The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,36

risk it? Really, kid?” the man snarled, looking at him. “I don’t need all of you. Which death do you want to live with? Hers?” He swung his gun from Priyanka to me. “This one will make more of a statement.”

“Shoot him!” Priyanka snarled as the man came closer, shifting from foot to foot, like she might burst out of her own skin. As he passed behind me, one hand came up to clasp the back of my neck. Heat rose off his body armor, and spittle flew out of his mouth each time he breathed.

Roman’s aim didn’t waver, even as I saw him shift his weight to his back foot. His eyes darted from the man behind me, to my face, then back again. A muscle in his jaw rippled; I couldn’t tear my own gaze away from the line of sweat that trickled down his temple, over the high planes of his cheek, off his chin.

The barrel of the gun kissed my spine.

Drop, I thought, trying to remember the move Vida had shown me years ago. Startle him.

And potentially get myself shot in the process. The soldier was vibrating with fury behind me—fury, or fear.

“Let them both go,” Roman said, his voice calm. “One chance. You don’t have to die.”

I narrowed in on his face, the world blurring behind him. The strained lines around his mouth. The naked pleading in his eyes. Don’t do this. Don’t make me do this….

“Just kidding,” the man said, aiming the gun back at Priyanka. “Boss told me I could shoot—”

The bullet caught him just beneath the rim of his helmet, passing through his right eye. The blood spatter whipped across the side of my head, momentarily stunning me.

There was a single beat in which Roman stared at me in horror. Then he pitched forward, falling off the trailer into the road.

“Oh my God!” I said, running toward him. “What happened?”

“Roman!” Priyanka gripped him by the shoulders, lifting his upper body off the ground. “Roman, can you hear me?”

“Was he shot?” I forced myself to stop just short of them.

“He’s okay,” she said quickly, her own voice strained. “Just fainted. He gets…he gets these stress migraines. They knock him out.”

Sunlight glinted off the truck’s passenger-side mirror. I spun on my heel, cutting a straight path toward the cab before my mind had even made the decision to try.

“What the hell are you doing?” Priyanka called.

I climbed up onto the running board, yanking the heavy door open. The body of one of the soldiers slumped against my chest, knocking the air out of me. My arms shook with the effort it took to shove the soldier back inside the cab. Roman’s bullet had caught him from behind, exploding through his neck.

Finally, with his hot blood painting my palms, I managed to push the man’s immense weight off me. The body slid toward the one in the middle seat; the soldier there had simply slumped forward against the dash, as if he’d fallen asleep.

The hot stink of death overwhelmed my senses. My breath came in shorter, harder bursts as I searched the floor and dashboard for some kind of paperwork or identification.

Phone, I thought. The man in the back had had one, before I’d fried it. Even a burner could provide some kind of information about who they’d been in contact with. The pressure building at the back of my mind finally released when I found a slim smartphone tucked inside the closest soldier’s bulletproof vest.

Password locked. Of course. No service, either. My fingers fumbled with it, smearing the man’s blood on the screen. But I didn’t need a password to use it to take a picture. I slid my finger left across its cracked surface and brought up the camera.

As quickly as I could, I snapped a photo of each soldier. The UN had facial recognition databases they could search for any match to these people. The pictures would be more than enough to ID them. The real question was if I could break away from the others long enough to send the evidence back to the government.

“Again, I ask: What the hell are you doing?”

I spun toward the voice, pulse throbbing in my veins.

Priyanka watched me from below, a gun in her hand. She must have taken it off the soldier Roman had shot. Its barrel was pointed somewhere between the ground and me.

“I…evidence,” I said, showing her the phone. “Listen, I think we should split up. Scatter, so they can’t easily track