She goes still.
I can only see the dark, furious glitter of her eyes meeting mine. I can’t speak, too winded, too shell-shocked. Slowly, she lifts her hands, palms out. Surrender.
I want nothing more than to collapse in the mud. But I can hear the shouts of soldiers looking for intruders, hunting for the source of the gunshot. I’ve got no time. I need to get her to my currach—if I leave her here she’ll be found too quickly and I won’t have enough time to vanish into the swamp.
I give the gun a jerk, silently ordering the soldier to her feet. I stagger up myself, then grab for her arm to turn her around and twist it behind her back. I rest the barrel of the gun against her lower spine, where she can feel it.
My fingers are wet and sticky with her blood, but it’s too dark to tell how much there is. I know I hit her; I saw her fall. But she’s on her feet, so the wound isn’t slowing her down that much. I must have only grazed her side with the bullet.
I try to calm my breathing, listening for the soldiers. Getting off the base is going to be a hell of a lot harder now; I wish I had time to camouflage myself with the mud at our feet. Her skin’s brown and more difficult to see in the low lighting, but mine’s the pale white that comes from living on a planet with constant cloud cover. I practically glow in the dark.
“Well?” She’s panting. “What’s it going to be? You could at least have the decency to aim for my heart and not my head. I’ll look prettier at my funeral.”
“There’s something very wrong with you, Captain,” I tell her, keeping her close. Her black hair’s escaping her ponytail, tickling my face and getting into my eyes. “You don’t invite a thing like that around here.”
“As if you need an invitation,” she growls, and though she’s completely still, I can almost feel her humming with anger. I can’t let her go. She’d never let me go. She shoves back roughly, sending pain spearing down my leg.
I shift my grip on the gun, letting it press against her a little harder.
It was easy to get the new recruits talking, but their security clearance is way too low to have any useful information. But trying to get close to Captain Chase for information was another matter entirely. What was I thinking? Sean would laugh if he could see me now: the Fianna’s biggest pacifist holding Avon’s most notorious soldier at gunpoint.
“I’ll recognize your pretty face anywhere now, you know that.” There’s a smug satisfaction in her tone, underneath her anger. Like winning the point is what matters, even if it means she ends up dead. “You have to get rid of the problem.”
“Póg mo thóin, trodaire,” I mutter, tightening my grip. Kiss my ass, soldier.
Captain Chase lets off a string of what sound like insults in return, though I don’t understand the language. She doesn’t look like she’s got any Irish in her, probably has no idea what I said. But she recognized my tone, as easily as I can tell she’s cursing right back at me, speaking…Chinese, maybe? She looks like she might have that ancestry in her blood somewhere, but with the off-worlders it’s hard to tell. She gives a savage twist and then gasps as the movement wrenches at her wound. It’s lucky I managed to graze her, because I wouldn’t be able to keep hold of her otherwise. She’s even stronger than she looks.
My mind races. This isn’t over yet, and I can still turn it to my advantage if I think quickly. The recruits in the bar may not have known about the hidden facility to the east, but now I have a captain, and one who’s been on Avon longer than any other soldier. Who better to get me that info than the military’s golden child?
That facility scares me too much to ignore. Until I saw it a few hours ago, I’d never clapped eyes on it. I don’t know how they hid the construction. It appeared out of nowhere, surrounded by fences and spotlights. From the outside, there’s no way to tell what’s in there: weapons, new search drone technology, ways to destroy the Fianna we haven’t thought of. Until we know why the facility is there, every minute is danger.
I give her a shove and start moving toward the perimeter of the base, keeping to the shadows and away from the surveillance cameras. “Ever seen the beauty of the outer swamps?”
“I suppose out there they won’t find my body at all. Smart.”
“Does your platoon’s psych attendant know about this obsession with your own death?”