PART 9
Crowe reached for his weapon.
I shot the light above him.
Darkness swallowed the cave.
Gunfire erupted wild.
Men shouted.
Crates shattered.
Sparks sprayed from the uplink table.
I moved through blackness like I had been born there.
Harper went down first.
Not dead.
Just screaming with a broken wrist and a knife through his sleeve.
Garrison fired twice at shadows.
“Reeves!” he shouted. “Wait!”
I hit him from the side and drove him to the ground.
He did not fight.
He just whispered,
“I’m sorry.”
That made me angrier than if he had cursed.
Crowe ran.
Of course he did.
Men who talk about loyalty always keep an exit.
I chased him through the rear tunnel into the cold blue edge of dawn.
He scrambled onto a ledge above the valley, pistol in hand.
Below us, the Korengal moved black and silent.
The same river he had trusted to kill me.
Crowe aimed at my chest.
“You should have stayed dead.”
I raised my hands slightly.
“You should have charged more.”
His face twisted.
Then the mountain around us lit up red.
May you like
Not sunrise.
Lasers.
