wrist chimed. Glancing at it, he stiffened impossibly further.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking from his wary eyes to his wrist.
“There’s, um… a threat. A warning has been sent.”
I stilled, my heart leaping into my throat. He might want to bang me, but right now he was the guy who knew his way around Alera. He had a wrist thingie that sent him stuff like those fancy mini-computer watches on Earth. If he said there was a threat, I believed him. I was the visitor here and had to trust him, at least in this.
“Let’s go in the other room with the guards.” He held his arm out signaling me to precede him. “I need to give them this update.” I walked toward the door, but didn’t make it two steps before the room’s window shattered. I scrunched my shoulders up and ducked down near the door, my hands instinctively going to my head. A dark figure swung in. Covered heat to toe in black, he hung from a wire Mission Impossible style.
Holy shit.
“Run, my la—“ A blast hit Cassander in the chest and he crumpled mid-word as I scrambled to open the door. His second blast hit the door above my head and I crawled on all fours into the hallway as Cassander bellowed behind me. I heard a scuffle. Another shot. I slammed the door, screaming for my sisters.
“We’re under attack! Run!”
That’s when I saw Faith crouched down behind her chair, a dead guard on the ground next to her. Destiny was screaming obscenities around the corner, out of sight.
“Faith? What are you doing?”
Faith turned to me, her eyes round with fear. “You know I don’t kill things.”
I closed the distance as the sound of several shots were fired in the living room area. The explosion of glass made Faith cringe and she peeked around the corner. “Ouch. That was a nice table.”
“Seriously?” I pulled her back, out of my way, and took a quick glance around the corner. One guard was still alive. One. But he was hurt. Bad. Blood was pooling under his head on the nice, thick cream-colored carpet, but he was still breathing. And my sister, Destiny, was bleeding, circling, looking for an opportunity to get in a killing blow to one of the bad guys. It wasn’t the guy who came through the window after me, so that meant there was more than one. She leapt forward, locked in hand-to-hand combat, moving so fast I couldn’t keep track of her motions.
Faith peeked up over the chair next to me. “Jesus, our sister is scary.”
“Shut up and get in there.” I hadn’t forgotten about the attacker in the bedroom. And I had no idea if Cassander was dead or alive.
“What? No way.”
“There’s another one coming from the bedroom,” I hissed. Pushing to get her moving, I scrambled around the dead guard on the floor and took his weapon as we positioned ourselves on the other side of the chair. “You keep track of Destiny. I’ll watch the hall.”
Inspecting the weapon in my hands, I frowned. I knew the basics about handguns—Destiny had made us at least go to the firing range with her a few times—but this wasn’t a weapon like anything I’d ever seen before. Shit.
The bedroom door opened and I pushed Faith. Hard.
“Trin!”
“Move!”
The mask had been ripped from my attacker’s head and I could see his face. His hair was dark, his eyes a brilliant green I’d never seen before. His forehead was bleeding from a deep cut—one point to Cassander—but I wished he was still covered up because now I could see his eyes, the grim turn of his curled lips, and all I saw on his face was death. If I saw his face, that meant he had no intention of keeping us alive to identify him. I’d seen enough crime scene shows on TV to know that.
I lifted the gun and pointed it at the assassin. His eyes narrowed, but he kept walking. I squeezed the trigger, or whatever it was. Nothing. Crap. How did this thing work?
“Shoot him!” That was Destiny. How the hell she knew I was facing down a killer, I had no idea. She was a freak with eyes in the back of her head.
“I can’t get the gun to work!”
Destiny took a punch to the gut, distracted by my situation. She punched back, hard, swinging and connecting with her opponent’s jaw. “Safety on top, not the side. Orange light.”
I followed her swift instructions, or tried to, pressing on the orange glowing area. The light turned a pale, pale green. I lifted the gun again, but it was too late. He was on top of us, pulling a very big, very long knife free from the sheath strapped to his thigh. I screamed.
“Shoot him!” Faith yelled, kicking the nearest chair into him to buy us some time.
I fired. A blast of light, or laser, or whatever, shot from the gun. Direct hit in the chest. He just smiled.
I fired again. Again.
He looked amused now. Either there was some weird setting on the gun or he was wearing an alien version of Kevlar.
Shit.
The door exploded inward with a boom that made my ears scream in pain. I squeezed my eyes shut, but knew the bad guy was right in front of me. I couldn’t avoid him. Faith dropped to her knees, covering her head.
The assassin looked away from me, toward the door, and all amusement faded from his eyes. I might not be a threat to him, but whomever destroyed the suite’s entry door sure was.
5
Leo
“Shoot him!” A woman shouted on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of repeated blaster fire.
I didn’t wait, setting a charge on the locked door for three seconds. Moving to the side, I closed my eyes, weapon drawn, and counted.
Three. Two. One. Long fucking seconds.
The explosion rocked the hallway, the lights above me flickering off then back on as I burst into the room.
I took it all in with a sweeping glance.
A female—with strangely colored hair—was fighting one of the assassins.
A second assassin was dead on the ground, surrounded by four dead guards. The difference between good and bad was easy to distinguish; the guards wore identical, and familiar, uniforms, the assassins all black. Their faces were covered.
Another guard, the lone surviving one it seemed, was crumpled on the ground, trying to reach for his blaster, the blood under his head meant he’d most likely black out before he got it.
The other two females were on the far side of the room from him, crouched behind a chair, one firing a weapon on a third assassin.
He whipped his head
