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The boys are lighting the firecrackers and seeing who can hold on to the red sticks longest before tossing theirl squeezes through a gap in the wall and runs to snatch a lit firecracker froest boy Her skin craith the hiss and heat of the fuse, but she refuses to let go

PAIN SEARS DOWN MY LEG, and rip loosens for an instant She’s away like a flash

I have only a split second to act, and if I s at un She goes sprawling into the asp of pain, but I don’t have tiht have done Everybody on the base will have heard the shot, and even with the echo bouncing around the buildings, they’ll find h

I start to reach for her, but she’s alreadyher together She kicks out, her foot connecting with oes sliding along the wet ground

We both lunge after it Her elbow jabs atrather than half dead, dragging in air as I force rab at her ankle, scrabbling in the un or shout for backup

Shefor oddaas we fight to get ahead of one another Then randfather’s pistol I jab es it easily, but it throws her off enough for un pointed between her eyes

She goes still

I can only see the dark, furious glitter of her eyesmine I can’t speak, too winded, too shell-shocked Slowly, she lifts her hands, palms out Surrender

I want nothing more than to collapse in thefor intruders, hunting for the source of the gunshot I’ve got no tiet her to my currach--if I leave her here she’ll be found too quickly and I won’t have enough tiun a jerk, silently ordering the soldier to her feet I stagger up rab for her arm to turn her around and twist it behind her back I rest the barrel of the gun against her lower spine, where she can feel it

My fingers are wet and sticky with her blood, but it’s too dark to tell how much there is I know I hit her; I saw her fall But she’s on her feet, so the wound isn’t slowing her down that razed her side with the bullet

I try to cal off the base is going to be a hell of a lot harder noish I had tie myself with the mud at our feet Her skin’s brown and , buton a planet with constant cloud cover I practically glow in the dark

"Well?" She’s panting "What’s it going to be? You could at least have the decency to aim for my heart and not my head I’ll look prettier atwith you, Captain," I tell her, keeping her close Her black hair’s escaping her ponytail, ticklinglike that around here"

"As if you need an invitation," she growls, and though she’s coer I can’t let her go She’d never letdown ainst her a little harder

It was easy to get the new recruits talking, but their security clearance is way too low to have any useful inforet close to Captain Chase for infor? Sean would laugh if he could seeAvon’s nize your pretty face anywhere now, you know that" There’s a ser Like winning the point is what et rid of the problehtening rip Kissof what sound like insults in return, though I don’t understand the language She doesn’t look like she’s got any Irish in her, probably has no idea what I said But she recognized ht back at ht have that ancestry in her blood soives a savage twist and then gasps as the raze her, because I wouldn’t be able to keep hold of her otherwise She’s even stronger than she looks

My mind races This isn’t over yet, and I can still turn it to e if I think quickly The recruits in the bar may not have known about the hidden facility to the east, but now I have a captain, and one who’s been on Avon longer than any other soldier Who better to get olden child?

That facility scares o, I’d never clapped eyes on it I don’t kno they hid the construction It appeared out of nowhere, surrounded by fences and spotlights From the outside, there’s no way to tell what’s in there: weapons, new search drone technology, ways to destroy the Fianna we haven’t thought of Until we knohy the facility is there, every er