Page 105 of The Mech Who Loved Me
"I know!" She caught his forearm, her breath coming short and sharp. "I need to speak to Garrett. He can't let the Nighthawks retaliate! This is all planned. Someone wants to set the Nighthawks against the mob, and if we retaliate then we're playing into theirplans!"
Thought flickered behind Doyle's rheumy eyes. He was the only human within Nighthawks ranks, and tended to be a touch old-fashioned. "Aye, well, they just shot Tommy Henderson—straight through the head.He'sdead."
Straight through...?"What type of bullet didtheyuse?"
Doyle paused. "Afirebolt."
Firebolts had been designed by the humanist faction before they overthrew the Echelon. Each bullet was filled with a mix of dangerous chemicals separated by a thin metallic layer. Upon impact the chemicals mixed, and the bulletexploded.
They'd been designed to kill bluebloods.
And maybe it was happenstance, but maybe itwasn't.
"Where'd the bullet come from?" she demanded, her mind racing. "Fromthemob?"
"I don'tseewhy—"
"Just bloody tell me," shesnarled.
"We don't know," Doyle replied abruptly, as though years of discipline inclined him to agree with a commanding tone. "Up high, Garrett thinks. Maybe one of them climbed a statue and used the height to pick off one of our own." A horrified expression crossed his face, and she realized he'd been there. He'd seen ithappen.
A single bullet designed to set off a chain reaction. She'd been naïve once—before she started working for the Duke of Malloryn—but she wasn'tanymore.
"I need to see Garrett." What were the odds the bullet hadn't come from the mob itself, but from some strategic vantagepoint?
Garrett was a patient man, and he had years of experience under his belt. The Nighthawks were trained to deal with combative forces, and had settled riots for years. They knew not toretaliate.
Unless they hadreasonto.
Unless emotion overruled them in the moment, and what better way to pit two forces against each other than to make one think the other had murdered one oftheirown?
"Hold the line!" someone bellowed, and it sounded like Charles Finch, the enormous weapons master of theguild.
"Please lay down your weapons," a voice said through a speaking trumpet, a desperate plea. "Disperse peacefully, or we will beforcedtodisbandyou."
Firelight reflected off the coppery hair in front of her—just a split-second glimpse she caught through the crowd of black-clad blue bloods.Garrett.
There.
If she was just fast enough to gettohim....
"Let me through!" Nighthawks jostled her on all sides. Ava pushed and shoved, earning startled looks before they saw whom it was and let herthrough.
Garrett gestured men into place, clad head to toe in strict black leather. Runnels of sweat slid through the sooty layer of grime on his handsome face. Every command came from him in a sharp staccato, as if he was holding the Nighthawks together by sheer forceofwill.
He saw her and paused, momentarily torn out of the melee around him. "Ava, what are you doing here?" heyelled.
"Don't suppress the mob!" she called back, staggering as the shield wall was pummeled by a wave of angry protesters and the horde of Nighthawks, in general, were forced body-to-body, crushing her a little. "Don'tretaliate!"
Some instinct made her look past him, as if her peripheral vision caught sight of something moving across the street. A curtain twitching in an upper story window. Something long and hollow staring directly at them, no,athim—
It clicked into place far too slowly inhermind.
"Garrett!" she screamed, and made a last frantic scramble to gettohim.
Maybe he saw it in her face. Maybe it was the tone of voice she used, but Garrett frowned and twisted back to look at what had caughthereye—
—and it was possibly the only reason the bullet that ripped through him took him in the shoulder, rather than the middle oftheback.
