Page 89 of Xerxes Ascendant
He could have also sworn that there had once been a time where he’d heldsomecontrol in this relationship, but clearly he’d been imagining things.
“We-ll?” Kyle asked their companions, drawing out the word into two syllables. “How did the other mission go?”
Miguel’s back straightened. “You...figured that out, huh?”
“Akira did,” the blonde said promptly. “He’s very smart.”
“Not smart enough,” growled Akira. “Or I’d have killed you before you could put Kyle at risk like that.”
Derek shot a wary look at him over his shoulder. Akira narrowed his eyes in response.
Kyle cleared his throat and began chattering away to ease the tension, but Akira didn’t mind being looked at in that way. He was quite content to be the grumpy, mean bastard at Kyle’s heels, the one everyone stayed away from and watched their words around.
It was somewhat undermined by the way Kyle was eagerly tugging him forward by the hand, their fingers entwined like a pair of lovesick teenagers, but Akira wasn’t willing to pull away.
He didn’t want toeverstop touching him.
“This is Voice Below the Wire. We’ve been told for 6 years that Sector 7, Level G is inaccessible because of an alleged environmental failure. Ask yourself why this so-called failure has never been ‘fixed’.”
-Illicit transmission
CHAPTER 26
Akira
“Oh,” Kyle breathed about fifteen minutes later, when they crested a short flight of stairs and emerged up into an open-aired, rubble-strewn area to find a large crowd of people excitably milling around. Miguel had led them on a walk that skirted the edge of the city, and although once hemmed in by the imposing concrete walls, now, at least in this section, it was exposed to the elements as a result of how Xerxes had been sheared in half. Similar to where they’d exited the waste processing plant, there were slabs of hewn-off concrete which ended in mid-air with no protective guardrail or signage, and it had taken all of Akira’s remaining strength to keep an exuberant Kyle from straying too close to the unstable edge.
But the people here weren’t there for the view. There were two obvious groups of Xerxians present: those with dirty skin and unwashed hair, and those without, but both with equally pronounced lines of exhaustion and worry etched into their faces. Both cried tears of relief. Both embraced as though they hadn’t seen each other in weeks; husband and wife, mother and children, siblings and friends.
Akira swallowed. As much as he prided himself on remaining impassively detached to anything that wasn’t his family or Kyle– or House Epsilon’s employees, or Kyle’s cats, or...stars, that list was becoming unacceptably long – the scene before them was so full of emotion that he found it hard not to get lost in it. At his side, Kyle was already sniffling.
“You rescued them,” he said thickly, blue eyes glistening with happy tears. “You got them out.”
“Aye.” Miguel shot Kyle a bemused smile. “The boss said she would, didn’t she?”
She also said Akira was going to be guiding a team of gang members into the Rise to deactivate an imaginary security grid, but when he caught sight of the delighted expression on Kyle’s face as he watched Mackenroth’s Lower prisoners be reunited with their families, Akira held his tongue.
“Look, there she is,” Miguel commented idly, waving a hand, and they followed the careless gesture to where Sinead Gallagher was earnestly embracing a woman with a short pixie cut and skull-and-dagger tattoos decorating both arms.
So that was Marlene. She looked more likely to lead the Carrion than her wife, but Akira had long ago learned not to judge people by their appearances. Look at Kyle, with those thick muscles and heavyset build, who Akira had once found crying inconsolably over a dead mouse. And his cousin Indira, petite and pretty, who was the definition offuck around and find out.
Something cold nudged against Akira’s hand and he glanced down in surprise, irritated at his own inattention when he realised Kyle was trying to give him his runepad. He accepted the small tablet and shoved it into the least ripped of his suit’s trouser pockets, gifting Miguel and Derek a disdainful scowl.
“You think this makes us even?”
“Unless you plan on getting your head blown off by marching on over to the boss and telling her otherwise, yeah I do,” the chattier of the two Carrions drawled. Kyle’s fingers tightened around Akira’s in warning. “Here, I believe this is also yours.”
Miguel reached behind him and drew a familiar gun from the back of his jeans, and then presented it to Akira.
“So sexy, Master,” Kyle breathed when he took it, checked the chamber, and flexed his fingers contemplatively around the handle. Akira couldn’t deny the temptation of holding the gun to Marlene Gallagher’s skull to ensure Sinead would feel the same terror she’d inflicted on him by deliberately placing Kyle in Mackenroth’s path. She should be made to understand what she’d done.
But Derek and Miguel held ready poses, and the gang leader had half a dozen other guards swarming around them. It would be suicide. He exhaled a sharp, furious breath.
“Well,” said Miguel after Akira had begrudgingly tucked the weapon into the small of his back instead of inciting war with the Carrion. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Coterie. Kyle.”
He tipped an imaginary hat and then him and Derek drifted towards Sinead, becoming lost in the flurry of the crowd.
“I can’t see Vin. Or Alecia,” Kyle declared, standing on his tiptoes and swivelling his head to squint in all directions. “Ben’s sister,” he prompted when Akira gave him a blank look. “The one that was kidnapped when she returned from a Dive?”
