COMPASSION
I SLAMMED THE door, locked the bolt, and spun around to find everyone gathered around ten black vehicles. “It’s Deborl.” My voice shook, but the words rang throughout the brightly lit guard station.
Stef swore and turned to the crowd. “Get ready to open the gate, but don’t leave until we know it’s safe. He could have shooters on the roof.”
People rushed into action as something thumped on the city-side door. Shouts rang throughout the guard station, orders and cries for help. The newsouls wailed at the sudden commotion.
Stef shoved a laser pistol into my hand. “Shoot anyone who comes through that door.” She grabbed Sam’s elbow and dragged him deeper into the guard station.
I clutched the pistol in both hands, staring at the rattling door for a few agonizing minutes before I realized there was no one there to shoot. Not unless I wanted to burn holes in the wood. Hands trembling, I shoved the pistol into my coat pocket and searched for something to block the door with. A desk or chair. Anything.
But guard stations were sparsely furnished. There was an armory—no doubt raided already by Whit and Orrin—and a stable for horses. Nothing useful there, but—
“We can block the door with bales of hay.” There were at least five other people by this door. We didn’t all need to be here. I turned to Aril, who stood near me. “Will you help?”
She looked up. “Bales of hay? Good idea.” She grabbed Thleen—a wildlife expert I’d only recently met—and we ran through a short, dark passageway and into the stables.
“Careful,” Thleen said. “There’s another entrance on the far side, where they let horses out to exercise.”
We slowed to a walk, listening as we came to a long row of stables. The din of our friends was behind us now. Ahead, there were only the sounds of horses snorting, shuffling hay around their stalls, and lapping water. The stables smelled warm and earthy, and a little like sweat.
“Bales are kept up there.” Aril motioned to a rickety staircase leading to a loft. Bits of hay floated down, but there was no wind, so why—
“Watch out!” I grabbed her arm and dragged her back into the passageway just as blue light flashed and a hole sizzled in the wall to my left.
Strangers appeared in the hayloft above the hall, lasers aimed. A handful leapt down to the floor level and shot toward the guard station.
My companions fired their weapons. Between shots, Thleen shoved me into a shallow alcove. My elbow slammed against the wooden wall, aching, and I looked up just in time to see her double over and clutch her leg.
But we weren’t alone. Our people rushed through the passageway, firing pistols. Horses screamed, and the odor of burning wood filled the area. Both sides collided, all wild and chaotic.
“Ana!” Sam’s voice rang above the cacophony. “Ana!”
I squeezed through the fighting, searching for Sam, but when I found my way back into the guard station, another group of Deborl’s people surged into the main chamber. Blue targeting lights lit the room. Glass exploded in one of the vehicles, and screams crescendoed.
I shouldn’t have left my post. Stef had put me by the door, and I’d left.
“There you are.” Deborl’s voice pierced the noise as he appeared in front of me, his laser aimed at my forehead. He was small, only my size and barely a year past his first quindec. He still had spindly arms and legs he hadn’t quite grown into, and though he might have been attractive in an awkward way, his glare and cruel smile destroyed that. “Nosoul.”
If I raised my pistol, he’d shoot. He’d shoot anyway. Words tumbled out of me. “We’re just trying to get out of Heart, okay? You win. You can have the city. Newsouls are leaving.”
He took two long strides and shoved me against the wall, his free hand around my throat. The edges of my vision fogged as I struggled to breathe, and my pistol slipped from my fingers. “I will kill every one of you,” he said. His pistol pressed against my shoulder. “You’re no threat to Janan. You aren’t. But you’re an annoyance to me.”
First Meuric, now Deborl. Janan’s Hallows needed so badly to convince themselves of my unimportance.
I jerked my knee up, between his legs. He stumbled backward, and the blue light from the pistol flashed. I gasped for breath as I dropped, fingers grasping for my pistol.
Beyond Deborl, the fighting had shifted, mostly in the passageway now, with my friends bottlenecked. They had us outnumbered, but we seemed to be winning anyway.
I gripped my pistol and stood just as Deborl righted himself, too. His face was still contorted with pain, and in his haste to stagger away from me, he’d dropped his pistol.
Pulse aching in my throat, I leveled my pistol at him and ordered myself to shoot.
Someone screamed near the exit.
Sam called my name again.