Page 176 of Mud

“Exactly.”

The roundabout, Refiq!I screamed in my head.The fucking roundabout!

Again, Taland grabbed me by the chin and came close enough to me so that our noses almost touched.

“Listen to me carefully, sweetness. We’re going to clean up and put our clothes on and run out of here faster than we’ve ever run before. That hailstorm isn’t going to last, and it’s looking like it will start any second. We only have a very,veryshort amount of time to find a dead bird. Do you understand me?”

I understood perfectly fine.

Less than five minutes later, we were out of the building and running toward the part of the city where the cloud had already begun to spit out ping-pong ball-sized hail.

Chapter 33

Rosabel La Rouge

Present day

It had most definitely worked, and far better than I could have possibly hoped. The hailstorm, that is.

Only its placement was wrong, and it had done exactly what I’d feared it would do if it happened in the streets of Night City. Exactly why I’d wanted that cloud where there were no buildings close by and dead birds would fall to the ground.

Some fell on the asphalt now, too.

As we ran with Taland, we saw at least four birds hitting the ground right before players snatched them and ran into the dark alleys. If we ran after them, they’d be done with the spell before we caught them, so neither I nor Taland bothered.

We just kept going closer and closer to the heart of the cloud that couldn’t be wider than forty feet, hoping a crow or a pigeon or even an owl fell somewhere nearby.

It didn’t.

The few birds that had been caught under the cloud, that hadn’t managed to get away before the big, heavy hail hit them, were all in some player’s hands by the time we made it to the middle. Taland had put a shield over the both of us so the hail didn’t reach us, only bounced off the magic he’d locked us under, and they really were big, bigger than I’d hoped.

Except no bird was around us anymore, but more players were. Five that I could see, half hidden in the shadows, some protected by magic from the hail, some using their hands as shields as they waited and waited in the dark street. No resident was in sight—they’d all gone inside, closed their doors, and turned their lights off.

It was just us and the storm, and I was too late.

Fuck!I’d been too far, and now I was too late, and that effort had been for nothing and?—

“There!”

Taland pointed his finger ahead.Upahead, and I looked just in time to see a small black shape falling fast.

On top of a three-story building, the smallest in the row, with two five-story ones at its side.

As if on cue, a dragon’s roar sounded from somewhere close by, too.

“We can’t make it,” I said, so angry I was seeing red, but…

“Trust me, sweetness—if anybody can, it’s us.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. I had no choice but to follow.

Everything around me was a blur. I couldn’t help but focus on the sound and size of the hail as it hit the magic over our heads. The other players were still waiting, stillwatching, screaming and cursing out loud—and the door to that building was in front of us way too soon.

“Arms up!” Taland called, and my body moved the same second. He released the shield he’d held around us and whispered his spell when we were still three feet away.

The door exploded right off its hinges two seconds later, and hail fell all over my body. It was heavier than I’d imagined, and it could kill me if it hit me in the head enough times.

Luckily, Taland grabbed my hand again and ran into the darkness inside the building the next second.

“Keep running,” he told me, and we followed the low lights dotting the old and cracked walls. We were in a narrow corridor that opened up a bit a few feet in, and there was a stairway to the right, and a door behind it to the left, from which two residents watched, half hidden by the frame.

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