Brooklynn cocked her head, stepping over Delta’s limp body without a second glance as she kicked the gun out of her way. She sidestepped the blood that was pooling on the floor, coming from the wound in Delta’s forehead. “You’re kidding, right? You know you glow, don’t you? You’re pretty much the only thing I could see.”
I glanced down at myself. Of course. The glow.
She pushed past me, keeping me at her back as she held her own gun—one I hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying—
at the ready. “I saw someone else.” She tipped her head toward the classroom door. “Did he go in there?” she asked, and when I nodded mutely, she nudged the door open with the toe of her boot.
I felt like I should do something. Instead I just stood there, helpless. Immobile.
“Drop it!” I heard Brook’s unwavering voice call out.
The little boy’s coughs reached me then, from inside the room, and I realized the children were still in there. With an armed man. A cornered man.
I stepped closer, unable to stop myself, no matter how strongly I argued that I shouldn’t, that I should stay back . . . where it was safe.
I saw him then, the wraith of a man with the sharp features, a gun held to the side of Phoenix’s head. Still coughing on the thick smoke, the little boy’s eyes lifted when I peered through the doorway, and I wondered how I must look to him, to the children hiding there. Like a ghost. An apparition.
“Get away from me,” the man sneered at Brooklynn, lifting the child higher, holding him in front of his face and using his small body as a shield, leaving only his shins and his feet exposed, and giving Brook no kill shot. Still, I watched as Brook took another step closer.
“Move away from the door.” The man was no longer speaking in Termani but rather in Parshon as he tried to bargain with her. I’d never heard someone switch between the two languages before and it was disorienting. “Let me go, and I’ll release the kid.”
Brook’s eyebrow ticked up as she took a step sideways. I wondered what she was doing, what her plan was, because I was certain she must have one. Brook always had a plan. “Put the boy down and I’ll let you escape with your life,” she answered in Englaise.
He matched her pace. Each time she moved closer, he moved away. But every step seemed to lead him nearer to the doorway. Wasn’t that what the man wanted? Didn’t he just ask for her to let him go?
“I don’t believe you,” he hissed, foregoing Parshon now in favor of Englaise. “Your father said you were a liar. He warned us not to trust you.”
Brook stiffened, her face becoming a wall of ice. Impenetrable. Arctic.
And that was when I felt it . . . the hand on my shoulder.
Zafir must have been standing there for several seconds, watching as Brook herded the man closer and closer. Inching him nearer to the royal guard’s position.
He pushed me aside, and on feet so stealthy they made no sound at all, he slipped into the classroom.
Behind the wraithlike man.
And in one graceful motion, he wrapped his arm around the man’s throat while he buried his blade in the base of the man’s neck.
“Why didn’t you just shoot him?” I asked as I clutched the coughing boy to my chest. Zafir and Brook and I were moving as quickly as we could through the hallways, the other two children in tow. I worried about the boy in my arms. Carrying him was like carrying a bird; he was tiny and fragile, as if his very bones were hollow. His frail body spasmed each time he hacked and choked. I was sure the smoke had been too much for him.
It wasn’t just rubble that blocked our path now; there were bodies, too. It was hard to tell whether they were victims of the blasts or of Delta and her cohorts, but either way, they were a lethal reminder that we weren’t safe yet.
Zafir remained at my side. “I couldn’t risk harming the boy,” he answered.
As if on cue, the boy coughed into my neck, and I tightened my grip on him—a silent reassurance.
I thought about the fragments of skull and flesh I had yet to wipe from my face. “I was right behind Delta when you shot her. Weren’t you worried about me?”
On each side of her, Brook held a child’s hand—a girl and a boy. Unlike the boy in my arms, they were able to keep up easily, and I could see both sets of curious eyes shoot up to watch her.
“No,” she answered.
“No? Why not?”
“I guess I’m just better with my weapon,” she said, grinning at Zafir.
Zafir ignored her as he dragged me to a stop. Brook followed his lead, hauling the children into a nook at the end of the storage lockers. He lifted his hand, and we all understood what he meant: Be silent.
It was several seconds before we heard what he had, and I felt the boy’s fingers tangle into the hair at the base of my neck. I could hear his breathing—tiny, wheezing gasps—and I worried that he might cough again, might inadvertently give away our location. I steadied my own breathing, hoping his lungs might follow my lead, hoping my calm might somehow filter into him.
Rubble crunched coming from behind the heavy screen of smoke. It sounded like a thousand boots pulverizing the broken ceiling tiles beneath them.
Zafir gazed down at me, and I knew what he was looking at. With my skin the way it was, there was no way we could remain hidden. . . . Even if the boy didn’t cough. Even if we remained completely silent.
He stripped off his jacket then and draped it around me, covering as much of me as possible. . . . My arms and my hands. He buttoned it around the boy, too, closing it all the way to my neck. Then he took off his shirt and wrapped it around my head, concealing my hair and part of my face, until only my eyes were still visible.