Silent Warrior by Lindsey Piper Page A

now.
    There were no words to describe his torture. Only Kawashima’s knowledge that the monster might be of value had kept him from exacting the ultimate vengeance.
    Silence used those resources against him. She was more determined. But she was running out of strength. It was seeping out her thigh and felt as though it was draining out her ears. This Indranan had killed his twin. She saw it as clearly as she’d witnessed Jawahar’s assault on Shiro Kawashima. Thirteen years old . . . a sword across his twin brother’s windpipe . . . death, followed by a surge of power that made Silence jerk from head to heel. To have one’s gift doubled with the single cut of a blade—unimaginable. Jawahar showed her exactly how that victory had crammed his mind with an insane amount of power and the eternal shrieks of his dead twin. Still a child but already insane.
    She would’ve taken more precautions had she known more about the beast she’d been dealing with.
    A little help.
    Hark’s voice in her mind was a ray of light. He hated the dark, and she wanted to know why. She wanted to know why he prattled on like a chickadee on speed. That meant getting him back to her whole and safe.
    All the baddies are toasted. I can’t see a Dragon-damned thing. I’m a rat in a maze here, blondie.
    She sank back against the floor, her hands still tight on the tourniquet, and found where Hark waded through the warren’s tight tunnels, cramped spaces, and almost imperceptible passages. She guided him back. Down the stairs. Into the basement. Only when she heard his breathing—heard it with her own ears rather than with her addled mind—did she open her eyes.
    The battle was done.
    He was standing over her.
    With both hands he held a napalm pistol. The barrel was aimed directly between her eyes.
    “Hark?”
    He looked pained, but his mind was closed off.
    Jawahar laughed. “There’s a cost for thieving. Thought there wouldn’t be consequences? Shoot her, you Sath piece of shit.”
    Hark’s arms trembled. Sweat beaded along his temples. A deep frown crumpled his brow. It looked wrong on his face. She wanted that maniacal, infuriating smile back. She wanted his Dragon-damned chatter, if that’s what it meant to have him free of Jawahar’s control.
    “She won’t die,” Hark gritted out.
    “No.” Another disgusting laugh. Silence knew that laugh from the foulest of Jawahar’s memories. “But I can’t imagine her being worth much with a napalm crater burning her skull from the inside out. The people here are starving. They won’t care whether they eat rats or a bitch of a Dragon King.”
    The grip Hark kept on the pistol’s handle was that of a man gripping a rope that dangled over a hundred-foot drop. He was holding on for dear life—for her life. “You’re dead next.”
    Out of the corner of her eye, Silence caught the captive’s shrug. “Don’t care,” Jawahar said. “She’ll be dead. I’ll be dead. And you’ll regret one a helluva lot more than the other. I wonder if a cold-ass bastard like you could walk away from that.”
    Rivulets of sweat rolled down Hark’s temples and curled the blond hair at his nape. His whole body shook. He wouldn’t miss at that distance, even though his arms trembled. “Get out of here,” he told her, his voice desperate.
    Yet until her body began to repair itself, she was hobbled by a bloody wound. She tried weaving through the telepathic hold Jawahar had on Hark, but it was like plunging her mind into guts and glue and garbage. The Indranan wasn’t refusing her access. He was just making it so repulsive that she couldn’t move forward. She hadn’t been raised from birth knowing how to control such a gift. Her gift was to know what to steal, when, and for how long.
    This wasn’t the right time. She’d get sucked into mire, and Hark would shoot her in the face with a napalm slug.
    She had nothing left except defending herself with what scant history they shared. And words.