Purple and grey smoke filled the air, fizzing. It obscured his vision, and he backed up until he felt the rattling fence press against his spine.
Two loud thumps as they both dropped.
It was dead quiet.
He raked his hand through the smoke, calling lowly, "Come out."
Metal groaned, and he felt her before he saw her.
Her voice was muffled through the mask. "So this wasn’t just to conceal my identity. You’ve got a lot of tricks up your sleeve."
"So do you," Rhyden said gruffly. The smoke had cleared enough to reveal the heaps of the dead Rogues. He held a hand up, crooking his fingers. "Let’s go."
Vesperin caught up with him, not keeping to his back, even as he tried to shove her behind him. "You want to protect me?" she teased.
"Don’t feel flattered."
Auren stared at the sizzling,popping electricity. The heat pressed against his skin, but he could not burn.
At the towering top of one of Lunar City’s control towers, Auren stood, wind tearing through his cloak from the height. He swayed, but his feet remained planted. He was immovable.
He had just reaped the Soul of the man who had perished, tumbling from the tower’s peak into a tangle of crisscrossing wires below. Electrocuted.
The tips of Auren’s boots hovered over the unguarded side of the tower. He stared down into the crackling nets. The man’s body lay face down, charred. Smoke curled from his limbs, carried up to Auren on the wind. The stench made him want toturn his head away. Instead, he stared out into the city’s skyline. Lunar City was gorgeous. It was undeniable, even with the crime that had tainted such a place, turning its splendor and attraction into a perverse echo of Solar City and its stunning brilliance.
Auren did not fear heights. Far from it. He found comfort in the solitude of being removed from those below. Most would freeze, envisioning falling to their death, bodies crushed against concrete. But he did not feel fear. Death evaded him. It was the one thing he could never have.
Kit pressedhis gloved hands to the chain-link fence, staring through the hole.
He growled and gripped the links, pulling them apart. Chains snapped. He threw them to the ground.
His breath came hard. It was too loud. He swallowed the sound, but his heart…
It was beating so fast. Kit pressed his right hand over his chest and felt the beats. More of an echo of a sensation, thrumming inside him. He pulled his hand away, curled his fingers into a fist, and stepped over the broken chains.
She was here. He felt it.
Rin layflat on her stomach in the rafters of the building, the concrete cold beneath her.
At the heart of the maze of junk had lain a decrepit warehouse. Only a few guards had lined the outside. She’d felt fear for only a second before Rhyden had fit a suppressor onto his gun and shot them with perfect aim.
It had been easy to break past their security. Even easier scaling the outside wall of the warehouse. Rhyden had helped her up first, letting her use his hands as a push-off point as he’d hoisted her up. His palms had lingered on her hips. She still felt the heat of his rings searing through the fabric of her clothes—always pleasant, never too much.
Now, they waited.
Voices carried from below.
Rin’s shoulder pressed against Rhyden’s as she watched a man with a dark briefcase speak with a guard.
Rhyden’s movements were precise and silent as he shed his leather jacket, revealing the tight black shirt, clinging to him from the harness’s snug fit on his chest. From his back, he produced a compact rifle, snapping it out into full form with a low sound. She held her breath.
Rhyden’s red eyes met hers. "Did you doubt me?" He spoke so quietly, she had to strain to hear him.
Rin shook her head, then realized that could be taken as a compliment, so she settled on rolling her eyes.
He set up the rifle against a block of concrete before them. She stared at the sleekness of the rifle; she’d never know looking at it that it had been small enough to be concealed at his back. She reached for it, gliding the tip of her finger over the side. The metal was warm from how it had been tucked against him. Her elbow knocked into his ribs, and he exhaled audibly.
"Stop trying to fucking distract me."
