Hawk - James Patterson Page 0,87

streetlights or stoplights or store signs or anything. I walked out into the dark, leading Pietro away from the entrance to Tetra. He didn’t need to know any more than he already did—which was already too much.

The dirt beneath my boots was hard-packed, dotted with dead brush. Pietro followed behind my long strides, trying to keep up. Was Pietro my friend, like Fang had asked? Could I trust the boy following me out into the darkness, or was he a danger to both me and this city—the one place I felt safe? My thoughts made me tense, my shoulders hard as iron as I walked.

But Fang knew where I was, and with who. He wouldn’t have sent me up here if he thought Pietro was a threat. And he’d be on guard to keep Tetra safe, just in case.

“Hawk!” Pietro called from behind me. “Wait! I need to tell you something important!”

CHAPTER 86

“Yeah? Like what?” I called over my shoulder. “Like how that supposed peace meeting with the Six turned into a bloodbath?”

Even in the dim starlight I saw the anger on Pietro’s face. “That was my father, not me!”

“Why were you even there?” I demanded, still walking, my eyes sweeping the area around us. It seemed like I was alone, at least.

“I was there because my father was out of town,” Pietro said. “Damnit, stand still for a second!”

I stopped. He came to stand in front of me, put his hands on my shoulders.

“My father was out of town,” Pietro said more calmly. “I thought he was staying out on purpose in order to miss the peace meeting, so that nothing could be accomplished. I went, so at least someone in the Pater family would be there. Then he showed up.”

He dropped his hands and walked away from me, his back rigid. I waited.

“Now I wonder if the other five knew that my father wouldn’t show—or maybe just some of them did,” he said, turning back to me. “Some of them might actually want peace. But the Chungs, the McLeods, and the Paters,” he said bitterly. “We don’t. My father didn’t want me ruining everything by brokering peace with his enemies.”

“Because… it would interfere with business?” I probed, hoping to gain some useful information out of this to take back to the Flock.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen to him?” I asked. “Or his business?”

“Those are one and the same,” Pietro said, looking unhappy. “You can’t separate my father from the business. They feed off each other.”

I tried not to let the look on Pietro’s face get to me, tried to keep this meeting strictly a fact-finding mission, nothing personal. But what had never occurred to me was that you could have a dad and still be unhappy. Pietro clearly was.

“Okay,” I said. “So what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

Pietro looked up. “Peace.”

My mind raced ahead, wondering what that meant, following a logical path to get to the answer. I was so lost in my own thoughts that Pietro’s next words took me by surprise.

“If only I could trust you,” he said.

“Trust me?” I exclaimed, my eyes wide. “You don’t trust me? How can I trust you? I saw that Chung kid dead in the street, remember.”

Now Pietro looked surprised. “I told you that wasn’t my fault! And you must have believed me. Who did you come to when you were hurt?”

I clenched my hands in my pockets so my fingers wouldn’t automatically go to the C-shaped scar on my cheek. C for Chung.

“I came to you because the Chungs thought I was your girlfriend! I figured it was partly your fault it happened at all. You might as well be part of the cleanup!” Also because I hadn’t thought I could fly twenty more meters without dropping from the sky. That, too.

“Oh.” Pietro frowned and looked back toward where the City of the Dead made a fungus-like orange blob on the near horizon. “I had hoped it meant that you trusted me.”

“Trusted you?” I shook my head. “We haven’t really been friends since we were kids,” I said, and he winced, causing a twinge of guilt in my gut. Time to change the subject. “What did you want to tell me? You said it was important.”

He looked at me again, his face sad and older than it should have been. He shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter. It isn’t important after all. And you’re right—we don’t really trust each other.”

I gaped after him as he took off toward his