Page 86 of Harmless
“No!” I screamed. “I love Torr and Santos. I love my fathers, my brothers, my uncles, my cousins. I won’t let you touch them.”
Oh, but you will. You will lead armies, marching thousands to their deaths. Deities exist outside the boundaries of time, and I have seen it happen.
“Fuck you,” I roared. “I will kill every one of your believers untilyouno longer exist before you touch anyone in my family.”
Foolish girl. I already have,the voice taunted.Your father Shadow wears the revenge taken by dozens of my daughters on his skin.
“I will kill you myself!” I screamed with all the breath in my body. “I don’t care if you’re a fucking god!”
Your rage is a powerful tool, Aurora. It’s misdirected at the moment, but that can be corrected.
“Oh no, it’s directed in the right fucking place.”
Are you sure? The man you’re supposedly rescuing looks like he’s about to kill you.
All at once, the blinding sunlight was gone, and it was dark again. I looked behind me just in time to see a thin man with bright blue eyes pointing a gun at me. I didn’t need a closer look to know that he was dead behind those eyes.
Santos went to tackle him, but he was too late.
Hudson pulled the trigger.
29
HUDSON
Iwoke up to a palm clamped over my mouth. It never even occurred to me to struggle. If someone was about to kill me, well, that would be a relief. If they weren’t, nothing was about to happen that hadn’t already been done to me.
“Hudson, it’s Santos,” came a harsh whisper in the dark. “We’re getting you out.”
No fucking way.
I turned my head toward the voice, my body flooding with the strangest sensation as I tried to make out his features. Later, I would realize that it was pure elation and hope rushing through my system.
“Santos?” I whispered against the palm over my mouth.
“Yeah, buddy. We’ll catch up later. But first, we’re breaking you out. Hang on, this is gonna be bright.”
Santos’ hand pulled away and a flashlight clicked on. He swung it away from me to examine my restraints.
“One of them has a key,” I whispered through a dry throat.
“No time to find it.” Santos pointed at something—a gun?—at one of the bedposts, and I saw a flash of gunfire as he shot the wooden post one, two, three times. The gun made a softphewwith each shot. That was one hell of a silencer.
Santos put the gun down and yanked on the post above where it had been splintered. He successfully broke it off after a few tries, then lifted the handcuff up and off of what remained of the stump.
“We’ll get those off you properly when we get back,” he said, heading for my other hand.
“This is really happening?” I brought my now freed hand to my chest, bending the elbow and rolling my wrist around. The empty handcuff that had been on the bedpost dragged and felt cold against my skin. It felt real.
“It’s happening, man. Devin’s here too.”
I let him do the same treatment to the other bedpost, shooting it, breaking it off, then sliding the cuff up and over before asking, “How? Where did they take you?”
“I’ll explain later, man, but right now we’ve got to move.”
He released my ankle restraints in the same way, and within ten minutes, I was free.
“Can you stand? Walk?” Santos grabbed my hand to sit me up in the bed.
