Crossed Sights

​POV: Malia

​The conservatory was a massive, vaulted cage of wrought iron and thousands of paned glass sheets. Exotic ferns and blood-red orchids hung from the rafters, casting long, strange shadows over the white marble floor.

​The air inside was thick, humid, and smelled of wet earth and crushed petals.

​"We shouldn't be in here," I whispered to Jarrah as Alastair led the way toward a long mahogany table set in the center of the room. "The roof is entirely glass. If those snipers drop their angle by fifteen degrees"

​"They don't have the angle," Jarrah muttered, his eyes scanning the iron catwalks weaving through the high canopy thirty feet above us. "Unless..."

​He stopped dead in his tracks.

​"Unless what?" I asked, my hand instinctively dropping to the small of my back where my flat-profile pistol was holstered.

​"Unless those snipers aren't Alastair's," Jarrah said softly.

​Before I could process the words, a sound like a lightning strike shattered the roof.

​The glass dome above us didn't just break; it exploded inward.

​A hail of heavy-caliber fire rained down from the dark sky, chewing through the iron girders and showering the grand hall in thousands of razor-sharp glass daggers.

​Screams erupted from Alastair's security team. Lord Vane was hit instantly, his body thrown backward into a display of glass terrariums that shattered on impact.

​"Down!" Jarrah roared.

​He didn't hit the floor himself. He lunged over me, grabbing me by the shoulders and slamming his weight down to cover my body as a barrage of suppressed automatic fire tore up the marble floor where we had been standing a second before.

​Glass rained down on us like a frozen waterfall. I felt heavy shards slicing into the leather of my boots and tearing at the hem of my gown. The noise was deafening: the continuous thunk-thunk-thunk of heavy rounds punching through iron, marble, and wood, mixed with the shattering of glass panels overhead.

​"Third party!" someone screamed through the dust. "It's a third party! They're clearing the room!"

​"Move!" Jarrah grunted against my ear.

​He hauled me to my feet by the front of my dress, keeping his body pinned between me and the high catwalks where muzzle flashes were flickering through the dark foliage.

​We sprinted through the conservatory, dodging behind massive stone planters as heavy rounds turned the tropical plants to green pulp above our heads. Water pipes burst along the perimeter walls, spraying cold streams of water into the air, turning the dust and floating plant fragments into a blinding, humid mist.

​"The side exit!" I yelled, pointing through the fog toward a set of heavy brass-framed glass doors leading to the gardens. "If we can reach the outer wall"

​TAK-TAK-TAK.

​A line of heavy fire stitched across the marble floor right in front of us, exploding stone splinters into my shins.

​Jarrah shoved me violently into the recess of a thick iron support pillar. I hit the wall hard, gasping for air, but before I could turn, Jarrah stepped out into the open line of fire, raising his sidearm with one hand to lay down suppressive fire toward the catwalk.

​"Jarrah, no!" I screamed.

​A high-velocity round whined through the air.

​I heard the sickening thud of heavy lead hitting flesh and bone.

​Jarrah’s body jerked back hard. A spray of dark blood erupted from his upper arm, tearing straight through his dark coat sleeve and splattering across the iron pillar beside my face.

​He didn't fall. He didn't even yell. He just let out a harsh, guttural grunt, his jaw snapping shut so hard I heard his teeth click.

​Without breaking stride, he fired three rapid shots into the canopy above. A body tumbled out of the iron catwalk thirty feet up, crashing through a glass display case with a thunderous crunch.

​Jarrah reeled back into the shadow of the pillar, his left arm hanging limp, blood pouring down his hand and dripping off his knuckles onto the wet floor.

​"You took a hit!" I grabbed his chest vest, trying to pull him down to check the wound. "Jarrah, sit down!"

​"It passed through," he panted, his face deathly pale, his eyes wide and burning with a terrifying, raw adrenaline. The sleeve of his coat was soaked in crimson, the blood warm where it spilled over my hands. "Didn't touch the artery. We keep moving."

​"You used yourself as bait to pull the shooter out!" I yelled over the sound of breaking glass.

​"He had a clear line on your head, Malia!" Jarrah snapped, leaning his heavy shoulder against mine as we pushed forward again toward the garden doors. His breath was coming in ragged, shallow hitches now, the shock of the wound hitting his already damaged ribs. "I can survive a bullet in the arm. I don't survive watching you take one to the chest."

​We reached the brass doors. Jarrah threw his body against the crash bar, slamming them open into the night.

​Cold rain washed over us instantly, stinging the cuts on my face and hands.

​The garden path lay before us, leading toward the wrought-iron perimeter gate two hundred yards away. But halfway down the stone walk, standing under the dim light of a gas lantern, was a lone figure dressed in tactical gray, holding a heavy-barreled sniper rifle across his chest.

​He wasn't Alastair's man. He didn't wear the sector crest.

​He slowly raised the rifle, aiming it dead center at Jarrah's chest.

​Jarrah raised his pistol with his trembling right hand, but his shoulder gave out; the gun dipped, his grip failing as blood slicked the handle.

​"Jarrah..." I reached for my own weapon, but the gray-clad operative reached up with one hand, pulled off his ballistic helmet, and let it drop into the mud.

​In the faint amber light of the lantern, the man’s face emerged from the shadows.

​Jarrah froze. His hand went completely still on the useless gun.

​"Impossible," Jarrah whispered, the word barely audible over the roaring rain. "We buried you three years ago."

​The man smiled, a cold, empty expression devoid of life and pulled the trigger.