seconds. Zhi threw herself down behind a stack of old barrels beside the open hangar door. It wasn’t much, but it would shield her from immediate view. She drew her knife, and struggled to control her breathing.
“Zhi!” Kas ran into the hangar, looking around with too-wide eyes. Flecks of vomit crusted her cheeks and the front of her coverall. “Zhi, where are you? Fucking Throne, Zhi, say something—”
Zhi’s heart slammed in her chest. She wanted to run to Kas, but forced herself into stillness, watching through the gap in the barrels. The off-worlder turned in a circle, searching, and then froze facing the hangar door. Four more figures came in, two in the lead and two behind, each with a pistol drawn and leveled in a professional two-handed grip. There were two men and two women, all wearing dark coveralls with dull red armor across the chest, shoulders, and thighs.
“Who are you?” Kas shouted at them, though from her expression Zhi thought she knew.
“Where’s the girl?” One of the House thugs, an older woman, crossed to Kas and shoved her pistol in her face while another covered her. “Where’s Zhi?”
“I don’t know,” Kas said. “You fucking killed Solomon, didn’t you?”
The bottom dropped out of Zhi’s stomach, and there was a ringing in her ears. She almost didn’t hear the thug’s response.
“We did. And you led us right to the prize.” She pushed her gun against Kas’s forehead. “Now where is Zhi?”
“I don’t know.” Kas stood to her full height, defiant. “Going to fucking shoot me? That’s going to be hard to explain to the Archscholar.”
“People go missing down here,” the thug snarled back. “Not our fault if you go wandering where you shouldn’t. Last chance.”
Last chance, Zhi thought. And the odds weren’t going to get any better. She ducked around the barrels, knife in hand.
The first thug never saw her coming. Zhi slammed her knife into the small of his back, angling it up to catch his lungs, and ripped it free as he crumpled. The second thug started to turn at the man’s strangled gasp, but Zhi was already charging her, keeping low. Her free hand came up, pushing the thug’s gun high, even as she brought her knife in a sideways stab into the woman’s armpit. The blade sank in, finding a gap between ribs, and the thug stumbled to one side, reflexively pulling the trigger.
The pistol shot was thunderous, echoing off the monocrete walls. It distracted the third thug for a moment, but not quite long enough for Zhi to cover the distance between them. A second shot rang out, and she felt a tug on her left arm, but no pain, not yet. The point of her knife ripped across the back of the thug’s gun hand, and he yelled and recoiled. Zhi twisted inside his reach and jammed her blade upward, through the soft underside of his jaw and into his throat. He fell, sputtering blood, and Zhi looked around for the fourth.
“Stop right there,” the older woman said. She had a knife in her off-hand, pressed against Kas’s throat, the off-worlder pulled close in front of her. Her pistol was leveled at Zhi. “Drop the knife or she dies.”
Zhi paused for a long moment. Blood was running freely down her left arm, and the wound was beginning to hurt badly. Zhi squeezed her free hand into a fist; at least her fingers still moved. Kas’s eyes were very wide, but she didn’t look out of her mind with terror. She met Zhi’s gaze, and there was a question there.
“Go ahead and kill her,” Zhi said. “She’s just an off-worlder. I’ve gotten what I need out of her.”
“Drop the knife,” the thug said. “Now.”
House must have told them to take me alive. ’Ent that convenient. Zhi’s eyes flicked to the left, and Kas gave a very slight nod. The off-worlder’s hand rustled against her leg, showing three fingers. Then two. Then one.
Zhi ducked and threw herself forward, just as Kas twisted in the thug’s grip, shoving the older woman off-balance and snaking one arm between her and the knife. The pistol roared, and at the same time the thug pressed her blade home, spattering blood. Kas screamed. Zhi felt another shot go over her shoulder, and grabbed the thug’s wrist before she could fire a third, twisting her arm out of the way and stabbing her in the belly, just below the edge of her armor. When she doubled over, Zhi tore the blade free