Page 68 of Dragon 7

The room went deaf.

The guard's head snapped up to me. He stared in shock. Surely, he was not used to my ordering him to kill anyone.

The second guard at the foot of the bed turned and stared in shock too.

Yoichi's lips parted and then his mouth closed.

Deja's eyes moved between every face in the room and read the space—watching the people who understood the language, watching what their faces did, and feeding the information into whatever part of her brain put pieces together faster than anyone gave her credit for.

The cousins shook their faces and then let out nervous, broken little chuckles.

The cousin on the left tipped her head. “Look at her. She thinks she can order us to death.”

The other smirked. “Reo’s pin or not, the Dragon would never allow such power.”

They stopped laughing when the guards moved to them and raised their big hands to capture them.

Kiko’s guards looked the other way.

The cousins screamed in horror and fought against them.

"Oh no! Please! She has no authority to order our deaths!"

"Stop! Stop, you can't—"

"She can't do this!"

“This is insane! We will tell the Fox!”

They kicked. They clawed. One of them managed to grab the door frame on the way out and the guard wrenched her hand off it without slowing his pace. The other one was screaming Kiko's name now.

“Kiko, help! Please!! Kiko!?”

Kiko watched in shock. Her face had gone from pale to gray. Her hand fisted the bedsheet over her thigh and crushed it.

The door banged open.

The screams went into the hallway. They kept going for a few seconds—growing fainter, the cousin still calling Kiko's name—and then the corridor swallowed them.

A door somewhere further down the basement closed.

The babies cried again and I knew that the nurses were checking their vitals.

Kiko sat up straighter against her pillows. Her chin came up as she spoke in English, "You think you are a boss now."

I watched her.

"You are not a boss. Those guards will not kill them. They are just pretending to follow your order." Her voice fought to hold, but her bottom lip betrayed her as it quivered. She looked to Yoichi. "Tell this outsider, Yoichi. Tell her about our way."

Yoichi only looked at me.

The silence stretched for one long minute.

Then, I frowned. "Everyone leave, please. I want to talk to her by myself."

Deja shifted at my side. “Are you sure?"

“Yes.”