Page 17 of Dragon 7

Yet. . .inside, I was screaming.

Dear God. . . .

"Turn it off." Reo yelled. "Now!"

The screens went black, one after another, until the wall was dark again and the orange light was gone from the room.

The murmuring stopped.

Reo stepped close to my shoulder and remained silent.

There was nothing to say that would not make it worse, and we both knew it. He had warned me.

Yet. . .for one moment his eyes met mine, and everything we were not saying sat there in the space between us.

Was it worth it? Will it ever be worth it? And how many more before sunrise?

I held his gaze and buried the horror for now—the boy, the woman, the rising death toll, and the block.

"Get everyone in position." My voice came out cold. "My father will be on that jet soon."

Reo studied me for one more breath and then signaled to the Fangs, Claws, and top Scales to follow. “Let’s go.”

Chapter four

Change of Plan

Kenji

All my men came over and gathered around me.

And I saw the horror and devastation on every face. The Claws wore it plain. The Fangs were better at hiding their devastation. Still, a few had their jaws tight and gazes fixed on the dead screens. Aki and Yuki went pale beneath their battle calm.

But it was Hiro's face that cut deepest.

My brother stood with the lollipop forgotten at the corner of his mouth, and the war-readiness he'd carried back from the balcony was gone. In its place sat something raw and young, the boy I grew up with.

He shook his head slowly. "Why do you think Akiro killed so many innocent people?"

The question stabbed at my chest.

I opened my mouth, and I did not know what was going to come out of it. But before I could answer, Reo did.

"It doesn't matter." Reo shook his head. "Let's make Akiro pay for what he just did to Tokyo."

The men moved as one, nodding their heads hard.

"For Tokyo," Hiro said quietly around the lollipop.

"For Tokyo," the Claws answered.

They had a villain now. A reason. A target with a face. Reo had handed them the one thing that turns horror into fuel, and they took it gratefully, because grief with nowhere to go eats a man alive and grief aimed at an enemy keeps him standing.

It was a gift.

It was also a lie.

I looked at Reo over the heads of the men, and Reo looked back at me, and in that single uncomfortable glance we said everything the others could not hear.