Not smart enough.
I ducked under the fourth's swing and drove my blade up through his ribs, feeling it punch through muscle and cartilage to find the soft organs beneath. Used his falling body as a shield against the fifth's attack, catching the blade meant for my heart on his corpse instead. Then I was inside his guard, my blade finding the soft spot beneath his jaw, driving up into his brain.
The sixth one ran, his nerve breaking as he watched his companions die in less than thirty seconds.
I let him go.
He wasn't important. He wasn't the one I wanted.
But the fight had cost me. My shoulder screamed with every movement, blood loss making my vision swim at the edges. My left arm hung useless now, the nerves frozen by the blaster shot. I felt my strength draining with each heartbeat, pooling on the warehouse floor in dark crimson puddles.
Hewes was backing toward the ship, his blaster swinging wildly between me and Merrilee, his movements jerky with panic.
"Stay back! I'm warning you!"
I started forward, but my legs weren't responding right. The world tilted, and I had to catch myself against a support beam, leaving a bloody handprint on the rusted metal.
Too much blood loss. Too many injuries stacked on top of each other.
My body was finally giving out.
Merrilee saw it. I watched her eyes widen, watched her calculate the distance between Hewes and me, between her and him, between all of us and that ship.
She was thinking. Planning.
My brilliant, tactical mate.
"Declan," she said, her voice soft but commanding. "Look at me."
Hewes's attention snapped to her, the blaster tracking with his gaze.
"You don't want to kill me," she continued, urging Starfield forward slowly, deliberately, drawing his focus. "I'm worth more alive. You know that. You've always known that."
"Don't—" I tried to warn her, but my voice came out weak, breathless.
She ignored me, her eyes locked on Hewes.
"I have information," she said. "Alliance codes. Security protocols. Information that would make you untouchable."
Hewes's finger eased slightly on the trigger. "You're lying."
"Am I?" She tilted her head, and I saw it—the mask she'd worn for eighteen months, the spy who'd fooled an entire space station. "You think I only gathered what you asked for? I kept copies. Insurance. Hidden where only I can find them."
It was a bluff. But it was a good one, delivered with perfect conviction.
Hewes's eyes narrowed, calculation warring with panic. "Where?"
"Let him go, and I'll tell you." She gestured toward the ship. "I'll give you everything—codes, protocols, shipping routes, diplomatic schedules. Everything."
"Merrilee, no—" The words tore out of me. I pushed myself forward.
"Shut up!" Hewes swung the blaster toward me, his hand steadying with renewed purpose. "You're the problem. You've always been the problem. She was mine until you—"
He fired.
I tried to move, but my body wouldn't respond fast enough. The blast caught me in the chest, just left of center, and the impact drove me backward into the support beam.
The world exploded into white-hot agony.
