Free Silent Warrior by Lindsey Piper

here?” Hark asked.
    Silence held a finger to her lips.
    Great.
    Darkness and quiet. Thirty minutes earlier, he’d been fucking a woman named Orla in what, by comparison, had been the most opulent hotel in Hong Kong.
    “I’ve stashed my prisoner here.”
    “Your—? Oh, I get it. Retrieving indigents for the cartels. Nice.”
    “Such high morals, Hark.”
    “Hey, nice. That’s the first time you’ve said my name.”
    Her expression hardened, until she was the opponent he’d squared off against in Wu’s bar—something like a lifetime ago. “Those thugs weren’t after me,” she said in a rough whisper. “Who are we running from?”
    “They work for a loan shark named Jing. I owe him maybe . . . seven thousand Hong Kong dollars. It’s, what, a week’s work in an American office—you know, one of those nine-to-five jobs that sound like torture. But really? Jing is about third from the bottom when it comes to dickweeds who want a piece of me.”
    “Doesn’t mean they won’t kill you.”
    “Some people have an overly eager hard-on for vengeance.” Hark stifled a laugh. “Forget cartels and big, grand schemes. This is a minute bird shit by comparison.”
    Only then did he realize that they weren’t in the dark anymore. Some grotesque yellow glow allowed him to see her ridiculous excuse for a smile. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. He actually liked her smile, because he’d started to think of it as his. He especially liked it compared to the hellhole she’d led him to.
    “Yeah. Okay. So what sort of friendly beast do you have chained down here? Gimme another Pendray. Say it’s a Pendray.”
    “A Southern Indranan.”
    “C’mon. Telepathy? They’re almost as lame as us.”
    She surprised him by grabbing the back of his neck and kissing him. Hard. Fast. Demanding. “They have guns. They have a target. We’ll change that target.”
    “Have them shoot each other?” At Silence’s nod, he grinned. He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. Her midnight black eyes should’ve been unnerving in that graveyard gloom, but he was beginning to read her. Know her. “You are a maniacal woman.”
    “You like that.”
    “I do.”
    But he absolutely hated it when the lights went out.

8
    “T here’s something I haven’t told you,” Hark said, trying to keep the edge of panic out of his voice. “And don’t go all secret squirrel on me now. Whisper or whatever, but stay close.”
    “I assume there’s quite a bit you’ve never told me.”
    “I . . . I have issues with complete darkness.”
    “Issues.”
    The delivery of that single word was devoid of emotion.
    He’d expected something . A snappy retort. Because why wouldn’t she? When she bothered to speak, Silence was as snarky as the next chick with a brain. But at that moment, he’d rather have complete stoicism than some witty mockery.
    “Yes, issues.”
    “Fine. Then we’ll always fuck with the lights on.” She groped for his hand until their fingers intertwined. “We still need that telepath.”
    No judgment?
    Wait, always fuck?
    That implied enough of a good time following this debacle to get his wits together.
    She wound through the passageways. The tunnels were as tight as the tension in Hark’s chest. Only that tension wasn’t his hatred of the dark. He was oddly eager. Anticipation spiked, made him light-headed, as if he’d spun in circles too many times. He’d never had a partner before. He worked alone, procuring items, risking his ass. Aside from an occasional hookup—as he’d assumed Silence would be—he bedded down by himself each night, always expecting to wake up facing the barrel of a napalm pistol.
    The deeper they ventured into the dark, the more potent the human stench. On occasion Silence would stumble over something that grunted. A person. Hark imagined them spread across the floor like puppies laid out before their mother, hunting for a ripe teat. He and Silence were navigating a minefield labyrinth in