Page 322 of Seer Prophet

It was softer than anything she’d heard from that sector in the last few minutes, but weirdly loud in the quiet that both preceded and followed it. Chandre almost turned her head a second time, but movement in front of her brought her eye abruptly back to the scope.

The robed figure strode forward.

Without looking at anything around him, he aimed his feet for the cages, in the direction of where Chandre just heard thatthunk.Through the scope, she saw his skull-like face set in an expression so furious, her breath stopped, and not only for the shot.

He made it a few more steps before she drew a bead on him.

She followed him a few paces more, to be sure she had the exact speed of his legs. Then, holding her breath for real, she stilled her whole body?

?and fired.

She knew, even before she finished squeezing the trigger.

Even so, she didn’t raise her head from the infrared scope until she saw the spray of blood. She watched it plume out from the opposite side of his head, jerking his upper body sideways, as if he’d been hit hard by a blunt object.

Miraculously, he didn’t fall.

Regaining partial verticality, he stood there, head and shoulders tilted. His chest heaved a few times through the black cloth, his foot jerking him forward a step.

Then, without fanfare, he crumpled to the cement floor.

Chandre checked it through the scope, then with her physical eyes, just to be sure, but didn’t waste time beyond the initial confirmation. Opening her light to let the signal flare, she emitted one, strong blast to brothers Wreg and Balidor on the other side of that line.

Then she returned her eyes to the scope.

A group of black-clad infiltrators gathered over Menlim’s body, staring down.

Lining up the reticle on the first of the five heads, Chandre squeezed off a shot. Without pausing, she moved the grid lines to the next head in that row, even as those heads turned, eyes aiming in her direction, infrared goggles shining at her through the rifle scope.

She didn’t wait that time, either.

Squeezing the trigger, she lined up her sights again.

* * *

“Help me, Terry!”I snapped at him, still fighting to see past the blood dripping down my face. “Help me move him! We need him behind cover!”

I’d dragged Revik’s body halfway to the barred cages on my side of the aisle, but he was damned heavy. Also, I was battered to the point where I could barely walk, and I was wearing the most impractical shoes imaginable for dragging unconscious husbands across cement floors in the middle of a firefight.

Terian walked up to me willingly enough.

Not even bothering to duck to keep out of the way of stray bullets, he gripped Revik’s other arm. Around us, Jax, Chinja, Stanley, Tenzi and Anale continued to fire at black-clad infiltrators from behind crates on either side of the wider aisle. I saw Surli load a new magazine next to two Terian bodies, the one that looked like Revik and the Arabic-looking one, both of whom I’d forgotten about since we got here.

They were firing on the black-clad soldiers, too.

Between me and Terian, we got Revik behind a low cluster of crates.

I’d already checked his head?and his pulse.

He wasn’t bleeding as much as me, but he had a massive lump on the back of his head that scared the hell out of me, even beyond how little I could feel of his light.

“You better not have killed him,” I snapped at Terian, fighting to control the fear that wound through my light. I crouched next to him again, caressing his face, feeling his skin and throat under my fingers, reassuring myself he was still alive.

Terian chuckled, gesturing in the negative when I looked up.

“Young love. It is so fickle.”

Looking up long enough to scowl at him, I tried to find it funny, but couldn’t.

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