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I tried to shake off the worst of its effects and stagger in the opposite direction but it was no use.
I thought I caught a glimpse of something, a bunch of somethings like gnarled old bones standing to attention at random spots throughout the wide-open space.
But before I could get a good handle on what I was looking at — and where I might possibly be — the little leader had seized me by the collar and hurled me back into the tiny makeshift room.
The fearful one hastily snatched the Orb up and clutched it to his chest as I fell into the table, which broke beneath my body weight.
The little leader fell upon me.
Despite his diminutive size, he was surprisingly heavy.
Dazed from my earlier crash, I tried to fight him off but it was no use.
I felt the cold kiss of a blade at my neck and immediately froze.
The little leader grinned — and it had never looked so evil. “And the best part is… no one even knows you’re here! You can scream as loud as you want and no one is ever going to come for you…”
I screamed and screamed as he cackled, tearing at my clothes.
7
ICOR
Layla’s tracker went dead.
One minute, she was there, and the next…
“Joruch?” I said, turning to the Chi with the scraggly beard and pinched expression. “Where is she?”
Joruch jabbed at the buttons on the terminal. “Your guess is as good as mine at this point.”
“Guess?” I snapped. “Guess? Since when were we in the business ofguessing?”
“Hey, hey,” Klem placed a hand on my shoulder that was meant to be comforting but I shrugged it off. “He’s doing his best. We’realldoing our best here.”
“It’s not good enough!” I snapped. “I called you guys so this stuffdoesn’thappen! If I wanted this shitshow, I would have called in the circus!”
Klem spread his hands. “It’s not like we’ve been in the game all this time. I haven’t been in touch with you guys since Fizz needed help with that thing in M’moa.”
If I didn’t get a handle on the situation soon, Klem was going to have all the others reminiscing about the old days and completely forget about the mission before us.
“Joruch,” I said. “Find Layla’s last coordinates and send them to the ground team. She can’t have just up and disappeared.Someonemust have seen where she got to.”
“Sending last-known coordinates now,” Joruch said, punching them into the computer’s system.
“Azzak,” I said into my wrist communicator. “Are you there?”
“We’re zeroing in now,” came the reply.
I shook my head, feeling totally useless.
How could Layla have disappeared?
And within my own city too?
This didn’t make any sense.
There wasn’t a piece of Enchor’s Heart I didn’t know of.
