Page 80 of Xerxes Ascendant
With one arm wrapped possessively around Akira’s waist, Kyle helped him to limp over to where Mackenroth was slowly getting to his knees. The mayor triumphantly yanked his wrists free from the shreds of black fabric that were all that was left of Akira’s tie, only to be immediately recaptured by Kyle. He snarled and strained uselessly against him.
“We’re not done with you yet,” Kyle told him darkly. “You’re coming with us to Lower Xerxes, where a lotof people have questions for you.”
“And worse,” commented Akira, not looking perturbed by that thought at all. In fact, he seemed uncharacteristicallycheerful. Kyle could only wonder what the Coterie would do if they got their hands on Xerxes’ mayor, and then there were all the people who had suffered because of him, who had starved and been condemned and who haddied…
Mackenroth blanched, resuming his efforts to free himself and moaning desperately through his gag. He squirmed and jerked and heaved andmphedas Kyle dragged him closer to the edge of the city by his wrists, so much that it became difficult to keep hold of him, even with Kyle being nearly twice his size.
“Master,” he grunted, and Akira immediately moved to his side to help keep Mackenroth subdued, but still he fought.Recklessly, fearfully; nothing like the begrudging compliance he’d shown them up until they’d gotten him in the police car. Perhaps he hadn’t believed they would escape the Rise?
But no, it was…the way he was throwing himself against them both in utter disregard for how he was hurting himself?
Something was very wrong.
Kyle stopped. “Akira,” he murmured, and found concerned brown eyes already locked onto his. He didn’t have to say anything further. Kyle was understood, wholly and completely.
Akira grimaced and reached up for the fabric stretched over the mayor’s mouth.
The moment the gag was eased free, Mackenroth turned his head and spat a mouthful of blood at Kyle’s face – only to fall substantially short from how Akira had hold of a fistful of his hair to keep him in place. There was no surprise on that gorgeously exasperated face, just a weary acceptance of how horrible people did horrible things, and Kyle blinked. He hadn’t considered even thepossibilitythat Benedict would lash out when they tried to help him.
His mistake, apparently.
“You take me any closer to that edge,” the mayor snarled, jutting his chin at it as he dug in his heels between the two of them, “or try to drag me to your shithole of a lower city over there, and you’re alldead.”
“Oh no,” said Akira, deadpan. “More threats.”
Mackenroth shot him a hateful look. “You’re not that slow, Miyasaki.”
Kyle blinked. “What?”
“I have a chip in my body,” the man snapped, “with a proximity alert linked to a bomb in the city’s engine. I get too far away from the Rise, and you know what happens? Another explosion…and this time no one survives.”
Oh, stars.How could anyone…how couldanyone?
“That is so veryyou, Benedict,” Akira said distastefully, his nostrils flaring.
“There’s no way you could have known we’d kidnap you, though,” Kyle pointed out. And the man’s arrogance wouldn’t have anticipated being in such a compromised position, surely?
“It’s not just for his protection, Kyle. It’s a beyond-the-gravefuck you.Because corpses are disposed of over the edge, so anyone who kills him would be sealing their own fate and that of all of Xerxes, or even if he died of natural causes.” Akira’s tone turned icy as he spat those last words at the mayor. “If you can’t rule it, no one can?”
Mackenroth gave him a pleased, prideful smile.
“A bomb on one part of the city wouldn’t necessarily take out the other,” Akira pointed out.
“They’re still attached by a fuckton of cables and struts. You think your precious lower levels will be able to withstand the dead weight of this?” he asked, stamping a foot on the ground.
“There’s innocent people on Upper Xerxes too, Master,” Kyle said quietly. Not all Uppers were selfish and self-absorbed, even if all of the ones Kyle had met had indeed matched that stereotype. But they didn’t deserve todie.“We can’t risk it.”
Akira went deadly still.
“Now,” declared Mackenroth. Kyle followed his smirking gaze to find a group of men racing towards them with guns in their hands and ruthless intent on their faces. “My men seem to be here to render their assistance with your recapture. Better get down on your knees, boys.”
He shook himself free of their unresisting hands, and then turned to face them. His approaching guards loomed larger at his back with every second that passed.
“I’m feeling even less inclined towards you both than I did before, and that’s truly saying something.” The older man’s laugh held a cruel, unhinged edge to it. “It will test my creativityto surpass what I’d already had planned for you two, but I could always-”
What Mayor Benedict Mackenroth could always do was lost to his winded gasp as Akira brought his knee up sharply between his legs.
A warning bullet lodged itself in a bench a couple of metres away from them with an angry, spitting echo. White-faced, Mackenroth fell backwards, one hand wrapped around his bruised balls and the other clutching at his neck where Akira had hit him in another of those badass moves; a sharp, quick blow with the side of his outstretched hand.
