obviously don’t think so,” he said, tilting his head toward the militiamen.
“You wish to interrogate me, but I have nothing to tell you.”
“Do you live in this area?”
Her full lips remained stubbornly closed.
“You don’t know anything about a pack of rogues with a human child?” Garret asked.
“No.”
“I know his kidnappers came this way, but I lost their trail. You must have sensed them.”
“I did not.”
“Where is the rest of your pack?”
“I have no pack.” She coughed, turning her face away. “If you have any of your supposed human mercy in you, let me have the quick death the other humans will never give me.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked. “To die?”
“I cannot help you. Why would you offer me any other alternative?”
He glanced over the top of the net. The militiamen were muttering among themselves. Garret’s five minutes were almost up.
“You have two choices,” he said. “Trust me, or force me to hand you over to them. And I don’t want your death on my conscience.”
She tried to brush her hair out of her face, but the movement cracked the burned skin of her hand, and her expressive eyes blurred with pain. “What do you want me to do?”
“What’s your name?”
“If it matters... Artemis.”
He showed her the shock stick. “Artemis, you’ll have to pretend I’m using this on you. Be convincing. I’ll flip the net back. You come out, grab me and drag me into the woods.”
“You believe I will not kill you?” she asked with obvious astonishment.
“Will you?”
“They will shoot both of us.”
“It’s possible. But I think I’ve persuaded them to believe that I’m one of them.”
“Yes. You are human.”
Garret held her gaze. “I hope you’ll choose to live.”
With another quick glance at the militiamen, Garret raised his voice in a harsh question and pretended to jab the stick into the net. The Opir woman began to convulse very convincingly, and as she did Garret grabbed two of the weights with his gloved hands and flung the net back over itself, leaving a narrow gap at the bottom.
Artemis was injured and in great discomfort, but she moved very fast, scrambling out from under the net, grabbing him by the shoulders and half dragging him toward the woods. He dropped the shock stick. Sunlight struck her, and she swallowed a cry. The weakness of her grip told Garret that she wouldn’t be able to keep up the pretense for long, so he made a show of helplessness, struggling as if she had complete control of him.
A bullet whizzed past his ear when they were still a few yards from the woods’ edge. Garret shouted and raised one hand in a plea as the woman continued to tug at him, her fingers beginning to slip from his coat.
“A little farther,” Garret said. “Once we’re inside the woods, run.”
Artemis stumbled, and Garret twisted to push her toward the trees. The militiamen were jogging after them now, deadly silent and ready to shoot. Garret and the Freeblood reached the shade, and she staggered, her breath sawing in her throat.
“Go!” Garret said.
“They’ll kill you,” she said hoarsely, refusing to move.
“For being an idiot and allowing you to escape? I don’t think so.”
She didn’t have time to answer, because the men were almost on top of them. Artemis grabbed him around the neck and dragged him deeper into the shadows. He could have escaped easily, but he played along, gasping for air and digging his heels into the dirt.
“Come no closer!” she shouted. “I will kill him!”
The militiamen slowed to a walk. Delacroix signaled a halt. He met Garret’s gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t let her escape.” He lifted his rifle and aimed at the center of the woman’s forehead.
“She knows where my son is!” Garret rasped. “Let her go, please!”
Delacroix hesitated. “Your son is no more important than the people this bloodsucker will kill.”
“I will release him if you give me five more minutes before you follow me,” Artemis said.
Bending his head toward the man next to him, Delacroix spoke in a low voice, listened to his comrades and nodded.
“Five minutes,” he said, checking his watch.
Without warning, Artemis released Garret, pushing him toward the men, and sprang into a run. Almost immediately the militiamen started after her.
“Wait,” Garret said. “I thought you said—”
Delacroix signaled a halt. “You think we’d keep a promise to one of them?” he asked. “Don’t you want the info you say she has?”
“Yes, of course,” Garret said, rubbing his throat as he got to his feet. “But if you go into those woods after her, she’ll have the advantage.”
Two of the men aimed their rifles at him. “Who are you?” Delacroix asked again.
“A former serf from the Citadel of Erebus,” Garret said. “Do you know what that’s like? Any of you?”
The men exchanged glances. One lowered his gaze. Another spat.
“This is my fault,” Garret said. “Give me one of your weapons and I’ll get her myself.”
“She’ll have even more of an advantage over one hunter,” Delacroix said. “Why aren’t you carrying a gun?”
The VS seemed to burn a hole through Garret’s pack and into his coat. “I had one,” he began, “but—”
“Take off your pack,” Delacroix said.
“Why?”
“You’re hiding something, and I want to know what it is.”
Garret lunged at Delacroix, grabbed the man’s rifle in both hands, yanked it away and slammed the butt into the leader’s face. Without slowing, he struck the next man in the neck and then reversed the rifle.
Two
