by S King
“We have nothing to discuss Lovett.”
Chapter 6 Hawk’s Eyes, Crow’s Promise
“Karina—” I ducked out of the way and spun, letting the sword catch the cult leader in the throat as more of his followers emerged from the compound.
“What?” She smiled wickedly at the followers still breathing before running up the side of a tree and throwing down one of her infamous Russian Heart bombs at the advancing group. “You might want to move.”
The pieces fell into place, making me curse under my breath. I threw my body to the side in time before the bomb went off, launching the bodies of the followers into the air. I’d admit watching their bodies burning through the air in multi-colored fire was awe inspiring.
She had become even more famous amongst the guards—not to the same level as Luminous—but enough that the judges didn’t want to have her in their presence for too long. I’ll admit, if it weren’t for Dristan being involved with her, I myself wouldn’t really want Karina around longer than she needed to be.
The woman in question had a talent for making people uncomfortable from just a single look at her. Maybe it was thanks to her reputation of using an explosive whenever she felt it was necessary. And in Karina’s world? The question of when was all the time. She never gave anyone a chance to explain their side of the situation, but she did give them a split second to realize they were going to meet their end.
How she was able to make the flames burn through every color of the rainbow, I didn’t know. But it was a question that would have to wait. For the time being, I needed to ask her about the pictures of Luminous.
“How did you get the pictures?” I adjusted myself on the thick tree branch as the wind blew back my hair.
Tracking Luminous’s best friend down was like tracking a panther at night. Even with my connections to the OE, she was much like her sister; if Karina didn’t want to be found she wasn’t going to be.
I had asked Dristan where I could find his pyrokinetic lover. Of course, he said out on a job. Like that was a lot of help; when I had threatened my absence to his super bowl party he finally coughed up the details.
Now here we were. Me sitting in a tree and Karina wiring up a device. Even though she hadn’t outright said it. I knew she was really fighting herself to not put one of those bombs in me for what had happened to Luminous.
She grumbled something with a screwdriver in her mouth as she rigged up yet another bomb. The difference? She was using the military grade C4 I had given her.
“What?” I took the chance to look down at the ground below and confirmed what I already knew to be there.
With our enhanced vision and ability to stop our breathing, all of the experiments could see what civilized people couldn’t. And that included the robotic mines clawing their way from the dirt and heading in the direction of the cult’s compound.
“An anonymous source,” she clarified, watching her robotic children climbing over the mole holes and ant hills.
“I’m not going to attack them Karina, I just want to know who they are.”
“No like seriously, they’re anonymous. I don’t know who gave them to me either.”
It didn’t matter that it was blacker than death tonight. With the moon only casting partial shadows over the tree tops and barely touching the ground. I could tell her storm blue eyes were as serious as the situation.
Huffing out a hard breath, I swung my big body up on the tree and laid the blood stained sword across my legs. “Someone just sent you pictures of her out of nowhere?”
“Weird, right?” She rolled her eyes and grabbed a lighter from her coat pocket. “I don’t know, Demir. One side of me says it’s someone just playing a game and the other side of me says it’s someone whose gone rouge and doesn’t want to be looked into.”
“Like whom?” I raised a brow at her and waited for a snarky come back.
Naturally, Karina didn’t disappoint. “I don’t know, Demir ask the gods for all I care. All I’m saying is I find it odd that someone—out of the blue just so happens to find Luminous. First of all. Then they take pictures of her, send them to me and then what?” She stared at me with wide eyes.
I shook my head, not entirely following her reasoning.
“Nothing, not a note. A phone call. Nothing. My biggest question is why?”
“That makes two of us,” I agreed, watching the robotic mines continue to claw their way through the overgrown field.
“Not to mention who is the one behind it? Everyone who would’ve possibly had any indication of where she might’ve ended up is all right here. And from what I can tell on my end, I know none of Silver’s members have left our turf.”
Well wasn’t that just fucking great, I thought to myself as I focused on her hands working on the bomb. If Karina—who was the biggest detective in our little family—didn’t know where to look for this person, or Luminous. Then we were going to be up a shit’s creek without a paddle.
She pushed her hair from her face and sighed for a second as she looked out over the field. “If you ask me, it’s a fucked up game of cat and mouse.”
“The problem is there’s no back and forth to the situation,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.
She ignited the lighter, twirling a nasty looking needle point around in the flame. “So, what’re you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“About the pictures and knowing she’s still alive.” In typical Karina fashion, she nonchalantly changed the subject and didn’t waste any time trying to get to the bare brass of the situation.
A part of me wanted to think she was going to allow me to talk her into a suicide mission—once I figured one out. But I knew she wasn’t going to do anything that’d put us in a life-or-death situation all on its own. She was a gambling woman by nature, but she wasn’t stupid by any means. Just like Lumi.
I let my head roll to the side as I looked at her, “what can I do? The courts are watching every move I make and now with the Platinum Guard—”
“The who?” She stopped her makeshift piercing routine on the needle and stared at me with a furrow playing on her brow.
“Platinum Guard.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Dristan didn’t tell you?”
She cocked a brow at me and put her hand on her hip, “do I look like he told me? He doesn’t say anything that has to do with work.” At my screwed look, she rolled her eyes and waved the confusion away. “We agreed not to talk about work in any way, shape or form. Keeps things light between the situations and our relationship. He has his bad days? I leave him alone. I have my bad days,” she shrugged, “I blow something up.” As if on cue, the robotic mines that had been trekking across the terrain erupted in a ground shaking, mudslinging boom right next to the compound gates.
Well, that was one form of couples therapy I hadn’t thought of. Focusing my eyes on the compound, I watched as the remaining followers came rushing the north side entrance from all angles.
“What the hell are you doing with that?” I asked, sitting upright in the tree.
“Wanna see if it works?” She bounced her eyebrows at me as she loaded the makeshift bomb into an enhanced slingshot thing. And within two seconds flat, the C4 went flying through the air and landed in the middle of the group staring at the ground.
“Karina,” I warned. But of course, the warning fell on deaf ears.
“Night night,” she sing-songed as she pressed the button on the remote pack in her hand and ignited the night into a ball of earthshaking fire.
Hysterical laughter erupted from her as her masterpiece sent body after body into the air and burned the others in a kaleidoscope array of colors.
She was the very definition of fucking psychotic, I thought to myself. While Luminous was stealth in the art of breaking and entering, Karina felt the need to make her presence known well before the actual fight. Luminous preferred a fight that she could be involved in while
Karina rather sit back and watch a series of explosions that could be seen from outer space. How the two women ever became best friends—sisters in the first place was beyond my ability of comprehension.
“Anyway, you were saying?” She kept her eyes trained on the flames, obviously waiting to see if there were any lucky survivors.
I swallowed hard, not entirely sure I wanted to continue telling her what type of dilemma I was in. However, for the time being she was really the only solid guide I had to start making a move. Dristan would help when him and Slade weren’t trying to take care of Gold business. But Karina?
The woman didn’t give two rat’s ass about her bosses telling her what she should and shouldn’t do on a regular basis. Everyone knew she was going to fly by the seat of her ass whenever she felt like. So, in order to avoid meeting the grim reaper earlier or watch Silver Guard HQ go up in flames. Everyone just let her be.
Deciding to take a leap of faith with the pyrokinetic psychopath sitting two trees away from me, I told her.
“The PG has been called in to find her.”
“Why can’t the Honor Guard do it? Or did they get on BC’s shit list?” She was loading another C4 pack into her slingshot and didn’t bother looking at me. Focused on her job at hand.
“They couldn’t find her, that’s why PG is involved now.” I perked up as she shot the other bomb toward the west end entrance of the building. “Hey, can you find out information on someone for me?”
She glanced at me over her shoulder, “what kind of someone are we talking about?”
“A guy from PG.”
For a second I thought she was going to say no. But as she pressed the button on the remote again, she shrugged. “I mean, I can but it’s not going to be easy. Besides, I’m going to assume since you’re asking me, that means the information is under lock and key with the BC?”
“And the RS too.”
A bark of laughter left her as she flipped her smaller body from her tree and dropped into the somewhat solid ground. “Wait, wait, you’re telling me you need information on someone that’s hidden so well that their information is on the DL with both courts?”
I jumped down from my own perch and dusted off my hands after I sheathed my sword. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ask Dristan?”
“Because he’s looking into something else for me.”
Ok, should I have lied to Karina? No. But right now, considering the surrounding circumstances, I didn’t have much of an option. As long as I knew what everyone was doing for me behind the scenes. I could make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises should judge Sadvidge decide to go poking around where she didn’t belong.
Karina stared at me while she adjusted the strap on her bag. “Who’s the guy?”
“Name is Shang Wylan—”
“Shang?” She interrupted me and raised a brow.
“Yes? Do you know him?”
She snorted and ran a gloved hand through her hair. “Yeah, I know him.”
“What do you know?” I took a hasty step toward her before putting my hands up in surrender as she stepped back and narrowed her eyes.
Karina was still sensitive toward my position as a judge along with my involvement for our current situation. Granted, she had made it clear time and time again that she’d preferred me to be the one in the ground or missing, rather than her sister.
How did I come to that conclusion one may ask. Well, whenever I tried to get a house in replacement to the one the HG destroyed, Karina was there to blow the structure to shit. When I attempted to get a coupe? Karina found a way to rig the horn with the reverse. The gas with the windshield wipers. The interior lights with the brakes.
Needless to say, the months since Luminous’s fall hadn’t been too kind to any of us and Karina made sure to ardently tell me as much by the way she had destroyed my assets before I could even get comfortable with them.
Needless to say she was bordering on the line of shoving one of those specialty bombs up my own ass. Now was of no exception.
I took a step back and leveled my eyes on her, “what do you know about him?”
“He’s a jackass,” she deadpanned.
“Why?” Hell, I could tell that much by looking at him standing in front of the bench for the OE.
“Where to begin,” she jerked her head toward the open field after sending a text to her cleanup crew. “First things first, he isn’t one to go against when he thinks he’s right or he wants something from you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? All of us tend to get defensive and fat chested when we think we’re right. And I won’t even get started on the things we do in order to get what we want.”
“Well, yeah,” she rolled her eyes, “but I don’t think any of us have ever delved into someone’s mind and found their deepest fear. Only to feed on it like a damn tarantula hawk wasp.”
“Wait,” I stopped to pinch the bridge of my nose and blew out a hard breath. “So, he’s like Dristan?”
“Not even close, Dristan can see into the mind and essentially become an internal version of yourself, right?”
I nodded.
“Shang, on the other hand, sees nothing but your desires and fears. Everything that’s ever pulled any of those emotions from you? He can see it and the son of a bitch will play on those fears for as long as he feels like until you break.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, Demir, he finds your fears. Say it’s something stupid like you losing your job or something, right?”
I nodded.
“He can literally weave his way into your mind while your asleep and force you to dream about that incident. Over and over without so much as a thought to letting you out. And when it comes to your desires?” She scoffed and looked at the trees we had just been sitting in. “Well, he plays on those son of a bitches as long as possible before you’re driven up the wall with need and want for that thing that makes you hot and bothered.”
For a moment I was stunned stupid. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing coming from Karina’s mouth. It was one thing to know someone was capable of finding out my biggest fear without laying a finger on me. But to know he was able to manipulate the mind to the point of insanity? It was next to impossible to shake the fear from creeping into my bones.
“So he drives people insane?”
“Essentially,” she shrugged an idle shoulder. “In theory? It sounds like a cool gift to have. Right?”
I nodded.
“In reality, Shang gets the luxury of never forgetting whatever fear he plays on.”
“Meaning?” I asked again, this time a little more intrigued by the PG member’s secrets.
“Luminous has a photogenic memory and sleep paralysis. Shang,” she smirked and met my eyes in the dark, “has a habitual obsessive memory.”
“Ok?” I said slowly, utterly lost in what we were talking about.
She rolled her eyes, “if a fear gets him worked up enough—if he has to work on someone longer than normal before they break. He is essentially forcing himself to live within that fear for however long the host can hold out.”
I balked at her, unable to wrap my mind around what she was saying. But before I could stop my mouth, I flat out asked.
“How the hell do you even know that?”
An idle shrug lifted her shoulder for a second, “we were in the same airduct training.”
“Then Luminous knows him too?”
“No, Lumi took an ariel training course instead. You know how those scientists are.” Karina didn’t waste any more time and started walking again. “By the time, the training was over with, Shang opted for taking a different course on something else and my dumbass decided to take a more intensive course of the AT training.”
Her reasoning was fine and dandy, but I was stuck—yet again—on the other revelation she had given me.
“They gave you options?”
“Yeah, Lumi took some BS course about wilderness survival or so
mething.” She waved a dismissive hand.
Silver Guard members actually got to choose their trainings? In comparison, Gold may have been better in strenuous training courses and schedules. Along with fighting and getting things done. But we didn’t get the luxury or say in our brutal training. Maybe that was why there were more former Silver Guard members as OE judges than any other guard.
Actually, now that I thought about it. Sadvidge was a former sect leader for the Silver Guard. As the pieces started falling into somewhat of a clearer picture, I found solace in having come along with Karina tonight.
“Anyway, him and his fucking twin are something in a fight. Like the two of them fight dirty.”
I raised an accusatory brow at her as I raised several bushes out of the way.
Rolling her eyes, she mumbled a thanks to me, “not dirty like me. I mean, while Shang is fucking with people’s desires and fears, Meril is electrocuting them.”
“What?” This family drama was becoming too much. Even for me.
“You think your seeing someone’s death is bad? You’re nothing compared to Meril. The scientists fucked her fifty different ways from the sun.”
“How Karina.” I’d be a liar to say the suspense of finding out Meril’s talent wasn’t killing me.
I was a sucker for drama. Though I’ve never let it show to anyone outside of my own reflection. Maybe Dristan depending on the subject but nobody else. Ever. And for good reason, because I wouldn’t be able to look at Karina like a delusional patient when the next statement came from her mouth.
“She was created with the internals of an electrical eel.”
“What?” I grabbed her arm, turning her toward me. “How is that even fucking possible?”
“Ask the scientists, I. Don’t. Know.” She ripped her arm away from me and adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “Long story short, something happened between the two and Shang stopped talking to Meril afterwards. As far as to what it was about? I don’t know.”
I stared ahead, trying to put the pieces together. Shang was being made to sound like he was the superhero in this story. While his sister…then who was Talay to Shang?
