Page 21 of Burdened Bonds
It’s a fucking good question, one I realize we’re fools if we don’t try and answer. If we’re going searching for Rhi, if we’re going to rescue her, we need to understand what we’re facing, who these enemies are and whether we have been beaten by them, or whether we beat them.
“I’m going to go and find out,” I say, changing direction, away from where the vehicle is parked on the driveway and towards the huge garage where I know the Kennedy family keep their collections of precious cars and, more importantly, fast motorbikes.
“What are you talking about?” Azlan says, clearly pissed. “We need to find Rhi.”
“And that’s going to be a lot easier if we know what the hell is going on, Azlan.”
Ash from the city flitters on the cold wind around us and the air stinks of smoke.
“Fine,” he says, “but I’m coming with you. You three,” he glares at Spencer, Winnie and Trent, “can go fetch the car.”
Spencer opens his mouth to protest just like Ellie did two minutes ago, but my friend can be fucking intimidating at the best of times; faced with the kidnap of his mate, he’s downright terrifying. “You need to take care of Winnie Wence.”
“Or you won’t be able to find my car,” Winnie reminds him.
Azlan shakes his head. “Because this girl is important to Rhianna.”
Winnie squirms with embarrassment but she also looks at my friend with a little more admiration than she did earlier this evening when she was calling us all shitheads.
“Go!” Azlan barks. “We’ll meet you at the Baker crossroads on the edge of the city.”
“But you don’t have a radio,” Winnie points out. “How will you contact us if anything happens to you?”
Azlan, my best friend and the authorities number one enforcer, smirks. “Nothing’s going to happen to us.”
And then he’s whistling towards the garage, beckoning out a motorbike for each of us.
As we soaralong the suburban streets of Los Magicos on our Kennedy motorbikes, I wonder what the hell we may be letting ourselves in for.
Barone wasn’t wrong. Apart from that recent battle with the assassin out there on the streets by the docks, my life’s been cushy and easy. Sure, the young people at the academy can be pains in the ass, but they’re not trying to break my neck or blast a hole in my skull. The only real challenge I’ve faced has been avoiding the unwanted advances of over-excitable girls.
But life wasn’t always like that. Once a thwack round the ear hole, a slap to my cheek, a fucking thrashing, was a daily occurrence as I was moved from one foster home to the next. My time as a student at the academy, despite the hard physical training and the occasional scrap with another kid, was a blessed relief. A moment to catch my breath before we were sent to the border for our service.
And now, here I am soaring straight into the midst of who knows what and all for that girl. That girl I love so fucking much I don’t know what I’ll be capable of when we meet the man who’s taken her.
For now, though, I need to focus on the task at hand.Find out what the hell is going on without getting ourselves killed.
Usually, with my best friend riding by my side I’d feel pretty damn confident that the odds were in our favor. But I can tell he’s as unhinged as I am, and I fear neither of us is capable of making the correct or sensible decision right now.
The closer we near the center of the capital, the more damage there is to the city. But it’s not as bad as I feared, not as devastating as I imagined. In fact, the wreckage is contained and limited, most of the damage directed at the council building, now a smoldering shell, its glass dome shattered, its great white pillars cracked and broken, the flag that once flew from its top tattered and black, buffeted by the blowing smoke.
It’s eerie. There are no soldiers here any more, no battle raging. The fighting is over. The streets are deserted.
Azlan points towards the council building and we fly that way, finding the gates are no more, the metal melted and disintegrated into the ground, the grand front doors blown in and the interior dark despite the gaping hole in the building’s roof.
“Where the hell is the chancellor?” Azlan growls. “Where the hell is my father and my uncle? Where the hell iseveryone? This doesn’t seem right.”
“It feels fucking bizarre. You think they surrendered?” I ask. Is that why the attacking forces retreated at the academy? No need to keep fighting if our nation had already capitulated.
“No,” Azlan says. “They’d fight to the bitter end.”
As we sit debating, a senior commander comes marching through the battered doors of the council building, flanked by a troop of soldiers, all armed. They’re dirtyand battered, their uniforms hardly discernible, and it takes me a moment to deduce that they are not the enemy. They are men from our side.
The commander spots us at the same time as his men, and they all raise their weapons.
“Hey you there! Enforcer,” he yells, “all men have been commanded to report in for further instructions.”
“Where are the attacking forces?” Azlan yells back.
