Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky, #3)(57)
“You’re wrong about that,” said Hess. “Stand back.”
“Shoot him!” Soren screamed.
Sable’s eyes snapped to Soren. “Bring him here,” he said to his guards.
Hess found Soren in the crowd, his face transforming with fear. Then everything happened at once.
Soren yelled, “No!”
Sable shot forward in a flash, drawing his knife and slashing it across Hess’s chest. Hess rocked back, his scream shrill as it broke into the air.
The wound was shallow, grazing instead of piercing, but to a man who’d never known real pain, it was debilitating.
Hess gasped, eyes glazing as the agony paralyzed him.
Sable moved in again.
He drove the knife into Hess’s stomach and ripped downward.
Hess sank to his knees, his flesh and blood spilling through skin and uniform, pouring onto the earth.
[page]UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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32
PEREGRINE
Perry saw everything.
Taller than everyone in front of him, he had a clear view of Sable as he flayed Hess open.
Time came to a stop as Hess crumpled, his blood darkening the dusty earth. The moment of absolute silence felt familiar, reminding Perry of when he’d slain Vale. Power felt tangible. Its shift unmistakable. Something had just ended, and something had just begun, and every person there sensed it: a change as startling and inevitable as the first drops of rain.
Soren’s scream broke the spell, a deeper sound than his father’s final cry, low and anguished, springing from his gut. Then gunfire broke out, sudden and everywhere.
Perry shot forward, sprinting toward Aria and Roar. Horns and Dwellers fired at each other as they ran for the Komodo, for Hovers, for any place to take cover. Bodies fell lifeless to the ground. Ten, then twenty, cut down in seconds.
“Aria!” he yelled, pushing through the stampede. She stood at the center of what was quickly becoming a bloodbath.
In a break in the crowd, he spotted Sable surrounded by a dozen of his men, who protected him in a human shield.
Roar’s words rang in Perry’s mind. Cut off the head of the snake.
Perry could do it. He only needed one clear shot.
Roar’s whistle cut sharply through the gun battle.
Perry’s head whipped to the sound. Roar stood fifty paces away. A Horn soldier held him by the arm, shuttling him to the Komodo. Perry saw Soren and Aria beyond Roar, both of them also under gun.
Perry slowed and set his feet. He aimed the pistol, finding his mark, and pulled the trigger.
He hit the Horn soldier who had Roar—a square shot to the chest. The man flew back, falling to the ground, and Roar lunged free.
Perry sprinted again, bullets flinging past him. He’d lost sight of Aria and Soren, but Roar ran ahead of him, charging forward on the same path.
Roar reached Soren first, leaping at his captor. He fell, tackling Soren too.
Perry ran past them, seeing Aria. Then seeing Kirra.
“Stop, Perry!” Kirra yelled. She yanked Aria around.
Perry skidded to a stop as Kirra pressed a gun under Aria’s chin. He was only twenty paces away, but not close enough.
Aria tilted her chin up, her face strained with anger. She was breathing fast, her gaze on Perry but her focus elsewhere.
“Drop the gun, Perry,” Kirra said. “I can’t let you leave. Sable needs—”
Aria rammed her elbow into Kirra’s throat.
She spun away, grabbing Kirra’s arm and twisting it behind her. She forced Kirra down with an arm lock, sending her face smashing to the dirt. Snatching the pistol from the ground, Aria slammed the butt into the back of Kirra’s head. Kirra went limp, knocked unconscious.
Aria jumped to her feet and ran over. “I hate that girl.”
Stunned, impressed, Perry felt his mouth pull into an idiotic grin.
“We have to get out of here,” Roar said. Soren swayed behind him, ashen, his eyes unfocused.
“This way,” Perry said, leading them to the Dragonwing he’d been in earlier.
As they raced down the runway, he noticed battles waged over Hovers—and the Horns quickly gaining control. Every Dweller seemed to be challenged by three of Sable’s men. Some were Guardians, already showing allegiance to their new leader. Bodies lay strewn across the field, most of them dressed in gray.
He reached the Dragonwing and jumped inside, Aria, Soren, and Roar right behind him. Cinder waited in the cockpit, exactly where Perry had left him.
“Go!” Perry yelled.
The Dweller pilot was ready, just as they’d planned. He had the craft off the ground before the hatch closed.
[page]UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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33
ARIA
Aria sat on the floor with Soren in the dark hold behind the cockpit. The Hover had barely taken off before he’d begun to rock, choking on sobs.
She rubbed his broad back, biting her lip to keep from offering him platitudes. I’m sorry. I’m here for you. You don’t deserve this.