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

to move on to the next step. That they were getting bored playing with humans .” Her eyes were wide with fear when they lifted to mine. “Why would they say that? Are they not….”
    I understood her trepidation. When I’d first learned that Nathan was not entirely human, it had freaked me out a little. And I had been fully prepared for him to admit something unbelievable. This girl was completely blindsided.
    I decided she was better off not knowing the answer to the question she couldn’t even finish asking.
    “They’re just a bunch of sick men,” I said. “I don’t know what they were talking about, why they said what they said, but I do know they’re not good. That’s why we helped you.”
    She seemed to accept my explanation eagerly, like she wanted to believe anything other than what she had started to suspect. After a few more minutes of talking to her, it became frustratingly clear that she knew nothing else.
    With a promise to have her driven home soon, I left Jennifer sitting in the back of the van, and went in search of the others. Perhaps they had uncovered something more useful.
    I found Callie leaning against a tree, distancing herself from the rest of them. I could hear their voices, all loud and angry and menacing. Mostly, I heard Richie, which was surprising.
    “You stay with her?” I asked Callie, nodding toward the back of the van.
    “Sure thing. I’ll do anything but go over there.” Callie jutted her chin forward. I followed her gaze and saw exactly where they were, hidden behind some brush.
    As I approached, I saw that all but one of the Skotadi were now dead. I knew that they had been injured in the rollover, but I wondered if their injuries had ultimately done them in…or if someone had killed them. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that one of them had definitely been killed by someone’s hands. More precisely, a bullet.
    Nathan was knelt on the ground, his face only inches away from the last remaining Skotadi. He didn’t notice my approach, until the Skotadi looked past him and saw me.
    “You,” the man rasped.
    Nathan stood and swung around in frustration. I hoped it wasn’t because of me. From the set scowl on his face as he glared down at the Skotadi, I suspected he had been frustrated long before I came along.
    “You need to join us,” the Skotadi was saying to me.
    “Not going to happen,” I returned, earning an evil grin from him.
    “Then you will die,” he continued, “and so will they.” His eyes swept over everyone slowly, finally coming to a rest on Micah. “Especially him.”
    And with that one statement, I got to witness firsthand the extent of Richie’s temper. With something that sounded like a growl coming out of his mouth, he rushed the Skotadi. Before he got within killing range, Nathan intercepted him. 
    “Not yet,” Nathan murmured to him before turning back to the Skotadi. “One last time before I let him have you. What are you doing in the warehouse?”
    The Skotadi stared at Nathan without blinking.
    Nathan tried another question. This time, his hand shot forward, squeezing the Skotadi around the throat. “What are you doing with humans?”
    The Skotadi gasped unsuccessfully for air, and was looking a little pale, even by Skotadi standards, but managed to gasp, “They are our pawns.”
    “You don’t even know, do you?” Nathan spat. “You’re a nobody. You just run errands like you’re told.”
    The Skotadi rolled his head to the side, to rest his cold gaze on me. “I know enough. I know that she’ll be the end of you. All of you.”
    Nathan’s gun was pulled and pressed to the Skotadi’s temple before I had time to blink. Nathan was going to kill him. I could see it in his eyes, in the rigidness of his jaw, in the way he fingered the trigger. For a second, the Skotadi knew he was about to die, and he was afraid. It was exactly the reaction Nathan had been looking for.
    “You address her, mention her, or so much as look at her