Chapter 10 · Surrounded

Anna's hand stayed raised while twelve rifles aimed at Mika's chest.

"You destroyed everything," Anna said. She slowed each word down. "Do you hear me? Everything."

"Your mother did that." Mika kept her shaking hands behind her back. "Not me."

"She's your mother too." Anna's mouth pulled tight. "Or did you forget?"

Cade stepped in front of Mika. His boots scraped over broken concrete, and his injured arm hung uselessly at his side.

"Anna." Blood ran from his sleeve to his fingertips. "Call them off."

She laughed once. "You're bleeding through your shirt and still giving orders?"

"I'm asking."

"No, you're pretending." Anna turned her head. "Front line. On my word."

The rifles shifted with a hard click.

Mika counted them anyway. Twelve barrels. Twelve chances to die. Her hands held no charge now, no clean spark, nothing she could throw at them. Only the pulse in her wrist and Cade's back blocking the worst of it.

"Don't," she said. "Whatever you think you're doing, don't do it in front of him. He didn't choose the Bond."

"I know." Anna moved closer. Ash clung to her coat.