“Sure. Bring Elix to me, and I will.”
A guard rests the muzzle of his rifle on my temple. “Don’t push him. I do not hesitate.”
“I can always find another translator and another until—”
“We’re all dead?” I ask. “I don’t fucking care if you have whatever is behind that wall. I don’t want it. I don’t want any of Dad’s shit.”
“Good.”
“But you may want to know what this says,” I warn.
“Nope.”
“You’ll listen if you want to keep your head, fuck stick.”
He paces and growls as more guards form up behind us. “Just open it!”
“Whatever. It’s ancient Eshtint.” I approach the wall and read the message. “It says, ‘Those who are greedy will pay for their sins with their lives.’”
“An empty threat,” he says in denial.
“You’re an idiot for not addressing a threat, you know that?” I push in the blocks with the symbol of greed in the corner, and the door rushes with air.
“Greed—” I mutter, thinking to myself as the dust stirs in the hallway. “Greed is not humble. How does one survive without greed of some kind?” I scan the room, wondering where the trap is, what it is, and how I can avoid dying because of my brother’s recklessness.
“To be humble is to—”
I loathe my brother, but I still don’t want him killed for the sins of our father. Father corrupted him. If we’d stayed with Mom, he’d have had a chance to grow up to be the brother I used to know.
“Get down!” I shout, dropping to the floor and covering my head.
My brother gives me a wild look, then drops as wave after wave of spined arrows lance the air.
“You’ll have to crawl,” I say.
My brother points a gun at my face. “You go.”
I glance back but don’t see Elix or anyone else with us, just my brother and all of his guards.
I snake my way through the doorway under the arrows and find the shut-off blinking red inside the wall. There’s one more door inside. I can see it as the dust clears.
A muzzle presses against my head, and suddenly there are twenty men behind me, all dressed like the other guards.
“Want to run the gauntlet again?” Cazir asks, his gun swirling with light, igniter hot and ready to fire.
“Not really.”
“Open the last door.”
I walk up to it and see a pin code plus a palm scanner. “Do you know the pin?”
“Would I go to the effort to bring you here if I did?”
I walk up to the platform and find a tiny round hole in the wall facing me. It either has a camera in it or a tiny dart meant to kill me. I scan the area for other threats.I’m just a guinea pig.
I set my hand on the scanner, and Lock One blinks green. My father preferred to count down differently than others. With only four numbers, I make a guess. “Ten, nine, eight, one.”
The second lock turns green. Then a green bar swivels beneath my hand.
