit, and there’s a wild part of my brain that thinks I can take them because I have Wen’s umbrella in my hand. They can’t dump her back on the streets for Dago Korsa to find. I don’t know how she fits into this resistance gambit, but no one deserves to go back to that.
“Hey, kid!” someone shouts behind me.
It only spurs me on.
I spill out of the stairwell and into the ground-floor corridor to find three soldiers squared up with their guns drawn on me. They give me two merciful seconds to react, enough time to throw my hands up in surrender. The umbrella clatters at my feet. “Please,” I choke through a ragged breath. “I have to speak to Iral—someone—the girl has to stay.”
“The girl?” one of them asks.
“Wen. Wen Iffan. They can’t send her back to Isla. She’s with us—she’s part of our bargain.”
“The junker? The Corinthian?”
I bare my teeth, shaking my head. I’ve always felt doomed to let down anybody who dares to rely on me. I can’t let that happen to Wen—not when I know exactly what she’s been through. “She stays, or there’s no deal.”
I’m not sure what their guns are set on. They could have me in the sights of a killing bolt. My arms start to shake, my lungs shuddering as I try to bring my breath under control.
The soldier at the head of the group cocks his head, listening to something in his earpiece. He lets out a deep sigh and says, “Stand down.” One by one, the soldiers lower their guns. “She’s in the main shuttle hangar. We’ll take you there.”
* * *
—
I don’t trust their word until I see her. Wen sits on a crate at the edge of the hangar, flanked by two guards, running her hands over her wrists like she’s been freed from cuffs. Her face lights up when she spots me—not with joy, but with surprise that she quickly smothers with a look of cool regard. “Ettian,” she says.
“Wen.”
“They tried to, uh—”
I take a knee next to her, glancing at the soldiers. “Wen, I’m so sorry,” I murmur. “I should have been paying attention.”
She nods. Her hair is loose, and she keeps her head bent forward so that it curtains her burns. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Wen says. Her smile has a cruel edge to it. “My face isn’t so easy to forget, but it feels like the rest of me kinda makes up for it.”
“It’s the last time,” I tell her firmly. “You’re with us, okay? We’re getting you off-world. No one’s forgetting you.”