Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,75

this way for nothing?

Alouette shoved the thought away and dug her cuffed hands farther into the bag, until finally her fingertips brushed against the very last item. The one thing that didn’t really belong to her. The one thing she’d stolen from the Refuge that night.

The cell door opened with a clank, and Alouette ripped her bound hands out of the sac.

“Let’s go,” came the gruff voice of Officer Leclair. “Everyone out.”

“What’s happening?” Heloise asked, startling awake.

“By order of General Bonnefaçon, you’re being transferred to Vallonay.”

“What?” Heloise squeaked, tears welling up in her eyes again. “Why?”

“Shhh. It’s okay,” Alouette whispered. She reached out with her cuffed hands and linked her little finger around Heloise’s. “Just stay close to me.”

Heloise cried quietly against Alouette’s shoulder as they were all marched out of the cell and down a long corridor. Just as they neared the Precinct’s entrance, another door opened and out stepped Officer Sauvage, leading a cuffed young man from the cell. The prisoner was tall with shaggy dark hair and a stubbly beard. Sauvage gave him a rough push and he stumbled into the moving line, right in front of Alouette.

“Well, well, do my eyes deceive me?” Officer Leclair said when his gaze fell upon the prisoner. “I never thought I’d live to see the day. The infamous Gabriel Courfey. Captured at last.”

“We caught him trying to tunnel under the wall to the Second Estate quartier,” Sauvage said.

“Good,” replied Leclair. “It’s about time you were shipped off to Bastille where you belong.”

The young man—Gabriel—flashed a roguish grin. “C’mon, mec. You don’t want to do this. If I go to Bastille, what will you people around here do all day? Your lives will be so incredibly boring without me here to run you around in circles.”

“Shut up and keep walking.” Officer Leclair menacingly waved his rayonette.

Gabriel snapped his spine straight. “Yes, sir. By the way, how is Madame Leclair?” He winked at the officer. “Will you tell her Gabriel says bonjour?”

Officer Leclair gave the young man a swift kick in the back of the leg, and he went down, landing hard on his knees. When he made no attempt to stand again, Leclair snapped his fingers again at Sauvage. “Get him up.”

“All right, all right, mec,” Gabriel said as the officer lifted him to his feet. “No need to get handsy. If you want to cop a feel, all you have to do is ask.” At that moment, he finally seemed to notice the line of girls shuffling down the hallway with him, and he spun around, his gaze flickering inquistively over each of their faces.

“What is all this? You mecs bust a female crime ring or something?” Then his eyes swiveled from Madame Blanchard to Clodie before landing on the bandaged puncture wound still throbbing on Alouette’s arm, and his mouth fell open. “They’re busting the blood bordels now? Sols, is no one safe around here anymore?”

“Keep walking, Courfey!” Officer Leclair boomed.

Gabriel started to turn back around but his gaze suddenly latched onto Alouette and his expression shifted. He stared curiously at her, a shadow of recognition passing over his eyes. “Hey,” he said slowly, raising his bound wrists to point at her. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Alouette shook her head, growing uncomfortable from the man’s inquisitive gaze. “I don’t think so.”

“Walk, déchet!” Leclair shouted.

Gabriel shuffled his feet backward as he continued to gape at Alouette. “No, I definitely know you. How do I know you?”

Alouette kept walking and tried to ignore the niggling sensation that the young man did look vaguely familiar. Although she didn’t have the slightest idea why he would. In the past twelve years, she’d had virtually no contact with anyone but Hugo Taureau and the sisters.

As the line moved forward, out the front doors of the Policier Precinct and toward an idling transporteur, Gabriel sidled up next to Alouette and whispered, “Did we knock off a manoir together a few years back?”

Alouette blinked in shock. “What? No. I—”

“The Tremblay job, then.” He pointed another finger at her. “That was it. You drove the getaway moto.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, “but you must have me confused with someone else.”

“So, what? You’re not a croc?”

“A what?”

“A criminal.”

Alouette shook her head but then immediately thought about the stolen object that lurked at the bottom of her bag.

“Shut your mouth, Courfey,” Sauvage warned. “Or you’ll spend the entire ride to Vallonay with a numb face.”

“Will it look like yours?” Gabriel shot back, stifling a laugh at his own joke.

Sauvage