Breach of Peace (The Lawful Times #0.5)(27)

The captain nodded. “And that’s why we have to get you out of the city. For good. Your life here is done. After today, you will no longer even know the name Khlid. Do you understand?”

Khlid took her time processing what she had just heard: a precinct captain, offering to help a fugitive of the Empire escape the city. If he was caught, he would be tried and killed. His family name would be branded for generations.

Khlid said softly, “You can’t.”

“I very damn well can. More than half my men were taken today, and I doubt I will ever fully know why.” Anger bled into his voice as he stood and began pacing the room. “I am a loyal servant of the Empire, but I will not let them get you, too.” His eyes drifted off. Khlid wasn't entirely sure he was not in mild shock. “They can’t take you, too.”

Khlid stood and walked over to Williams. He turned to her in slight surprise, escalating to an actual gasp of discomfort as she hugged him. Khlid had looked up to the captain her entire career. He also happened to be a damned good person. And this would have to be goodbye.

Awkwardly, the captain returned her embrace. “You and Sam were the best this precinct ever had.”

He let her go and cleared his throat with discomfort. “We have to get you out of the city. My career is over for sending my men in there tonight, but I can pass off some of the responsibility. My trusted inspector, Chapman, convinced me there were rebels in there; the rest, a dreadful misunderstanding. Hell, it's halfway true, anyway. Just shy of grounds for execution.”

Khlid nodded in response and folded her arms. As comforting thoughts went, it was going to have to do.

Williams walked to the table and picked up Khlid’s service revolver. Agitated as she had been when she first arrived, he’d taken it as a precaution. Now, he checked to make sure it was loaded, added six shots from his own belt, and handed it over. “I have a feeling you may need this.”

Khlid took the gun and holstered it. The added weight felt right. After all these years of wearing the thing ten hours a day, more, she felt naked without it. Having it back reinforced her growing resolve to survive and…

Holy shit. I am going to join the rebels.

She had not consciously thought it, but it had been her plan since she stepped into the rain from the warehouse.

Captain Williams walked past her to the door and opened it. “You will need to grab a change of clothes from the back; civilian garb. We will take you through the…” He trailed off and froze. He stopped so abruptly, Khlid nearly walked into his broad back as she followed him out to the desk pool.

A chill grabbed Khlid’s spine. She knew what she would see when she looked past the captain. Her resolve crumbled as she saw the figure in black, standing in the middle of the room, staring directly at her. The same white mask with the rictus grin mesmerized her. She could not pull her eyes from it.

The three of them stood there for what felt like an eternity, but could not have been more than a few seconds. It was the hunter, the Anointed, who broke the silence first. Its voice was no louder than a whisper, but it somehow boomed off of every wall. The sound consumed her mind with its soft, deadly tone.

“If you had simply stayed and died, they would have lived.” It nodded its head slightly to the left as it spoke.

Khlid looked where the Anointed had motioned. At the far end of the room, Christi and Jun, as well as the two other officers still in the precinct, were all seated neatly at individual desks in a line. Jun’s head was twisted until it faced the wrong way. Christi’s mouth was raised to the ceiling, an officer’s decorative saber pushed from the back of her skull and through her parted red lips. One officer had a pistol pushed into his eye socket. The last was missing his throat, blood still flowing down his chest.

After giving Khlid and Williams a moment to appreciate everything it had done, the Anointed spoke again: “This is your fault, little rabbit.”

“Why?” the captain asked. His voice did not sound angry, or even upset. It only contained defeat.

“We really didn’t think you were competent enough to find us.” It was said with both mirth and vitriol. “It was that Chapman, I assume. He’s a clever one. Pulling from two pools of knowledge? I should have congratulated him but—” The Anointed looked back to the dead sitting at their desks. Before it could say more, the captain capitalized on the move.

Khlid had heard the captain was a fast and accurate shot in his heyday, but what she saw was beyond her highest expectations. In the beat of a heart, Captain Williams drew and fired his pistol at the Anointed. The mask cracked with a spray of blood. The captain took aim again, but before he could fire a second shot, the Anointed spun. A knife flew from beneath a spiraling black cloak. The blade shot clean through the captain’s chest. A thud came from the wall behind Khlid.

The captain dropped without a cry.

It all happened so fast, Khlid had only managed to get a hand on her pistol. She drew and fired, but the Anointed was prepared now. It easily moved out of the way of her shot.

The Anointed spun again.

A knife shattered Khlid’s right knee. Screaming, she collapsed to the floor.

The sound of boots approaching.

The black-cloaked Chosen kicked her like a child’s ball. Khlid flew through the air and crashed into the far wall. The snapping of her spine was the last thing she felt. Numbness flooded her body.