“I—I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Yassen.”
Fear swept through Yassen, cold and savage. “What do you mean youcan’t? Samson, youmust.”
Another prisoner screamed and dashed out, swerving right. Swearing, Yassen tracked him. He could see the man’s head perfectly centered in his viewfinder. This man was somebody’s son, likely a brother and father. He could have been a decent man. But Yassen knew how Akaros took his time, how he would stretch the pain until a single needle prick became excruciating. He couldn’t allow Samson to suffer like that.
His shot had been clean. The body had crumpled, legs folding beneath it as if made of string, not bone. When Yassen exhaled, his heartbeat thundered in his ears. His whole body trembled. For he understood in that moment, in the split second when the bullet ripped the man’s consciousness out of his body, that it also tore a part of him—a part he could never mend.
The other recruits found their targets. Only one prisoner remained, and she ran for the hills. Yassen shook Samson, who lay frozen. Even his grip was slack.
“Samson, please,” Yassen begged, but Samson did not move.
And so Yassen had wrenched his gun away from him and shot the prisoner. Two kills, his very first. Later, he had tried to convince Akaros that Samson had taken the shot, when their handler had checked the empty chamber. But Akaros knew.
“Don’t,” Samson had said when the handler had moved to grab Yassen. “Let me take his punishment as well. It was my fault.”
“Howcourageousof you,” Akaros said, the word curdling in his mouth.
Samson was whipped twenty times. Ten for him, ten for Yassen; all the recruits had to watch. Yassen did not remember if Samson had cried. He only remembered how, when they had returned to the barracks, Samson, addled by drugs for the pain, had whispered something in the dark.
“She reminded me of my sister.”
In all the time he had known him then, Yassen had never guessed that Samson had siblings.
“It’s all right,” he had whispered back as Samson held his hand. “They’re all dead. They don’t suffer anymore, Sam.”
It had been a terrible thing to say. He was not one who knew how to comfort, but Samson had fallen asleep then, mostly due to the painkillers. But that night, Yassen had made an oath to himself. To never kill, unless needed. And never to kill a man who had no weapon.
But he had broken that oath the day he went to Veran.
Raindrops hit the windowpane, and Yassen jumped. Samson went to the window and opened it again. A gust of fresh air—that raw, grainy scent of wet sand—filled the room. Yassen felt the cold touch of raindrops on his burnt skin.
“There isn’t anything like a desert storm,” Samson said.
Yassen flexed his fingers. “I can still fight,” he said.
“I know you can. But I wonder if this kind of fighting will kill you.”
“I’ve been through worse,” Yassen replied. He tried to sound nonchalant, but his hand trembled, and he curled it into a fist to stop the shaking.
“There’s an Arohassin agent on your list that we want to bring in,” Samson said. “She operates in Rani, out in the southern district.”
“I’ll do it,” Yassen said. “I can bring her in.”
In the fading light of the sunset, Yassen saw Samson’s shoulders slump. His head bowed. After a moment, Samson turned and met his gaze.
“If she doesn’t check out, they’ll kill you on the spot.”
Yassen nodded, but he knew Samson had more to say. He could see the words in his eyes, could read them in the way he clutched the windowsill. “Is there anything else?”
“Just…” Samson smiled, soft and small, the same smile he had had when they were boys. “I’m glad you’re here. Alive. You’re tougher than a fucking mountain, Yassen, and I should know. I’m trying to drill into one.” He laughed.
“Well, trying to survive while Akaros breathes down your neck has that effect,” he said.
Samson’s smile wavered. Guilt, dark and silent like a cat, stalked across his face. But Yassen knew he would not apologize. Samson never did. He was horribly obtuse when it came to apologies, either too ashamed or too prideful, and when Samson had escaped and not come back, Yassen had been furious. So furious. But when Akaros had offered for Yassen to hunt down his former partner, that fury had dissipated. Because there was one thing he had admired in Samson above all else.
His loyalty.
He was an idiot when it came to apologies, but he was fiercely devoted and protective of his men.
