"There’s Rogues here. I don’t think Lucien would approve." Vesperin’s lips were pinched, as though she didn’t mean to say that.
Rhyden’s red eyes tracked over the fence, searching for blind spots. If Rogues were on the other side, they’d have to be careful. He shook the fence, hearing it rattle, trying to test the Rogue’s proximity. A howl echoed, closer this time.
"I didn’t know your doctor owned you. I’m surprised you haven’t betrayed him, too." Rhyden held back a section of the fence, covering it with his arm. The jagged ends snagged on his leather jacket. He paused at the last second, reaching into hisjacket and feeling for his holster. He tugged free a smaller model of a gun—one of his. The glowing chamber was visible through the opaque grip. He tossed it to her. "Don’t fucking lose that. Shit was expensive. After you." He inclined his head to the hole in the fence.
Vesperin’s delicate fingers curled around the grip, the blue glow making her pale fingers gleam. "This is illegal!"
"Lower your goddamn voice," Rhyden hissed. "You didn’t have to come with me. Now go."
She held the gun at the ready as she ducked beneath his arm. He got a whiff of her soft cherry scent as she passed, the top of her head brushing against the leather of his jacket, and he wanted to fucking rip it off, feel her hair against his bare flesh, tangled in his fingers?—
"Are you coming?" she asked from the other side of the fence.
Rhyden followed, gun in hand.
Inside was a towered maze of ship scrap and stacked cars, blocking out the little light of the moon that struggled to break through the heavy fog.
Vesperin’s shoulders were tense, but he heard her even breaths.
"The others are goddamned fools for thinking you’re weak."
Vesperin glanced away from her careful perusal of the junk. "What?"
Rhyden shook his head, shouldering past her. Maybe he purposefully knocked into her a bit harder than he needed to. "From here on out, you do as I say. You can follow orders, can’t you?"
Her cherry red lips parted, an insult dripping from her tongue, but another Rogue howl cut through whatever she was going to say. Thundering footsteps sounded as though they were multiplied from the echoes of the metal maze.
His enhanced hearing allowed him to get a feel for more than Vesperin could. Her eyes were wild, on guard. Rhyden heard the footfalls break apart. Two sets.
Two Rogues.
Diverging, cutting apart to block them in.
Dammit.
He estimated about fifteen seconds before the Rogues were on them.
They grew closer.
Fourteen.
He held Vesperin’s eyes. "Go hide."
Eleven seconds.
"I’m not leaving." Her voice was firm.
Ten.
"It’s not because you’re weak, goddammit! You’re not! The Nova—I can’t protect you from them if you pass out." seven. "Go!"
Understanding fell over her face as she backed away to the tunnel formed between the fence and a stack of crushed, piled metal.
Rhyden turned back around just in time to see the two midlevel Rogues pounce into the small clearing before him. One skidded, falling to its side. The other tipped its head back and roared.
Shit. If the ones running the exchange didn’t know something was up, now they did.
Expertly, Rhyden swept out his right arm, aiming at the Rogue as he reached inside his jacket for the palm-sized gas bomb that he’d had cooked up—filled with enough siphoned Aether and other illegal chemicals to take down a horde of upperlevels. He pulled the pin and threw it. While still shooting, he tugged the mask up from below his chin to cover his nose and mouth.
