Tristan might have been as well. He stood beside Frank’s and Dice’s bodies, cursing the tranq darts lodged in their cheeks and noses. They’d been closer to the mercs than the rest, and had suffered for it.
Fry knelt beside them, checking their pulses, then pulled out the darts and flicked them onto the floor. “Frank’s going to be pissed when he wakes up. This is the third time he’s been tranqed in two weeks. I just hope the sensors didn’t malfunction. He got dosed pretty hard.”
“You think he’ll quit?”
“I think he’ll be glad he wasn’t shot. If he’s not, I’ll remind him of what could have happened. It would have been a lot worse if they hadn’t gone for the tranqs.”
“And if they hadn’t wasted so many darts on our coats rather than our skin.” Tristan crouched before Frank and checked his pulse. Satisfied with what he found, he put his friend’s arm gently back on the floor.
“So much for overcomplicated plans, eh,” Fry said as both men stood up. “How about next time, we just bring along a princess who knows how to capitalize on a distraction.”
“Did I mess things up?” Maria asked.
“Quite the contrary. You did much better than me and Dice. We were too busy gawking at the chief.”
Lila’s stomach should have twisted in knots at Fry’s words, but it didn’t.
Hood had been revealed.
How quickly would word spread among Tristan’s people?
How quickly would word spread to Chief Shaw and her father?
“I didn’t see you steal the gun,” Tristan said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Maria said. “I learned how to be ignored a long time ago. Sometimes I borrow things when no one’s looking. He was so busy yapping that he didn’t even feel me take it.”
“It seems you developed quite the skillset as a Wilson slave.”
Dixon scooted back to the wall, using it as a crutch to pull himself up. His gaze fixed on one of the mercs and the bloody puddle underneath him.
One of the many that Lila had killed.
She looked away.
“Let’s go,” Tristan said. “We need to get the others away from here. There are far too many eyes for the number of secrets in this room.”
Fry retrieved Lila’s hood from the floor and tugged it over her head. “We’ll keep your secret,” he promised, squeezing her her shoulder, the same one that had hurt so much all day.
This time, Lila didn’t feel a thing.
Chapter 30
It turned out that the closest teams who might have helped them in the warehouse had encountered problems of their own. Italian patrols had slipped behind several groups, guns drawn, ready to kill. Luckily, the reinforcements had spotted the Italians before the mercs could creep behind their friends. Palms buzzing with advanced warning, they’d all done some creeping of their own, and the mercs had all been darted before they even had a chance to fire.
Superior numbers had saved them.
In the end, three dozen foreign soldiers had entered New Bristol.
Tristan had been more than a little disturbed by the number. Lila should have been disturbed as well.
But Lila was a cloud.
Whoever she had thought herself to be was not who she had become. She had become the oracle’s worst fear. A vision cutting through the her peace. A horrible, grating migraine. A path she’d tried to divert. A darkness. A storm cloud.
The mire.
This was what drowning felt like.