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Kira took a few steps closer. “You’re probably getting off on this whole thing, aren’t you, Callista?” she spat.
The crowd below grew silent, desperate to hear what we were saying. Glancing back, I saw that even the operatives had stopped arguing and were staring up at us.
Kira gestured to the four men. “You’re thriving off all the drama and trying to make yourself look good. The sole judge and jury of these poor men.”
Callista, visibly regaining her composure, swept a hand at the acolytes. “These men have created these problems. You yourself said—on live TV—that this war is caused by their wanton disregard for society.”
Raising her voice to make sure everyone could hear, Kira said, “We cannot allow these men to have their minds ripped apart by a psychic. We can’t even see what she’s seeing. For all we know, she could be lying. These men deserve a fair trial.” Kira pointed a finger toward the sky. “Before that, Heline herself needs to admit whether or not these acolytes actually messed up. That needs to happen before anything else.”
The crowd stirred at her words, and at the fact that we were alive when everyone still believed we were dead.
Callista lifted a hand to her ear. “Do you hear that, Kira? They’re all asking the same question I am. Why would you halt these lawful interrogations when you were the one who demanded their blood? You said they needed to be punished.”
“Wrong!” Kira shouted. “I said the ones who were guilty needed to be punished. Big difference.”
Callista shook her head derisively, swatting a hand toward us as if shooing a fly away. “Security! Get these two out of here. We have things to do.”
Confusion rippled through the crowd as armed security guards pushed through and thundered up the stairs. Tranquilityoperatives, and not the same ones who’d been escorting us. These had patches on their uniforms showing they were loyal to the Third Pack.
The first to the top of the stairs was met with my boot in his face, shattering his nose and sending him tumbling backward, taking two of the others with him. The dry cracks of breaking legs and arms were punctuated by screams of pain as the three men fell in a tangle off the side of the stairs.
Shouts of shock shuddered through the crowd, and when the next guard crested the stairs, he was warier. I didn’t recognize these men, which was good. I didn’t want to beat the shit out of someone who’d been my comrade in arms.
A fist struck out toward my face, and I pivoted, grabbing the offending wrist. Yanking the wrist down, I simultaneously exploded upward and slammed my shoulder into the elbow joint. The joint snapped, bending the wrong way. My eardrums rattled with the injured man’s bellowing screams. I shoved him back, and he fell down the stairs, his head bumping on each step. The whole way, he clutched his ruined arm and shrieked in pain.
By the time I turned to check on the last two operatives, Kira had already taken care of them. One lay on his back, bloody face slack and unconscious. She had the final operative in a headlock, and I watched the light go out of his eyes as she put him to sleep. He thudded to the wooden stage, and the sound of his skull bouncing on the wood had a strange finality to it.
More murmurs from the crowd. This time, a combination of shock and awe at how easily we’d dispatched the operatives. Kira and I were the best the council had ever trained. There were maybe a dozen other operatives in the entire organization who equaled our skills. These men were nothing. Not even enough for us to break a sweat. The crowd saw that these proceedings were not going to go the way they thought it would, and they were scared and excited all at once.
Callista laughed and clapped her hands. “Wonderfully done.” She turned to address the crowd. “What a wonderful surprise. The two most controversial contestants in the history ofThe Reject Project, here to show off their skills. I’m very happy you two could join us.”
She did her best to play this off as part of the show, but the look in her eyes told the real story. She was horrified, and furious, that our corpses weren’t rotting on Bloodstone Island.
“Now, I know that the two of you, especially Kira, love attention, but I have work to do. These men need to pay for ruining thousands of lives. If you would be so kind, go back down the stairs and leave me to this.”
“Not happening,” I hissed. “We aren’t leaving these people to be tortured when we have no idea if they’ve done anything wrong.” My anger boiled over as I leveled a finger at Callista. “There are laws against aggressive psychic torture that you are obviously breaking. Plus, everyone knows that the information gleaned via psychic manipulation is tenuous at best. All we have to go off is your word, and I can’t say that I find that trustworthy.”
Callista blinked rapidly and put a hand to her chest. “You dare besmirch my honor?”
I decided to ignore what I thought was a ridiculously self-evident answer. “Kira is right. We shouldn’t be looking to the acolytes for answers. We need to start at the top. Heline should be answering for these crimes against shifterkind. If Heline gave even a rat’s ass about these acolytes who have dedicated their lives to her, then she would not be letting these people take the fall for what is possibly her fault. Can anyone here truly believe that these connections could be wrong without Heline knowing? The goddess in charge of them? Ask yourselves that.”
An unsettled rumble of unease. The people in the crowd were clearly considering my words and understanding the logic. Theyweren’t stupid. Rich, privileged assholes, yes. But not stupid. Kira looked at me and gave me a smile and reassuring nod.
Callista’s eyes flicked toward the sea of people surrounding us, and a hint of fear marked her face. No longer content with murmuring, shouts rose up from the surrounding shifters. Angry and demanding. The rich were used to getting what they wanted when they wanted it. They now called out for Heline to show herself and take the stand on this stage to defend the accusations.
Fear turned to panic on the psychic’s face, and she pulled a small device from her pocket. Callista spoke several rapid words into the device, too low for my shifter hearing to pick up. The crowd grew ever more restless and began to pelt stuff onto the stage—wads of paper, half-empty cups, water bottles, and more. This was taking a turn for the worse quickly, far faster than I’d thought. Similar to how Kira’s speech at the mansion had started the war, my accusations against Heline had sparked something else in these people. A desire for the truth.
Moments after Callista used the device, dozens of Tranquility operatives, Fangmore City police, and what looked likeThe Reject Projectcorporate security flooded the city street, dispersing the crowd with threats, shoves, and tasers and non-lethal magic weapons. The moment these new arrivals showed up, the hovering cameras shut down and flew off to wherever they were housed.
With the cameras off and the crowd being herded away, Callista let the television facade slip away. Turning a baleful glare at us, she said, “You two annoying little shits had to show up now?” The vitriol in her voice was shocking to hear, even to me.
“Yes,” Kira said, not backing down from the other woman. “To save innocent people? Of course.”
“Are you really this stupid?” Callista asked, pointing toward the four tied-up men. “If I’d been allowed to execute these acolytes, it might have appeased the warring packs and stopped this meaningless war. Once all the old acolytes were killed, we could install new ones in Heline’s temples, and then everything would have gone back to normal. Now, you’ve screwed it all up.” Callista took several angry steps toward us, baring her teeth like she was a shifter instead of a psychic. She jabbed a thumb into her chest. “If you hadn’t interfered, I would have been a hero. The woman who ended the shifter war. All you two did was make me look like an idiot.”
“You didn’t need us for that,” I said, the words falling from my lips before I could stop them. “Only an idiot or a psychopath would condemn innocent people to death without a fair trial.”
The fury on her face only got worse, warping the once-beautiful visage into something that was probably closer to the twisted and insolent person she really was underneath.
