“Dad wouldn’t want the blades if they weren’t important,” Blake replied. “Once we have the weapons, we can wipe out all the other Families. Then this town will belong to the Draconis, like it should have all along.”
Blake let out a low, ugly laugh. The sound made my skin crawl.
“I know what warehouse he’s talking about,” Deah whispered in my ear. “It’s on Copper Street, not too far from the lochness bridge. Dad uses it to store T-shirts, sunglasses, and other cheap souvenirs to sell to the tourists.”
I nodded. I knew the warehouse she was talking about. It was one of the few buildings in the bad part of town that still occasionally had guards patrolling outside—enough guards that even I had never dared try to break inside. It would be the perfect place to hold Claudia, Mo, and the rest of the Sinclair hostages.
“Let’s go,” I whispered. “We need to get back to Devon and Felix and tell them what we found out.”
Deah nodded, and we both walked around the opposite side of the fudge cart. We’d just rounded the corner and were about to head over to one of the cobblestone paths when a couple of guys stepped in front of us. I managed to avoid them, but she spotted them a second too late.
“Oof!” Deah slammed into one of the guys going the opposite direction and bounced off his broad, muscled body.
“Watch where you’re going,” a low, familiar voice growled.
I froze, my breath hissing out between my teeth. Because Deah had just run into the very last person either one of us wanted to see right now.
Blake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I hoped that Blake would just keep on walking, but of course he stopped, turned around, and glared at the person who had dared to run into him.
“I said watch where you’re going,” he snapped again, obviously waiting for some sort of apology.
“I—uh—um—” Deah sputtered, completely at a loss for words.
“Sorry! My friend is so sorry!” I said, pitching my voice light and high in hopes that he wouldn’t recognize me. “She just didn’t see you standing there!”
I stepped up to grab Deah’s arm and pull her away from him, but Blake moved to the side, blocking me without even realizing it.
His face twisted into a sneer as he stared at her T-shirt. “That’s the stupidest shirt I’ve ever seen. What kind of idiot wears a shirt for a barbecue restaurant?”
Deah dropped her head, but Blake leaned forward, trying to see her face underneath her baseball hat. He frowned, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. Then his eyes widened as he realized that he was staring at his own sister.
“You!” he hissed, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. “You’re alive! You got away from the lochness after all! Guards! Guards!”
He yanked his sword free of his scabbard. Time to go. I stepped up, shoved my shoulder into Blake’s, and sent him staggering back. Then I grabbed Deah’s hand and pulled her away from her brother.
“Run!” I yelled at her. “Run! Run! Run!”
Together, Deah and I sprinted through the Midway, darting around people, food carts, and more. Behind us, loud curses rang out, and I could hear footsteps pounding on the cobblestone walkways as Blake and the Draconi guards chased after us. Even worse, Blake kept screaming for more and more guards the whole time.
And they answered his call.
We were still in the Draconi section of the Midway, and guards wearing blood-red cloaks and matching cavalier hats started converging on us from all sides. And since we were the only people running like our lives depended on it, we were easy to pick out of the crowd, especially with the neon-blue T-shirts and baseball hats we both still wore. Our disguises were useless now, so I ripped off my hat and tossed it aside. Deah did the same with her hat, but there was nothing we could do about our shirts.
My gaze darted left and right as I looked for some sort of escape route or at least a place to hide. But I didn’t see anything. Just people and food carts and Draconis closing in from every direction.
A guard came up on my right side, swinging his sword over his head. I let go of Deah’s hand, went low, and drove my shoulder into his stomach. The guard let out a loud oof! of pain and doubled over. I grabbed his sword out of his hand and whipped around. Deah had disarmed another guard, so she had a sword now too. She gave me a grim nod and the two of us started running again.
I’d always known how big the Midway was, how many acres it covered, but it seemed as though we would never reach the end of it, even though Deah and I were both sprinting down the cobblestone paths as fast as we could. People stared as we ran past, wondering who we were and why we were interrupting their vacation fun.