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A tall shadow blocked out the afternoon sun. Carlos fisted his hands and pivoted to face the threat. Alex stood just out of punching range, scowling at him.
“Almost didn’t recognize you in your Lord of the Rings garb, but I don’t remember that Legolas dude compulsively popping his knuckles like you do.” Alex cocked an eyebrow. “What in the fuck are you doing here, anyway?”
“My job.” He turned back to face Mika’s tent. She’d gone in without any of her people moments before the Heralds Trumpet blew, sounding the start of Battle Ultimate. Another person might be cowering in her tent, worried about the dealer finding her, but not Mika. She was up to something.
“Try again,” Alex said.
“I can’t let her do this alone.” Mika needed him. Even if he couldn’t win her back, he could keep her safe.
“She’s not alone. Will and I have her covered.”
His smart watch vibrated. It was the motion detector outside her tent, but the movement recorded wasn’t someone breaking in, it was someone breaking out. Mika had ditched them. He could easily catch up on foot at this point, but then he’d blow his cover. She didn’t want him there, so to help her, he had to hide from her. That meant using his eyes in the sky.
“If you’ve got her covered…” Carlos pulled out his cell phone and opened up the facial recognition surveillance program. “Where is she?”
“Big-ass tent.” Alex sounded sure, but he was already reaching for the communicator worn in his ear Secret Service–style.
“Go look.” His thumbs flew across the phone’s tiny keyboard, adjusting the code so it would alert any time Mika was spotted. He’d follow from a safe distance behind. “I promise you, she’s not.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because she’s protecting her family, and she can’t do that with you on her ass.” Carlos watched his screen as he popped the knuckles on his left hand and waited for her trail to appear like digitized breadcrumbs on the Battle Ultimate map.
“We told her not to go off on her own.”
Carlos snorted. “You don’t know shit about women, Alex.”
“And you do?” Alex asked, incredulous.
“When it comes to Mika?” Smart. Stubborn. Impulsive. Sexy as hell. “I do.”
Alex shook his head and pressed the talk button on the earpiece. “Roscoe, meet me at the tent. She may have flown the coop.” Without another word to Carlos, he weaved his way through the crowd toward the tent.
Will and Alex had underestimated her. They’d looked at Mika in her geeky T-shirts and LARP paraphernalia and decided this was all there was to her, that she didn’t have it in her to do whatever it took to fight for those she loved no matter the odds. They were wrong—hell, he was wrong—there was more to Mika than seen at first glance. She was smart and brave and determined to protect those she loved. The only person she didn’t protect was herself, but that was now Carlos’s job, and if he had his way, it would be his permanent career.
Two white dots lit up on his screen, leading north from the Silver Queen’s tent.
His heart sped up. “Hold on, mi cielo, I’m coming.”
The Battle Ultimate took up the most wooded section of Central Square Park, but after years of Magic Battledome LARPing, Mika knew the twisted paths better than most. The leaves crunched under her feet as she turned off the path to make her way between the tall trees. The playing field’s eastern boundary lay a few hundred yards ahead. Activity tended to be limited in this area to avoid holding battles in the midst of mundanes. That made it the perfect spot to conduct business unobserved.
Treaties, secret alliances, and covert betrayals were negotiated in the borderland—and if she was right, so were drug deals. Really, it was a perfect cover. No one would look twice at a mundane who had drifted into the borderlands, and any mundanes watching would be too distracted by the over-the-top costumes and action to pay attention to what was going on right in front of their eyes.
She crested a hill. From that vantage point, she could see down the path marking the edge of the battlefield. Parents pushed children on swings at the small playground on the other side. Joggers passed by with their earbuds in. An old couple walked hand in hand down the path, oblivious to anyone but each other. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she surveyed the area as disappointment weighed down her limbs like she had anvils attached to her fingertips. She’d been so sure. This was supposed to be the end of the worry, of the looking over her shoulder, and of the ghosts of mistakes past. Her chest tightened, squeezing out the last drops of hope. Carlos wasn’t the only one looking for redemption and failing to find it.
A twig snapped, her breath caught, and she whipped around. Josh, one of her royal guard, stood two feet away in his silver armor, his face painted a dark purple. The air in her chest leaked out in a whoosh of relief. He must have seen her sneak away and followed, as was protocol.
“Josh, you scared the crap out of me.” She walked away from the border and back toward the battlefield. “Come on, let’s get back to the battle.”
He didn’t budge. “You shouldn’t have come to the borderlands.”
A warning buzz vibrated up her spine, but it didn’t make sense. Josh was one of her royal guards. He’d been one of the first to be attacked. Roger had left him with a sprained ankle that had given him a slight limp.
She jerked to a stop midstride. The masked drug dealer had favored his left leg. He’d spoken so softly that it had been hard to hear him over the panic rushing in her ears, but there had always been something familiar about his voice.
Her hand went to the hilt of her tachi sword, and she wrapped her shaking fingers around the leather-wrapped steel hilt. She raked her gaze over him, stopping at the pale scar at the base of his throat. She hadn’t opened the hen house door to the wolf; he’d been inside the whole time. Icy-cold certainty solidified in her veins.
“You.” She freed her blade, keeping her touch light and her footing steady.
