Synnr's Hope - Kate Rudolph Page 0,68
asked quietly.
“It could be.” And if it was, they had already lost the element of surprise. Disappointing, but there was nothing they could do about that.
They kept moving, faster now as the sounds of destruction were getting louder. They passed a handful of empty classrooms, but a flickering light was coming from one in the center of the hallway. A flickering, hot light. Fire.
They burst in, and an Apsyn was there chucking a pile of documents into the flame and laughing triumphantly when he caught sight of them. “It’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” Lena demanded. Her wings flashed out and she sent her spark at the Apsyn without a hint of hesitation.
Solan was proud, but they didn’t have time to celebrate. They were in an interior classroom. The only way out was through the door that he and Lena were now blocking. But they wouldn’t last long if the fire got out of control. Solan called on a large burst of power and sent it towards the fire, smothering it and depriving it of oxygen. That knocked the smile off the Apsyn’s face. He kept his mouth shut, but his eyes darted around wildly, looking for another exit. When one didn’t magically appear, he shoved the rest of the papers to the side and ran straight at Lena and Solan, hoping the sudden movement would surprise them enough to let him go.
It didn’t work.
Lena shocked him with her spark again and he went down. Solan latched onto his arm and called on his own spark, sending a constant stream toward the Apsyn. If he kept it up, it would prevent the Apsyn from calling on his spark and using his powers against Solan. “Too late for what?” Solan asked Lena’s question again.
The Apsyn pressed his lips together and jerked his head from side to side, refusing to answer.
Lena stalked into the room and looked at the papers he’d been trying to destroy. There were also wires and other pieces of gear on the table. Solan didn’t know if they were left over and scavenged from the academy, or if the Apsyn had brought them in himself.
“How long have you been in town?” Solan asked.
The Apsyn didn’t say anything.
“What is your purpose here?”
Still the Apsyn was quiet.
Solan was tempted to send even more of his spark at the Apsyn, but if he didn’t keep the power stable, it might give the Apsyn a chance to pull on his own spark and fight Solan off.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lena freeze. She picked up the paper and held it close to her face, reading it several times before bringing it over to him. “He didn’t burn everything,” she said as she offered the paper to Solan. “Does this look like what I think it looks like?”
He scanned the document. “Do you think it looks like a bomb?” He was no engineer, but he could recognize destructive power when he saw it.
The Apsyn laughed. Solan would take that as confirmation.
“Where is it? What did you do with it?” The Apsyns had already planted a bomb in Osais a few months before and killed dozens of people at a military installation. Was this one bigger? Would it target civilians? How long did they have? Were they too late?
Lena rushed back to the papers and looked through them. She found one in the pile that had been mostly burned. The edges were blackened, but the ink was still readable. “This is a map of the city center. I think they’re trying to hit Osais again.”
The Apsyn stiffened. He didn’t laugh, and he kept quiet. But his body gave him away.
Solan called it in. Major Ozar instructed them to take the Apsyn back to the house. The training facility could be used as a temporary jail if they gave the computer the proper instructions.
“I want you two back in the city,” said the major. “Good work.”
Lena scooped up the papers and they were off. They had a city to save.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THOUGH IT HAD TAKEN them hours to reach the training facility on their journey there, Solan engaged the hover mode on their vehicle and they were back in the city in a little more than an hour. For the first fifteen minutes, Lena had clutched the edge of her seat and tried not to imagine all the terrible crash scenarios she could, but eventually she grew comfortable. She knew what Solan was capable of and she trusted him not to get