Hunter (The Hero Rebellion 0.5) by Belinda Crawford (ebook e reader .txt) 📗

same movement. Her eye on the sight, tracing the bright red crosshair to the spot at the base of his neck, the one that would sever the nerves between brain and body. Temple on his hands and knees, pain lining his face, the tightening of his jaw, giving his complexion a new, pale cast. A sound, a wet strangled laugh followed by the sharp splat as he spit blood on the ground.

'No,' he said as he sat back on his heels. 'Not my girl. But perhaps not Kylian's either.'

She ignored him.

'Don't move,' she said.

Temple turned. He stared down the sight, capturing her gaze through the crosshair. He wasn't smiling anymore, his dark face sombre, and something in his gaze.... The click sounded in her brain, deep and sharp. Her heart sped, her palms growing warm with the increased blood flow, the scent of dust and the musk of biogel rich in her nose, as that gaze reached through the pistol's sight to grab hold of the thing in her middle.

This wasn't right. The words rang in her head, a warning carried in the beat of her heart and the smooth, steady motion of her lungs.

Focus on the 'pard.

She firmed her stance. 'Don't move,' she said again.

'Maybe you're your mother's girl.' He shifted his weight, preparing to stand, and unease surged a second time, but it wasn't the movement, it was his words. He moved as if it hurt, one hand braced on the knee she hadn't dislocated.

'Maybe I'm just all me,' Subria said.

He laughed, and the unease thickened. 'No, Ms Venere, you have a little bit of something else in there. Trust me.'

'Trust the man raiding the genebanks?' Instructor Bayard's voice rang through the room. 'You're asking a bit much of my recruit.' A shadow moved between the databanks, and the instructor appeared out of the darkness.

'Are you sure she's just a recruit, Ursula?'

'What else would she be? A 'pard?'

'Perhaps. She has the pitiless stare down. Pointy teeth would complete the look.'

'You should have left well enough alone, Temple.'

He stood, groaning as he shifted his weight, not quite straightening all the way. 'I couldn't, you of all people know that.'

'I had hope.'

'You know how I feel about hope.'

'I do.'

There was a beat of silence, time for Subria to hear the blood rush in her ears, the pulse of electricity through the gene banks. Time to watch Temple grip his ring, to see light flash on the metal as he twisted it.

Pain erupted in her ears.

CHAPTER FIVE

Fire raged through the databanks. Ghostly, unreal. Hell-ish.

Subria ran, feeling its hot breath on her neck, the lick of it on her cheek and smelling the awful, acrid stench of burning hair. Oh, God. Not her hair, not her hair. Not. Her. Hair.

Focus on the 'pard. Her daddy's voice played in her ear, took the ragged gasp out of her breathing. Air still rasped and raged in her throat, drew the taste of blood to her tongue and made her lungs burn, but panic no longer choked her.

Running wouldn't get her out of this.

A door up ahead, the flames glinting on plasglas.

She darted right. Slammed her hand into the control pad. The door opened. She squeezed through, hitting the pad on the other side before it was fully open.

The door closed, but she was already ducking, squeezing into the darkest shadow she could find, breath still ragged, heart still thumping, the sense of unreality sticking to her skin.

The flame drew closer, the crackle and rush of it echoing through the walls, lighting up the shadows, heating the air and stealing the sweat from her brow. She could feel it through the steelcrete now, in the floor.

Her heart beat harder.

Her breath came shorter.

Panic bubbled up in her gut, reaching hot sticky tendrils for her reason.

Focus on the 'pard, little tiger. Her dad was in her ear. The floor was no longer steelcrete but the soft loam of an old park, abandoned in the dark reaches of Cumulus City, the knotted branches of ancient trees twisted overhead, naked of leaves, cracking and creaking in the icy breeze, while the musty scent of death filled her nose.

She held the air in her lungs. Let it out, recalled the weight of the rifle in her hands, the smooth cold barrel, the hard curve of the stock against her shoulder.

'Wait for him to come out of the shadows,' her dad whispered in her earpiece. 'Always make him come to you, never go after him.'

'I remember,' she'd whispered back, the words barely enough to ruffle the air, but enough for the comms in the biocomp around her throat to pick up.

'Good. Patience is the watchword and caution is your ally. You might think you have him cornered, but the 'pard is not stupid, not even clouded by his rage.'

'He's rabid, Daddy.'

'That does not make him any less cunning, little tiger; it only makes him thirst for your blood.'

A shadow moved within the darkness, a piece of the night as tall as a man and twice as wide detaching itself from the gloom. It moved slowly, paws bigger than her face, bigger than her whole chest, gliding through the leaf litter, and Subria swore she could feel every step through the soles of her boots. Could feel it vibrating through the soil, echoing with her heart.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Her breath shuddered.

'I see him, Daddy.'

'I know. Calm.' His breath travelled through the comms, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Her lungs followed suit.

'Focus,' he said.

She focused, no longer feeling the rifle in her hands, the stock against her shoulder. Seeing only the shadow moving through the dead trees, the giant hulk emerging from the darkness, into her sight.

Focus.

Breathe.

A hum of power, and her HUD snapped into place, and now she could see more of the shadow, the dense black fur, matted and patchy around his chest. The dark river of old blood running down his shoulder from where the other Farm Control unit had shot him. Dried now, like the