Free Sacrificed (The Ignited Series) by Desni Dantone Page A

night air, and we all jumped. None of us more so than Nathan, considering he’d been the closest to the source. The girl pulled her knees tight against her chest as she regarded Nathan with wary eyes.
    He must have gotten the not so subtle hint that she wanted nothing to do with him. He scooted back, providing her with the space she clearly wanted, and turned to look over his shoulder. When he spotted me, he gave a ‘come here’ nod.
    He stood to meet me halfway. My gaze fell on a red scratch on his upper arm as I approached, and I grabbed his shirt to turn him toward me. The sleeve was shredded and blood oozed through the fabric.
    “Did you get shot?” I asked him, my eyes wide with alarm.
    He shrugged. “It’s just a flesh wound.” But a flesh wound from a diamond-coated bullet wasn’t something to shrug at. He must have seen the thought register on my face, because he added, “It wasn’t coated.”
    “You sure?”
    He nodded with a hint of amusement. “Pretty sure.”
    I let go of his shirt, only then realizing that I had still been gripping it, and how close Nathan and I were now standing. I didn’t want to step away, but did, knowing that we had an audience.
    I looked down at the human girl, huddled in the corner. She had a nasty cut across her nose that was bleeding. Other than that, she appeared unharmed.
    Just scared. 
    I offered her a smile that I hoped she found reassuring. She studied me cautiously before her eyes narrowed on Nathan.
    Clearly, she had a head injury. Sound minded girls didn’t shoot daggers at Nathan. Ever.
    “What did you do to her?” I whispered to Nathan, only partially teasing. From the bland look he shot me, he didn’t find it half as amusing as I did.    
    He leaned close to me, dropped his voice for my ears only. “Talk to her,” he said. “See who she is, if she has any connection to the Skotadi or Kala. See if she overheard anything.”
    I nodded. “What are you going to do?”
    He grinned as he retreated to the back of the van. “Forcing a few Skotadi to talk.”
    The girl watched Nathan as he jumped out the back. She was still terrified, and it was easy to understand why as she watched all of them—Nathan, Alec, Micah, Richie, Gabby, and even Callie—surrounding the Skotadi with weapons drawn. They, at least, moved the Skotadi out of sight and earshot so we didn’t have to hear or see what they were doing to make them talk. Still, considering what the girl had seen so far, I got the impression she might consider us to be the bad guys.
    “Hey,” I said to her, pulling her gaze to me. “We’re the good guys. We’re going to help you.”
    She looked reluctant. “I want to go home.”
    “Sure. I just want to talk to you first. Is that okay?”
    “I want to go home. Now.”
    “Can you tell me your name first?” 
    “Jennifer.”
    “Okay, Jennifer,” I said as if I were soothing a baby to sleep. “We’ll take you home, but first my friends need to talk to these guys that took you. We want to know why they took you. Do you know?”
    She shook her head. “I was at the club and was on my way to the bathroom…and it just went dark,” she sobbed. “Next thing I know I’m in here with two of them.”
    “Did they say anything to you?”
    She started to shake her head, then hesitated as if a thought came to her. “Not to me. I heard them bragging to each other.”
    “About what?”
    “It didn’t make sense,” she muttered. “Something about getting a lot out of me, or something like that.”
    My confusion mirrored hers. I didn’t know what to make of that. Surely the Skotadi weren’t in the human trafficking business. But what else could they have been getting out of her, if not money. Sexual favors? I didn’t even want to think about that, and pushed that thought out of my head as quickly as it appeared.
    “Did you hear anything else?”
    “One of them…” She trailed off as she struggled to remember. “One of them said they were ready