High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,27

ran into a stack of containers, but they held steady, and he ducked behind them, standing still to get his bearings.

“We should have left straight away.” Vannie's voice came from near the door. “Let's go now. There's only one of them out there.”

“That we know of. And we can't leave Sugotti alive.” Oniba sounded like he was moving through the warehouse, coming closer to where Iver was standing.

“We don't have time to kill him.”

“And if we get caught? What happens to our plans then?” Vannie's voice was soft.

Oniba swore. His footsteps retreated.

“How were you going to kill him, anyway?” Vannie asked. “With your bare hands?”

Because they only had SALs, Iver realized, which would knock him out, but not kill him.

“I was going to slit his throat,” Simon said, voice cold. “But I won't risk getting caught.”

The door banged closed, their voices cut off, but Iver didn't move. It could be a trap.

Or he could be wasting time.

The minutes ran together, until he couldn't tell how long he'd been standing in the darkness.

Now or never.

He ran toward the door, and Oniba stepped out of the shadows, SAL in his hand.

Iver jinked to the right, then snapped his leg, hitting Oniba's wrist.

The SAL went flying, and Oniba howled in pain.

With his hands still behind his back, Iver used his shoulder on the door, muscling his way out into an empty loading dock.

A dru-dru was parked near the entrance, and as he ran toward it, Linnel stepped out--the helmet from driving the dru-dru still on his head--and leveled his laz at Iver's chest.

“You're not going anywhere. As long as I have you, she won't be far behind.”

The smirk on Linnel's face snapped something inside Iver. He was usually even-tempered, but everyone had a limit. He'd just reached his.

With a roar, he charged, jumping just as he reached Linnel and spinning, swinging his elbow as far forward as the restraints allowed, to deliver a vicious blow to his cheek.

The laz went off, flickering and leaping and Oniba screamed behind him.

Iver stumbled, off-balance from the spin, and saw Oniba was down, and Linnel was on one knee.

He kicked out at Linnel's head, the jolt of impact with the helmet vibrating up his leg, and then he ran.

Pity he didn't know where to.

Chapter 11

Iver was gone.

Hana lay on the warehouse roof, looking down through the small skylight near the entrance.

There was no one here.

A soft grunt and then low, sustained cursing from the loading bay had her inching forward face down until she could see over the edge of the roof.

Linnel was dragging a limp Oniba toward a small, brightly colored dru-dru. An enclosed trailer was attached to the back of the colorful scooter with a tow hitch.

Linnel dumped Oniba's body beside the dru-dru and opened the lid of the trailer.

He looked around, laz in hand, and then bent down and pulled Oniba up by the arms to stuff him in the trailer. By the sound of the grunts and swearing, it wasn't an easy task.

Hana tried to work out how Oniba had come to be dead or unconscious.

Her only guess was Linnel had shot him with the laz, either deliberately or by mistake. But it was very difficult to shoot someone on purpose with a laz on Faldine.

Maybe he'd been aiming at Iver and had gotten Oniba instead.

Hana was fine with that. Very fine with that.

As soon as he'd gotten Oniba inside the trailer and had closed the lid, Linnel moved out of sight, disappearing into a small structure next to the loading bay. The security booth, Hana guessed.

The dru-dru looked cute, sitting there. They were ubiquitous in Touka City, and like everything on Faldine, they had wheels. They'd become the symbol of Verdant String courage and empathy in the face of adversity during the Faldine War. Civilians had rescued people from bombing raids in dru-drus and dru-drus had been used to transport the wounded to medbays.

Their appeal was more than the strangeness of having wheels in a culture used to hovers, though. They were small and colorful, coming in a range of colors too many to count.

The one Linnel was using was a strange green-yellow, and he strode out from the small hut, swung into the seat, and rode away.

What to do?

Had Vannie and Simon had already taken Iver away? It seemed likely.

Which meant she was too late, had taken too long to get back.

Iver wasn't just gone. He was likely dead. At the bottom of the river, just as Simon promised.

She felt hollowed