Free The Last Twilight by Marjorie M. Liu Page B

find out what causes them. Others handle containment, but my job is to find the source.”
    “Dangerous work.”
    “Like you said, life is dangerous.”
    “But that does not answer why we do it.”
    Rikki stared at him. “Where did Larry find you?”
    His eyes warmed—that singular warmth that made her gut twist, hot and unsettled. “You will have to ask him that yourself after we leave this place.”
    “Optimistic.”
    “As are you. I suspect your job requires it.”
    She shook her head. “Are you sure you’re a bodyguard?”
    “I never said that. Only that I had been sent to protect you. The two, I assure you, are quite different.”
    “Huh.” She lay on her side, cushioning her head on her arms. “But here you are.”
    “Indeed,” he said, and for a moment it was easy for Rikki to forget where she was, what had happened.
    But not for long. She fell asleep again, and dreamed.
    Her old coach was with her, a shouting man made of muscle turned to lard, stout and pockmarked and a genius at his craft: Markovic, former Olympic gymnastics champion. He was yelling, chasing her. Rikki did not know why he was angry, but it frightened her and she tried to run. Not far, though. She tripped. All grace gone, no strength left. Drained into the earth, like blood. Blood, on her hands. Blood, everywhere, from so many dead. Dead, all at once. All at once.
    Bad dream. Rikki woke with a question on her lips, a nagging sense that something was wrong. Her fault. She had missed something obvious.
    The lights in the tent were off. It was very dark. That was also wrong. She began to sit up and a hand caught her shoulder. Amiri. He was sitting on her cot, shadows gathered around his body. She imagined, once again, a faint glow in his eyes.
    “What?” she whispered, but as soon as she spoke she heard shouts in French outside the tent. Hoarse voices, full of fear. Sweat beaded against her skin, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Hot, suffocating. The air-conditioning had gone with the lights.
    Gunfire made her jump. The rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons. Shouts became screams and Amiri dragged her off the cot and pressed her to the ground.
    “Rebels,” he murmured. And just like that, things got worse.
    Western media loved the entire African continent like some good crack, but only the parts that were hurting. It was what had surprised Rikki the most during her first six months on the job. She had seen the images, read the newspapers with their sad doomed stories— people starving, women raped, poverty and corruption and destruction—but the reality was stark, different, dusty and full of sunlight and laughter and enterprise— kindness, music, intellectualism; a rambling babble of diversity and uncommon languages and culture, mingling and scrabbling and making joy. Fifty-four countries, nine hundred million people. Modern to rural, rich to poor. Folks working hard for a living. Just like home.
    Except for the rebels and wandering militias, scattered throughout the Congo and adjoining countries. Except for the politics that backed those men, and the genocide that accompanied them. That much was true. Rikki had the scars to prove it. A lot of women did, in this region, though she had been hurt less in some ways, than others. No rape. But what had happened was almost as bad.
    She squeezed shut her eyes. Her scars ached. Like some storm-burn in an old woman’s joints, more frightening than bad weather. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. She wanted to pick up a gun and start blasting into the night: heartless, efficient, effortlessly brutal. Better than the alternative.
    Screams cut the night. Amiri’s arm tightened. Rikki’s heart pounded so hard she felt sick.
    “This area’s been quiet,” she muttered tightly, trying not to vomit. “But I heard rumors in Brazzaville that the rebels and militias have been moving east out of Kivu. It’s why this camp was established. To take care of the folks running from their