At least the city was more crowded here.
Yeah, but it’s hard to melt into them while your coat’s lying on top of your sister.
ht="0em" width="27">True. Without its camouflage, his weapons were out and visible. Something that caused the people around him to cringe, scream and flee as they saw his short-sleeved armored shirt that was covered with light bombs, ammunition clips, four blasters (in addition to the one in his hand), his rappelling gear and all the other “just in case” things he carried in addition to his backpack. Leather straps crisscrossed both of his arms from wrist to biceps.
Badass came at a price and today that price just might be his freedom.
Or his life.
He ran with the crowd which panicked the innocent people even more—no doubt because they were afraid he’d take one of them hostage.
As if. The only life he gambled with was his own.
The Enforcers flanked them, trying to get an aim on his head which he kept low. He could hear from the earwig he had tuned to their frequency that they were setting up blockades around the city.
But that wasn’t what concerned him…
They had a Trisani tracker with them that they were about to drop in on the chase.
Damn.
Unless it was Nero, he was a dead man. Trisani had psychic powers that pretty much no one except another Trisani could fight. Nero could actually get into someone’s head, shut down all brain activity and, if he was really pissed, melt it and leave his vic a vegetable, sucking his thumb on the floor.
Luckily, Nero was one of Caillen’s few friends and no matter what they might have paid him, Nero wouldn’t bring him in.
He hoped.
Every life has a price…
And he knew that better than most.
Caillen felt the fissure of power as the Trisani stepped out of a transport and eyed the crowd, reading them as he sought Caillen’s position.
Yeah it wasn’t Nero… He’d never seen this tracker before.
Shit.
Caillen slowed as he saw the dark blond man with sharp features dressed all in black. Curling his lip as he locked gazes with Caillen, the tracker sent a plasma blast at him that barely missed his head. It ignited then exploded the transport behind him.
Hope no one was in that. Otherwise they were having a worse day than he was.
Caillen pulled out another blaster and opened both up all over the tracker. But the bastard threw up a force field to block it.
“I hate the Trisani.” No wonder most of them had been hunted down to a small handful. At the moment, he’d like to add one more to their extinction list.
But that was all right—he still had tricks up his sleeves. Literally. He holstered his right blaster and jerked a light bomb off the chain. He lobbed it at the Trisani and then followed it with a pulse grenade.
The light temporarily blinded the Trisani and the pulse exploded against the force field. Even though it didn’t break through it, it was enough to send the Trisani reeling backward.
Yeah, don’t screw with someone whose closest friend was an explosives engineer renowned for making the best toys in the universe. Darling lived and breathed for one purpose only. Making shit blow up.
Before the Trisani could recover, Caillen ducked into the next alley.
Which was crawling with Enforcers.
Damn. Damn.
Double damn.
Grinding his teeth in frustration, he turned to head back to the street.
He couldn’t. They’d closed in on him and the air transport was directly above with snipers taking positions on the building’s roof.
“Surrender!”
Ah now this was just galling.
“Lay down your weapons!”
That was easier said than done. He was covered in them. Took him two hours to get all this gear on…
Only thing that could induce him to take it off fast was a hot naked woman in his bed, clawing at his back. Definitely not one of those here and he had no interest in being defenseless with this much artillery pointed at him.
A warning blast shot over his head.
“The next one will be right between your eyes.” Targeting lasers let him know exactly what they were aiming for. Honestly it wasn’t the one at his forehead that gave him pause as much as the one at his crotch.
“Put your hands behind your head!”
Caillen frowned. “If I put my hands behind my head, I can’t drop my weapons, people. Someone needs to make up their mind here. What do you want me to do and in what order?”
“Drop the weapon in your hand, then put your hands behind your head!”
He did as instructed.
They moved in closer.
Yeah, come to Papa, baby. Closer… closer…