Page 102 of These Divided Shores
He gripped the pistol tighter. “Edda—oh god—”
Tomás Andreu nodded. He crooked two fingers and someone stepped up beside him: Ingvar Pilkvist, the Head of the Mecht syndicate.
“Monsters!” Fatemah wailed again. She started screaming in Thuti, yelling and yelling—
Ingvar pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger.
Fatemah’s body sank to the ground.
Her death—execution—consumed Vex’s senses so much that he didn’t notice the smaller figure behind Tom until it rocked back andscreamed.
Tom didn’t react. He turned. “Stop fighting it. I know it’s in you—stop fighting what the Pious God wants for you.”
Vex wilted. Shriveled up and died right there.
Teo.
Teo.He’d seen Fatemah get shot. He was here, in the middle of a massacre, tears streaking his face and his mouth open in a violent, helpless sob.
Vex shoved to his feet, every nerve vibrating like a strummed string. “Teo!”
Tom whipped his head toward the call. Ingvar, too; and the defensors; and Teo. Teo looked and saw Vex, Edda—he sobbed again.
But he didn’t run to them. He didn’t even try.
“Get them!” Tom ordered.
The defensors obeyed, swarming around them in a circle of raised weapons. The overturned cart was at their back. Trapped.
Edda shot to her feet. Teo screeched, and Vex fought to lurch for him.
“Damn it, Vex!” Edda snapped. “We can’t—”
The cock of a pistol. Vex went rigid, muscle by shaking muscle.
Ingvar wasn’t pointing a gun at Edda or Vex. He was aiming at Teo.
Tom hissed. “Pilkvist,stand down—”
But Ingvar didn’t react. Next to Ingvar, Tom growled and faced Vex.
“My orders are to rid this place of its infestation—even you, our king’s nephew. I may kill you, or I may leave you maimed. The choice is yours.”
“Go to hell,” Vex barked.
Tom lifted his eyes to the sanctuary, surveying the tenements as he might a complicated art piece. “Do you know how we found this place? The people of this city told us—of their own free will. They came to the Argridian soldiers and spoke of raiders forcing them to live under their rule. Your own people have turned on you. That, believe me, is the definition of hell: betrayal.” Tom’s focus lowered to Vex. “It will comfort you to know that I take no pleasure in this bloody work, but my king demands it. Now, where is my daughter?”
In the silence after his question, each pop of a gunshot beat into Vex’s soul. People were dying around him. People he’d known for years.
“Lu will stop you.”
Vex whipped his head back down to Teo, who glared at Tom and Ingvar. God, brave kid.
“Lu’ll hurt you for what you’re doing,” he said.
Tom snapped at Ingvar, who lowered his pistol. Vex gawked until he realized why—more defensors were coming in, circling them. Edda’s pistol was out of ammunition. They had only Vex’s.
Edda, Vex—they were all going to die. Like Fatemah.
