The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(56)

I froze, glancing over at Owen, finding his face drawn and his eyes wide, as though trying to stare through the gap in between the tent flaps. Good—that meant I hadn’t been hallucinating. He had seen it too.

Taking a slow step back, I heaved in a deep breath of air as calmly and silently as I could, my stomach turning at a slight but deeply unpleasant stench in the air. My skin crawling, I subvocalized to our team, What the hell was that?

There was a pause before I got any response, and the wait felt longer than it was, the silence chafing on my raw nerves.

Finally, Violet announced, “Viggo, there are two enhanced humans there.” I could hear an angry bite in her voice, but I wasn’t sure whom her anger was directed at. “Their bodies are way hotter than the average human’s. We thought they were running a fever when they appeared on the infrared, but it seems we were wrong.”

I felt the air escape my lungs as I took in her words. That meant we were either dealing with two new princesses from Matrus… or we were dealing with the boys. As much as I hoped it was the princesses, I sincerely doubted Elena would risk any more of her sisters after losing three to us. Not that she was sentimental. To her, the boys were just more expendable.

Owen waved a hand, catching my attention. I frowned as he pointed to the ground, and then my eyes followed his fingers. I froze.

Visible in the dim light that filtered in through the tent material from the bright overhead lights, on the floor beneath us, men were stacked up like cordwood, one atop of the other. They had been stacked on either side of the tent, three on each side, all with bullet holes in their foreheads. Now that I knew they were there, I recognized something I had tasted in the air the moment I had stepped into the tent: the smell of death. These bodies had clearly not decomposed enough yet to smell too bad, but it was there all the same.

I exchanged looks with Owen, who had gone pale as he took in the… the bodies.

Violet, he transmitted, turning away from the gruesome sight, his voice shaking even over the subvocalizer. You should know that these tents… well, they are filled with dead people.

“What?” replied Ms. Dale. “All of them?”

I’m not sure about all of them, I mouthed into the subvocalizer. But in this tent, there are six bodies. Did you run a thermal scan of the tents?

Another pause filled the line, and I pulled Owen down into a crouch on the floor as the sound of running feet drew close, loath to move my face closer to the dead men, but knowing they were still our best cover. I held my breath as the quick footsteps passed, expecting them to slow—but they didn’t.

I was in the process of exhaling, trying not to breathe in if humanly possible, when Violet came back on the line. “It was my fault,” she admitted. “I didn’t scan them. I figured any threat would come from the trailers. I’m sorry.”

“We can worry about that later,” interjected Ms. Dale’s hard voice. “We’re working on getting you a clear path out of there. Just hold for one second.”

Believe me, we’re holding, replied Owen.

Agonizing seconds ticked by while we sat in the tent surrounded by murdered Patrian males. My brain was submerged in mission mode; I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t feel it, or else it would be too much for me to go on. My blood was thrumming in my veins, but I knew my team would warn us if they thought we were in immediate danger. A group of guards came by, distinguishable from the enhanced humans by the low murmuring of their voices and their slower pace; we held our breaths, but they didn’t check the tent. Maybe they thought nobody would hide in such a grisly place.

After what felt like time enough for the entire camp’s guards to converge on us, Violet’s voice came over the line again, terse and harsh.

“Head out of the tent and continue left,” she ordered.

Owen was in motion ahead of me, pushing the tent flap aside and moving out soundlessly, his eyes wild. We jogged down the pathway between the tents, keeping our heads down and our footsteps as quiet as possible.

“Turn right,” Violet’s voice ordered.

As one, the two of us slipped off the beaten path and between two adjacent tents, moving down the narrow gap between them. We had to move slower here. Stakes and ropes jutted out of the ground, and we had to step over them carefully so as not to trip—or shake the tents and give away our position. Owen made sure to check each row for guards as we darted across, and I covered the rear, glancing over my shoulder, looking for any sign of pursuit.

“Left again, for five tents, then right down another path like this one.”

We moved around the tents into the wider path, and were halfway down when suddenly Violet shouted, “DUCK!”

Without thinking, I grabbed Owen’s shoulder and pushed him roughly down as something whizzed by overhead, moving so fast my hair shifted from the breeze it stirred. Looking up toward where it had landed, I saw a shadowed blur skid to a stop and whirl. The figure was small—it had to be one of the boys. He was dressed head to toe in black, with a black mask obscuring his features. Except for his eyes, which stared blankly at me.

I was keyed in for the mission, my emotions compacted into a tiny place somewhere in the back of my mind, cut off from my actions. Still, I knew what I had to do.

I stood up slowly, raising my hands and letting my gun dangle from my fingers, one hand moving cautiously to my throat to turn off my subvocalizer. “Hey,” I said softly, trying to get the boy’s attention, my voice cracking as my vocal cords unfroze. “We’re not going to hurt you, buddy. I’m Viggo.”