Julie Kagawa: Rogue

Frowning, I pulled back to look at him. He gazed back grimly. “This is the true face of St. George, Ember,” he said, and his voice was almost a challenge. “This is what they do. What they all do.” He nodded to the room behind us. “How many times do you think your soldier saw that hide hanging on the wall and thought nothing of it? It was just a skin, a trophy, not a living creature with thoughts and fears and dreams, like everyone else.” His eyes narrowed. “We’re not people to them, Firebrand. They don’t see us as anything but monsters. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but your human was raised to think exactly like them. He saw you in the same way he did that hide on the wall.”

I shuddered, remembering the skin, tacked onto the wall in plain sight, and for a moment, my resolve wavered. Was I making a mistake? Was it really possible for someone to change his entire perspective? Garret had grown up in St. George, where these awful tokens of death and murder were considered trophies. Decorations to hang in someone’s office, like a stag head or a tiger pelt. Because to St. George, we were monsters. Animals. What if Garret still thought like that?

What if he doesn’t?

I swallowed hard. Regardless of what Garret believed, I couldn’t leave him. If I didn’t get him out tonight, he would die. Even if he saw me as a monster, I wouldn’t abandon him now.

“No,” I told Riley, turning from the office door and the horrible trophy hanging within. “We don’t stop. We keep looking. I’m not leaving him to die.”

Riley shook his head. “Stubborn idiot hatchling,” he muttered, though one corner of his mouth curled up. “All right, we keep going. Wes, you there?” A pause, and Riley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she did. Of course not, have you met her? How far are we from the stairs?”

We crept through several more hallways, passing more darkened rooms and offices that I was careful not to peek into, until we came to a door that opened onto a stairwell. Here, Riley stopped us, saying there was a camera on the other side, and we had to wait until Wes shut it down. Once he did, I darted through the frame and started down the cement stairs, feeling Riley close at my back. The steps didn’t take us far; just one loop around to an identical metal door, which we pushed through and stepped into yet another hallway.

At the end of the hall stood a door, lonely and unguarded. There were no cameras or humans around, but Riley grabbed my arm when I started forward, pulling us to a stop a few feet from the end of the corridor.

“Got it,” he muttered, speaking to Wes, I figured, and turned to me, his face grave.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered. “Is Garret not here?”

“Oh, he’s here, Firebrand,” Riley said, his voice matching the look on his face. “Wes confirmed it on the security feed. But he’s not the only one.” He nodded to the door. “That’s a guard room. You need to pass through it to get to the jail block beyond. One problem, though. Guard rooms tend to be guarded.”

My skin prickled. “How many?” I asked.

“Two.” His expression darkened. “Both armed. They won’t be expecting us, but we’re going to have to be fast if we want to take them out before they sound the alarm. Think you can pull off another crazy ninja Viper attack? We’re not going to get another shot at this. Once I open that door, there’s really no going back.”

My stomach dropped. After a moment, I took a deep breath, steeling myself. Whatever it took, I would find Garret. Even though these new instincts freaked me out. Even though I wanted nothing more than to be done with this place, with its armed humans and dead dragons hanging on the walls. We were almost to the soldier; his life depended on us reaching him, and I wouldn’t let anything stop me now.

I glanced at Riley and nodded. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

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