Chapter 23 · A Dirty Deal

"Put him down, Vera. Now." The rifle pressed harder against the back of my skull, and the soldier behind me clicked off the safety.

Vera stood ten feet away with both hands raised. Her coat was torn at the shoulder, one cheek streaked with black dust. She looked at me first, then at the rifle, then at the small metal tracker clenched in her fist.

"You shoot him, you lose the only thing that can get us through the gate," she said.

The soldier laughed. "That thing is the reason the gate is closing."

I bared my teeth.

The rifle dug into me again.

"Do not," Vera snapped.

My head turned an inch. "Do not what? Let him shoot?"

The soldier shoved me forward. My claws scraped over the concrete. A chain wrapped around my chest pulled tight, biting through the patched leather strapped across my ribs. I could smell three soldiers behind me, two ahead, and one more hidden above the loading tunnel.

Too many guns. Too little room.

Pip was somewhere behind the stack of broken containers. I could hear his tiny breaths. Fast. Terrified.

Vera heard them too.