Page 87 of Iron Crown

Something was bothering me. Everything felt like it was about to go awry. My palms itched, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I was frantically looking around as if the answer lay somewhere in the grass.

The guard seemed to see something, his eyes squinting as he took another tentative step. It was like he could see something in the darkness of the woods, but couldn’t quite make it out.

The sun was past its zenith, and noon sun had given way to the afternoon, and the guards, quiet and vigilant, had quietly changed.

I did not like this.

We were still waiting for Kira’s backup. We had hoped to catch them at the end of the earlier shift, before they could have fresh guards at the walls. Fresh guards meant they were rested, and I wanted to take away that small advantage from them.

What the hell was taking the support element so long? They should have been able to leave a fake crew there, and then moved to our position. But they hadn’t.

Then I heard the faint sound of multiple gunshots, distant enough that I knew something had happened with the support element. Kira. What happened to Kira?

Then the guard at the gate looked around, his eyes squinting. They were all alert now, having heard the shots. Fuck.

One of them shouted, and pointed, and another came forward from the gates, looking into the woods. It was only a matter of time before he stumbled onto us and saw us.

He took another step out, looking around as if to search for unknown threats in the woods—the unknown threats being us, lying in wait.

He took another step, and I heard a click. He looked down, his eyes wide as he yelled, “Cazzo!”

And in an instant, he was blown to hell, his body nothing but mangled pink mist, as the explosion rocked the ground beneath him.

“Now!” I yelled into the radio.

The element of surprise was gone. The next thing that would happen were more soldiers coming out here to collect the bits of their dead friend. We could not lose any more of our advantage.

With a scowl, I focused my sights on a single guard, squeezed the trigger, and fired. His head exploded in his helmet, his body falling to the ground in a massive heap. A hundred other shots fired, and guards went down one by one, and in the strange silence that came after, the only thing I could hear was a child’s scream.

Chapter twenty-eight

Murder is a Valid Response

Kira

“Christ,” I said, my head snapping as the sound of abombechoed over the trees.

Birds whined and flew away, cawing loudly as they shot into the sky.

“That was a landmine,” Blink said, “not one of ours.”

He was clearly getting reports that the rest of us weren’t. The command channel wasn’t programmed into my radio.

“Not one of ours?” I needed clarification. Ours, as in Paradigm? Or ours as in…

“Italian guard stepped on it,” he said.

“Shit,” I said, my brows furrowing.

“The attack has commenced, but we still need to figure this out.” He pulled out a satellite phone, which was secured within Paradigm's systems.

I truly had no idea that all of this tech was at our disposal. I hadn’t needed to know before. I was pleased that there were so many resources at our disposal.

Welcome to the inner circle…I thought mockingly.

“Yuliya, did you get that?” he said into the radio after he’d snapped and sent some photographs.

“Hey,” I said, coming down on my knee in front of a cage, looking at a young girl inside.

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