Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,29

it.”

No one could return Nettle’s hope, because they were all thinking the same thing: if they almost missed this one, how many others had they already missed?

“Where’s the crew?” Caledonia stood, straightening her shirt and twisting her hair back into a braid.

“Just outside.” Hesperus clenched his fists at his sides. “It was a small boat, so there are only two of them.”

“Bring them in.”

The room wasn’t set up for interrogation, but Caledonia stepped away from the chairs ringed around the fire to stand with her back to the observatory windows. Pine and Sledge returned with the two men and pushed them to their knees on the hard stone, taking positions behind them.

The men were wide-eyed and strained to keep their balance with hands bound behind their backs. One of them was sandy-skinned with a short beard that wrapped his face in ruddy bristles. The other had skin the pale brown of seashells with hair shaved clean on one side.

“Are you both Bullets?” Caledonia asked. “Or only one of you?”

Neither spoke, but the sandy-skinned man seemed to relax ever so slightly. As though now that he’d been caught, he didn’t have to hide anymore.

Caledonia nodded and Pine stepped forward, quickly divesting the man of his jacket to reveal the skin of his bare arms. There, along his left, were four orange scars.

“And you?” Caledonia asked the other man, whose mouth had gone slack with true horror.

“I didn’t know,” he muttered, shaking his head once. “I—I didn’t know what he was doing.”

Sledge had him on his feet in an instant, hauling him away and leaving the Bullet behind.

“How many pulse bombs are already in my city?” Caledonia asked, crouching to study the man’s face. Wrinkles creased the skin around dark ringed eyes, and gray scattered through his russet brown hair. This close, Caledonia could see just how hard he worked to keep his gaze level and alert, obscuring the effects of the Silt that doubtless coursed through his blood.

“I only brought the one,” he said with an awkward shrug of his bound arms.

“What were you planning to do with that one?” Caledonia tilted her face closer to his, letting him feel the threat of her presence.

“I—” He paused, as if unable to find the lie he needed.

“Who were you supposed to meet with?” she pressed. “And when?”

This time he didn’t even try to find a lie. He smiled, shrugged, and tilted his head to one side. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

Before Caledonia could respond, Oran cast an urgent look in her direction.

“Take him away,” she said to Pine, and then to Oran, “What is it?”

“Captain, if he’s already missed his check-in, or if there are others in town, it won’t be long before they know he’s been caught. And if that happens—”

“Oh, hell.” Was it already too late? Caledonia dismissed the question. If she wanted to save Cloudbreak, there was only one way to do it. “We need a full sweep of the town. Pi, Hime, wake the crew. Only people we know we can trust. Amina, I need you to make sure they know what they’re looking for; Tin, organize the teams; Hesperus, create a city-wide search pattern.”

They were gone as soon as the orders were given. In their wake, Caledonia’s mind reeled with the possibilities. How many bombs had they missed? She had to assume there were others. Should she order an evacuation just in case? They’d always predicted Lir would attempt to infiltrate the city. Every layer of security they’d added was in preparation for that inevitability.

But no plan was ever perfect.

“Oran, I need to get on the ground, I need to—”

Before she could finish her thought, a thunderous bomb shook the ground beneath her feet.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dust rained down from the ceiling and cracks appeared in the columns supporting the domed roof above. The rumble that shook the ground settled, then the entire structure began to quake. Outside, the horn released a constant stream of staccato beats signaling one thing: evacuation.

“We need to move, now!” Caledonia looked from Oran to Nettle. Everyone else was gone.

They dove down the stairwell, dodging increasingly large chunks of stone shaken free by the vibrations pulsing through the massive building. Nettle took the lead and Oran pulled up the rear, keeping Caledonia between them as they joined the rush of people now trying to flee the crumbling stronghold.

“Make a hole!” Oran roared over Caledonia’s shoulder, attempting to clear her path, but it was no use. Everyone in the stronghold was trying to leave at