The Cost of Honor by Diana Muñoz Stewart

Author:Diana Muñoz Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

The rain had stopped, but the drip of water sliding off leaves continued, along with the croaking of frogs. Piggybacking a ninety-pound kid through thick jungle, over rocky stones slick with rain, wasn’t easy. Laz watched how Honor walked. Silent. Smooth. He tried to mimic her natural awareness and stealth.

She expertly guided him, warned of dips and places he needed to watch. When he was a kid, Leland had told him stories about trackers with skills like hers. That kind of innate balance could be honed until she could move as silently as a ghost over Bubble Wrap.

Fuck. He was doing it again. Analyzing the world and people on how well they’d do in the League. Gotta let that shit go.

Could he? Right now, it felt like a defense mechanism. A way he could see skills that might help Honor. This experience with Cole had his every hackle raised.

Had Cole been going to meet someone? If so, who and why? Why would this person lead him back almost to the hotel? Why not just meet him closer to the hotel? Why would the kid keep going, stumbling forward though he’d lost his shoe?

“You okay?”

He lifted his head from watching Honor’s feet, the catlike walk—proud and silent and graceful. “Yeah. Why?”

“You looked like you’re chewing lemons.”

Chewing something a lot sourer, fear for her, Laz nodded ahead toward the hotel. A group of people rushed toward them. Honor had used her cell the moment they’d gotten a signal.

With a shift of his shoulders, he adjusted Cole on his back. The kid uttered a frightened noise that faded into the murmurs of shock.

They stepped from the woods into the yellow porch lights, and Cole’s dad rushed to them, took his son. Laz stretched his back.

Don seemed genuinely upset, patting Cole’s hair, cooing to him, and basically doing what any frantic father would do when his kid had gone missing.

For his part, Cole didn’t seem to notice, not even when emergency services took over.

Papito came over and put a hand, damp with sweat and rain, on Laz’s shoulder. “You did good. Both of you. Now can you turn off the alarm on Honor’s room?”

Laz heard it then, the alarm he’d set. Fuck.

* * *

By the time Laz got into the room, cleared it, and turned off the alarm, his ears rang. The room had been ransacked. Sitting on the chair by her desk, he used his cell to access the security cameras and checked the footage. He didn’t recognize the man in the video. Guy had some situational awareness. Hunched, wore a hat, kept his head down. He paused the playback. Something, nothing he could put his finger on, seemed familiar.

Honor started searching the room. Papers were out of place and the mattress moved, as if someone had looked under it. “How did anyone have time to make this mess with the alarm going off?”

Laz held up his cell phone. “This guy look familiar?”

She came over and he ran the footage. She shook her head.

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