Wounded Magic by Megan Crewe

Author:Megan Crewe [Crewe, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781989114070
Publisher: Another World Press
Published: 2018-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Rocío

A shake of my arm wrenched me out of sleep. Someone was bending over me in the dorm room, gripping my shoulder.

“Lopez,” the someone said in a low voice, and my still half-asleep brain registered her as one of the senior operatives who’d led a couple of the missions I’d been on. “You’re needed. Suit up and let’s go.”

She waited with her arms folded over her chest as I fumbled my way into my current uniform of cargo pants, thermal long-sleeved tee, ballistic vest, and hooded jacket. Prisha stirred on the neighboring bed. Her gaze caught mine in the darkness with a questioning glint.

I gave a nod to say that I was okay, even though I didn’t really know that—but it wasn’t as if she could’ve done anything to help if I hadn’t been. Prisha tipped her head in return and burrowed it back into her pillow. Knowing she’d noticed my leaving and cared made me feel a little more okay, somehow.

The woman who’d come to collect me ushered me through the dim halls of the base to the operations room. Even a few weeks after we’d moved here, the place still didn’t feel broken in. Dust lingered on the baseboards, and a stale smell hung in the air as if at least a few of the filters needed changing. I’d take this over staying somewhere the insurgents had painted a target on, though.

The bright fluorescents of the operations room stung my eyes as I walked in. I blinked hard, taking in the long rectangular table where we planned our missions. Commander Revett, Tonya Sekibo, and Colonel Alcido were standing there. Alcido, the sharp-jawed Dull military representative who’d turned up when Hamlin had been booted out, had his thin lips twisted into an expression even more sour than his usual one. I guessed this late-night meeting hadn’t been his idea.

“Operative Lopez,” Commander Revett said. “It seems we need you in the field.”

“Right now?” I said. I hadn’t been scheduled for a mission tonight—if I had, I never would’ve gone to bed. And this was way later in the night than missions usually left. I rubbed my temple, still feeling groggy from my interrupted sleep.

“One of tonight’s squads encountered a young woman who appears to have some sort of information. She’s saying there’s only one person she’ll talk to, and from what she’s said and the fact that she matches the description of the local who gave you that recorder, we have to assume she means you.”

The girl who’d given us that tip—she was asking for me, somewhere out there? My mind snapped more alert in an instant.

“Did you instruct her to come specifically to you?” Alcido asked, his nasal voice even more abrupt than Revett’s.

What? “No,” I said. “I didn’t instruct her to do anything.”

“Colonel,” Revett said.

Alcido ignored her like he usually did. He seemed to think he got to call the shots now… and from the way the senior Confed officials acted, maybe he was right.

“So you don’t know what this is about?” he said.

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