Kane shook his head. “No. I feel like the most triple-lucky asshole in the world.”
He found Brigid where he had stowed her. She had armed herself with a splinter pried from a wooden pallet, holding it like a dagger, one end of it wrapped with a length of fabric ripped from the sleeve of her bodysuit.
Anxiously she asked, “Is it over?”
“It’s just beginning,” he replied grimly, helping her to her feet.
She followed him back to the center of the warehouse. She averted her eyes, and Kane didn’t blame her. The scene was not for the sensitive. Grant stood beside the open door of the Sandcat, his right leg propped up on the running board. The albino girl, Domi, was expertly knotting a tourniquet made of a Mag’s belt around his thigh.
“Something tells me you developed a plan,” Kane said.
“Of sorts. I’ll fill you in on the hoof. Climb aboard.”
Kane sent Brigid on ahead. He pushed through the scattering of fallen boxes, kicking them aside. Most of them were empty, but several of the wooden crates were quite sturdy, and therefore quite heavy. He found Salvo beneath one.
His right arm was trapped beneath the crate, but he held the pin mike clumsily between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Kane reached down, snatched it away and tore it loose from his coat’s lapel. Salvo’s normally sallow complexion was ashen. Blood glistened from a shallow gash on the crown of his head, and he appeared to breathe with difficulty.
He had enough breath to bare blood-filmed teeth and gasp out, “Should have known. Like father, like son.”
“What do you mean?” Kane snarled. “Where’s my father?”
The injured man shook his head, attempting to curl his lips in a sneer. Kane leaned his weight against the side of the crate. Salvo cried out, and a fine spray of bright crimson froth burst from his mouth.
“A punctured lung, looks like,” Kane said. “Survivable, if I allow it. How much of this Archon shit is true?”
Salvo’s reply was an aspirated wheeze. “All of it. None of it. Only as much as you can authenticate. Which is very little.”
“Where’s my father?”
“Like the baron saidstill performing the work of the Trust.”
Kane leaned on the crate again. “I asked where !”
“You know already. You just don’t know that you know.”
“Kane!” Grant’s shout was galvanizing. “Let’s go!”
Salvo’s glazed eyes fluttered. “You think you and Grant are the first Mags to cut and run? You’re not. You probably won’t be the last, either. Once you ran, you’ve got to keep running. That’s the life of an outlander, an outrunner.”
“You’re wrong,” Kane said quietly. He aimed the Sin Eater at an invisible point on Salvo’s broad forehead. “I’m done with running. And you’re done with everything.”
“Chill me and be damned.”
The muzzle of the Sin Eater didn’t move and didn’t spout fire or noise.
Salvo eyed it. In a gravelly whisper, he said, “Don’t tell me pity stays your hand.”
“Yeah,” said Kane, mocking the whisper. “It’s pity. It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets.”
He heaved the packing crate aside. “On your feet.”
Salvo clumsily flopped over on his left side, his right hand folded loosely around the butt of his Sin Eater. “I think my arm is broken.”
“I’m not asking you to walk on your hands. On your feetslagger.”
Wheezing through his teeth, Salvo made a show of controlling his pain, trying to force himself awkwardly to his feet with his left arm. When he achieved a half-crouching posture, his right hand tightened around the Sin Eater and whipped the muzzle up.
Kane had been waiting for that. He delivered the toe of his left boot full into Salvo’s mouth. Salvo went over on his back, spitting blood and bone splinters. He flopped and thrashed, using his heels to kick himself into a sitting position, bringing his blaster to bear. Through pulped lips, he was snarling with rage.
Kane slashed the barrel of the Sin Eater across the side of his head, splitting open the scalp. Blood pouring down his face, Salvo fell heavily onto his back, his skull striking the flagstone floor with, a cruel crack. He made no movement after that.