Free Rogue by Julie Kagawa

spent the majority of our lives, learning how to be human. Surrounded by desert, open sky and a whole lot of nothing. You could go outside and stand for hours in the same spot, the sun blazing down on you, and your ears would start to throb from the eternal, looming silence. I’d hated it. Sometimes, it had felt like the silence was trying to steal my voice; that if I went too long without making any noise, I’d become as still and lifeless as the desert around me. Dante had never understood why I was always so restless.
    Dante.
A lump rose to my throat as I clambered off the motorcycle, and I forced my thoughts away from him. One problem at a time.
    “Still up for this, Firebrand?” Riley whispered, jolting me out of my dark musings. With a mental shake, I nodded as my heart resumed its painful thud against my ribs. Riley gazed at me, then turned and pointed across the desert to where a scattering of distant lights winked at us in the darkness.
    “That’s the base,” he said quietly as I stared at the glimmers marking our objective. Garret was somewhere behind those walls, and with any luck, we’d get to him and be long gone before anyone from St. George knew we were there. “We’re about two miles away,” Riley went on, “but we can’t risk driving any closer and having them see us. Stealth is our only chance to pull this off. From here, we walk.”
    Wes slipped out of the van, ski cap pulled low over his head, and stalked around the vehicle to yank open the back doors. Riley joined him and dragged a black duffel bag out from under the seat. My heart lurched as Riley casually pulled out a small black pistol, checked the chamber for rounds and holstered it to his belt with easy familiarity.
    I swallowed at the sight of the gun. “Riley?” I ventured, suddenly terrified and angry about being terrified. “Tell me the truth,” I said as he glanced over. “And don’t think for a minute that I’m backing out, but…how dangerous is this really going to be?”
    Wes snorted. “Oh, sure,
now
she asks. On bloody St. George’s doorstep.”
    Riley sighed. “Truth, Firebrand? I wouldn’t agree to do this if it was complete suicide,” he said, holding my gaze. I blinked at him, surprised, and he gave a weary smile. “Wes might preach doom and gloom, but trust me when I say I know what I’m doing. We’ll be going in when most of the base will be asleep. This particular chapterhouse is extremely remote and well hidden; they’re using isolation to deter unwanted guests, so security should be minimal. If no one knows where you are, why bother with a ton of guards and patrols? And trust me, two dragons sneaking
into
a St. George compound doesn’t happen often, if ever.
    “But,” he went on as I relaxed a bit, “that doesn’t mean it won’t be dangerous. These types of missions usually go one of two ways: without a hitch, or spectacularly wrong. Hopefully, we’ll be able to sneak in, find what we want and tiptoe away without anyone knowing we were there. That’s the best-case scenario. I think you can guess the worst-case scenario. So, on that note…” He held out a pistol to me. “Ever shot one of these?”
    Numbly, I shook my head. I’d handled a gun before, both in my training with Lilith and then briefly when I’d disarmed the Glock aimed at my face, but I’d never fired one. Certainly not at a living creature.
    Riley smiled grimly. “If it gets to the point where we’re shooting at people, then the mission is FUBAR and we need to get out of there as fast as we can.” He held up the weapon. “These are only to be used as the very last resort. But if the mission does go south, you’re going to want something to defend yourself with. The problem with claws and teeth is that you have to get in close to attack, and that might be tricky if they’re all firing M-16s at you.”
    “I’ve never fired a gun before, Riley. I don’t even know if I could…shoot someone. Not for real. I’ve never