Page 138 of Cage of Starlight
An eardrum-rending boom splits the air, and Riese Larsen falls onto the dying grass, eyes empty and one side of his skull blown in.
Tory looks up to find Hasra, gun in hand, pipe in mouth, and smile on face.
“You—that’s . . .” Tory blinks down at the body, waiting for it to move. Awkwardly, he says, “You can’t . . .”
“I just did,” Hasra says. It’s strange, nearly impossible to reconcile her presence here.
“I’m not your kid,” he mutters, head spinning and ears ringing. His own voice sounds drowned, trapped inside his skull.
“You sure give me enough trouble to be! Lucky I was still smoking. Thatasshole—”
Dumbly, he says, “We’d planned on keeping him alive for a while.”
Hasra frowns. “Ah. A bit late for that.”
“How are youhere?”
“Did I or did I not tell you I’d chase you down if you took too long? You took far too long! Seems like I was just in time.” She kicks Riese’s lax body. “Anyway, how many more of these kinds of peoplearethere? Makes my skin crawl. I thought Ari was bad.”
Tory scans the yard urgently, but it looks like Hasra and the others have it handled. All of Riese’s allies are on the ground.
“Hey,” Hasra says. “Are you in shock? Tory, you’re bleeding. Is he the one who did this to you? Oh, I should’ve made it hurt more.”
She’s kneeling, and her hand is on his shoulder, and he throws himself against her. He’s shaking and he has no idea why. “That was . . . quite an entrance,” he rasps.
“Well.” She holds him bone-crushingly tight. “I like to be seen.” She lets go and squeezes his shoulder, helping him to his feet. “Catch me up, then. What did I miss? You look different.”
“It’s . . . It’s a long story.”
“My favorite kind. Does anyone here need tying up? I’ll have you know my ropework isexcellent.”
Prentice, who must have been the one ’porting Jeffra around to drop all of Riese’s allies, steps up to hand Jeffra something he was holding—a birdcage, covered with a blanket.
Something pangs in Tory. “Sena!” he blurts, and Jeffra’s eyes widen and go to him. Hasra turns to him, too, but he doesn’t have time to explain. “He’s—he’s here! I need to get back to him. He’s . . .”
Jeffra must see something in his eyes. “Not too late after all, then.” She offers a sad smile.
“Clearly I’ve missed a lot.” Hasra’s eyebrows go up. “I expect you to catch me up when you’re back.”
Jeffra waves him away. “We’ve got things here. Go on. The things that matter . . . when you’ve got them, hold onto them.”
When he has them—as long as he has them. Tory can’t force words past the knot in his throat.
He runs.
*
The smoke has grown thick, clogging the halls where the Compound’s structure is still sound and coiling out where the walls have crumbled toexpose sky. He breathes only where the smoke is thinnest and follows the pulsing blood-red lines along the floor into smoke haze and darkness.
“Sena!”
He has to be somewhere around here. Not too far, surely.
He smiles into the scarlet fog as he catches sight of someone staggering toward him. “Sena!”
A bullet zings into the wall a foot away.
“Sena, it’s me!”
