Page 28 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

She leaned against him, her shoulder brushing his arm, the contact a quiet brand. “It’d be easier if we knew.”

“It would. They deny advantage to seem powerful. Iwould like you to listen now.” He turned so he could meet her gaze.

“If I tell you to close your eyes, you’ll close them.

If I tell you to drop and lie still, you’ll drop and lie still, even if everything in you screams to run.

If I tell you to put your hands on my shoulders and climb, you’ll climb without apology. Do you understand.”

“I understand,” she whispered. “In other words, same as before.”

He inclined his head. “Affirmative. Same as before.”

She pressed their joined hands to her mouth for a single heartbeat.

The softness nearly undid him. He pulled their hands away, flattening them on his thigh so he wouldn’t break and kiss her, shedding armor too soon.

Her breath brushed hot across his knuckles before he drew them down, leaving a trail of want that coiled under hisskin.

The convoy rolled past empty lots and sagging buildings.

Twice they turned where there were no signs.

They passed a chain-link fence gaping at a corner.

Through an open gate they entered a small airfield: tired hangars, crooked blinds in office windows.

Awoman stepped out to smoke, nodded at the headman’s car, ignored therest.

A twin-engine plane waited, its fuselage streaked gray with exhaust. Its nose cone was a blunt fist. Stairs rolled up to the hatch. The engines idled, aheavy throb. The headman climbed out of the lead car and lifted his cigarette like a priest offering benediction.

“Up you go,” he called. “Don’t trip. Wouldn’t want pity. Audiences want terror. They want perseverance. You have perseverance. We’ll make sure you experience the other. Soon.”

The rifleman in the front seat opened Locus’s door, then backed away quickly as if burned.

Locus slid out first, turned, arm already out for Hannah.

She caught it, let him lift her down. The intimacy of it—small, absolute, in front of men who’d sell their own mothers—tightened his chest. Her body brushed his as he steadied her, and the rush of heat that shot through him left him tight with restraint.

“Last chance,” the headman sang. “If your friends want to rain light on my morning, now’s the moment. Ican make a fine tragedy. The two of you staring at smoke, wondering which cloud is your parents.”

“Shut up,” Hannah said.

He grinned at her, delighted. “My darling, you’re going to make me rich.”

She lifted her chin, seized Locus’s hand, and squeezed hard.

He answered in kind. He bent his head, brushed a coin-sized kiss against her hair.

Agift to himself. The only one he’d take until he made it matter.

Her scent filled his lungs, sweet under the sharp sting of fuel, and for an instant he wanted nothing more than to drag her into his lap and taste her mouth until she forgot thefear.

They climbed the stairs. The plane smelled of leather, fuel, along with an antiseptic chemical bite.

Aflight attendant with a bored face barely glanced at them.

Men with rifles sat along the aisle, pretending to scroll their phones.

The headman lingered at the bottom of the stairs, face upturned, savoring the sky.

The hum of the engine rumbled and Locus sent the same command across the private frequency to the only man listening.

Stand down.

Hannah leaned into him, her shoulder pressed into his ribs. “Do you believe we can do this?” she asked softly.

“I do.”

“Say it again.”

“I will see you through this Challenge. Iwill bring you back to your mother. Iwill bring your sister back. Iwill put your family together in one room and shut the door. Iwill let you cry as long as you want, and then I will make you forget how to cry.”

Heat flushed under her skin. She let out a trembling breath, steadied it, then tipped her face up. For a heartbeat, he thought she’d kiss him despite the roll of the cameras. The hunger to take that kiss nearly broke him. She didn’t. She let the want hang in the air like rain waiting tofall.

“Okay,” she whispered.

He nodded once at the armed men inside, who watched him, her, and each other the way men eyed ladders that might break. He held her hand.

Behind them, the headman laughed. The sound floated up the stairs like it belonged to the air itself. The hatch groaned, the door sliding shut, locking them in with guns and a future he wouldn’t allow to unfold except on his terms.

The stairs rattled away. The plane’s engines deepened their growl. Locus laced his fingers with Hannah’s and held on as the door sealed with a final, heavy clank. The sound cut a clean line between what had been theirs and what now belonged to the headman.

The plane shuddered. The headman’s promise of fairness hung in the air like a lie laid out on fine china. Locus didn’t look away from the locked door. He would walk into whatever waited with hunger wrapped tight around control, with his vow sharpened into a blade.

They lifted into the gray morning, and the only way left was forward.