Page 30 of Gemini
“Yes,habanshi?” he whispered back.
“Are you tired?” I was exhausted. But I needed…more.
“I am.” I sighed in disappointment. “And you are too. Let’s go to bed.”
“But I—”
Baelor chuckled. “Do not worry, Nitochi will be back soon. Take the sleep while you can, because then you will have to beg us for some rest…”
16
They all needed to die.
Nitochi
Ihad found Wendy too close to this place not to take this opportunity. If the human man was still searching for her, I had to take a look.
Hearing voices coming from the ground, I knew I had been right.
I landed discreetly in a tree, making sure to fold my wings close to my body as I went down, branch after branch.
The fools never looked up once. Not that they would have seen much; it was the middle of the night, and my skin color made me invisible to the untrained eye.
“They’re all dead, sir.”
A man stood out from the others. He was wearing dark fitted clothes that did not look like they would bring much protection in case of an attack. The others were covered in something thicker and held weapons—guns, I had learned they called this.
“Do you knowwhatkilled them?” the man asked.
His soldier brought a hand to his neck, looking uncomfortable. I slid down lower. “I don’t know, some kind of animal maybe?”
“Maybe?” the man drawled. “That’s all you can give me?Maybe?”
“Well, they’re…shredded.” So the animals had had a feast after all. Good. Hopefully they would not get sick. “Hard to find the exact cause of death when their limbs are scattered around.”
The man hummed, looking unfazed by what he had just learnt. “It’s a shame. Is the girl part of the losses?”
Anger boiled in my veins.Alessio.It had to be him.
“We can’t say for sure yet,” the soldier answered. “We’re still searching through the corpses.” He fetched something from his pocket and handed it to the man that was soon going to die. “We found this, though.”
Alessio grabbed whatever it was the armed man was handing him and frowned. “What are these?” he asked, disgusted. “It’s covered in blood.”
“We found them with what we assume is George’s body.”
“How do you know it’s his body?”
The soldier swallowed audibly, shifting on his feet. “Because the bloody flask has his name on it,” he said, pointing at one of the objects in his hand. “And I assume the shiny thing belongs to the girl.”
Alessio dropped one of the items to the floor with a grunt and brought the other closer to his face, inspecting it. He wiped it with a white tissue that quicklyturned red, revealing its shine. “I think you might be right,” he mused. “It’s a hair brooch. But if you found it on George’s body…maybe the girl—Wendy—isn’t dead.”
My grip tightened on the branch I was standing on.Wendy. MyWendy. So she was right, and the man was after her.
He had to die.
But I needed to take care of his armed soldiers first. Isolate him. Reduce his chances of being assisted.
I climbed back up, holding the angry growl threatening to break free from my throat, and circled the area from high in the trees, scanning the ground and the men patrolling.
