Page 137 of Throwing Fire

“Make sure that’s around her neck when she breathes her last,” I say. “I promised Payton justice.”

Exeter nods and loops the rope around Erin’s neck, tightening the noose until she chokes.

“Snow.” Payton’s soft voice crackles in my ear. “Bring Kez home.I’ve got your doctor on the way to Tyng Tower. You’ve done enough. Come home.”

“On my way,” I tell her. To Exeter, I say, “Let’s go. They’re waiting for us at Tyng Tower.”

“Copy that.”

He falls in behind me as I carry my kitten to safety.

CHAPTER 44

“Target heading your way. Two hundred meters.”

Mike-the-Merc is a silky whisper in my ear. I’ve always liked the way the guy talks into a receiver.

I feel even more warmly toward him after finding out how he went against what he thought were orders from me to protect Chi and Kez’s family during Myhre’s attempted coup.

“Copy,” I acknowledge. “How’s he look?”

“Shaken,” Mike responds. “I guess he didn’t like what Drogan had to say.”

I smile to myself as I roll my shoulders, loosening up. I’m not sure the Horse-men will ever be friends. There’s an ideological gap as wide and deep as Kuseros’s oceans between us.

But, then, I’d have said that about the rats once upon a time, too. Look how that turned out.

I turn my head to my right, where my favorite rat-man sits, chewing a long claw and shading his eyes with the other hand.

“Starshine’s fierce in the Holy Lands,” I remark.

Acker scoffs. He pulls a ragged claw out of his mouth and scratches at the healing skin around his right eye. Erin cut his eyesout after she pinned him and Kez to the wall. Doc Gray stuck him in a tank for two weeks while he healed all the damage Erin did and regenned his eyes. Kez spent a few days in the neighboring tank, since the doc had to tear apart her arms to get the monofilament out of her wounds.

I slept on a cot in front of the tanks. Ostensibly, I was guarding them. But really, I just don’t sleep well without my kitten beside me anymore. Guess that goes both ways.

“Holy lands,” Acker grumbles.

“You yuckin’ on the horseys’ yum?” I ask.

He scoffs again.

“Hundred meters,” Exeter interrupts from my left. He’s holding omnoculars to his face and watching the street below.

I’ll hand it to the fucker, when he decides to high-tail it outta somewhere, he moves.

“He’s turned east,” Exeter grumbles.

Don’t matter where Jaxon goes. I’ve got him boxed in.

“See you boys in a few,” I say before swinging over the lip of the roof we’ve been sitting on and dropping down a line of spider silk to the street.

I circle wide and block off Jaxon before he reaches the dusty shopfront where he was going to try to rent a sand skimmer. The Horse-men are so anti-mech that Jaxon doesn’t have a lot of choices for his exit from Ystrile. A barge to Kaliddy. The sole sand skimmer rental. There’s a stable two blocks over but I figured that would be his last resort. Probably too bitter a pill to have to rent a horse after being hold by a Horse-man to leave Eastern Colony or else.

Jaxon’s out of places to run.

I slap a length of grey rope against my thigh as I stroll toward Jaxon. He freezes when he sees me. Recognizes me.

“You’re dead,” he hisses.

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