And now he had Charlie.

She’d half-expected the other soldiers to come in search of her, and when they didn’t, she had to assume that they didn’t know about her. That they hadn’t realized she’d been traveling with Charlie and Eden.

She’d managed to stay quiet by biting her fist, the only way she’d been able to keep from being discovered while she’d watched as Eden had run out of ammunition and been overpowered and taken prisoner. But she’d nearly choked on her own glee as she’d watched Charlie take down her attacker and ram a blade into his throat.

She remained concealed long after Niko and the others had taken Eden and Charlie and the VAN and had gone. She was a fugitive now, inside the borders of her own country.

Brook knew she had to be careful—stealthy, so as not to be discovered.

Slipping away from her hiding spot, she glanced skyward at the sun. At least an hour had passed since the Astonians had departed, so she was certain it was safe to come out.

She followed the same path she’d negotiated before, only this time she stopped along the way.

At the first body, Brook knelt to examine the metal casing surrounding the soldier’s face. The pounded iron was thick, like armor. She ran her finger along the side of the beakish mask and noted it had a knifelike edge. It would slice her flesh were she not cautious.

She reached around it and found where it fastened. She removed it, as well as the goggles, revealing the soft skin of a woman beneath. Her black hair was wild and unkempt, but she was young—barely of legal age by Ludanian standards.

Brook’s gaze moved downward, to where Eden’s bullet had pierced the girl’s heart. She couldn’t see the blood; it was lost in the sea of black she wore. Brook relieved the girl of her gun and a small-bladed knife she found concealed in the top of the girl’s boot.

At the next body, she didn’t inspect the mask or the bullet wound. She simply stripped the soldier of his weapon and the spare ammunition he kept in his inside jacket pocket. She did the same at the third and fourth bodies. Weapons and ammo only, until she’d scrambled all the way down the hillside to where Charlie had single-handedly killed the soldier who’d blitz attacked her.

She didn’t want to smile—this was no time for smiling—but she couldn’t stop herself. Charlie, it seemed, was something of a badass.

Charlie, the girl she’d known forever. The one who’d worked hard and barely spoken out of turn her entire life.

Charlie, the girl Brooklynn was willing to die for.

Apparently their queen still had a few secrets of her own.

Brooklynn braced her boot against the dead soldier’s unmoving chest and gripped the handle of the knife that protruded from his neck. She counted to three silently in her head, and then pulled.

The knife came free, and Brook marveled at the doublebladed design before wiping both sides of it on her pants. She held her breath then, every muscle in her body going stockstill. Every beat of her heart was a distraction as she tried to concentrate. The skin at the base of her neck tightened. The muscles at her shoulders coiled, readying.

She’d heard the snap of a twig just as clearly as if it had been the shattering of a colossal tree trunk. It had come from behind her, and she knew that if she didn’t time her actions carefully, they might easily be her last.

Spinning around, she dropped to the ground, crouching low. In her left hand she had a handgun pointed in front of her. In her right the double-sided blades were concealed close to her hip. She was prepared for anything.

Except for what she saw.

Aron took a step backward, his eyes locked on the gun directed at his face. “A simple ‘Nice to see you’ would have done.”

Brook inhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to calm her pounding heart before it cracked a rib or bruised a lung.

When she opened her eyes again, Aron was studying the body at her feet. “D’you do all this?”

She narrowed her gaze on him, resenting the question. “Would it matter if I had?”

Aron looked again, and then at the bodies in the hills beyond her. He shook his head. “You planning to lower that thing anytime soon?”

She hated that she couldn’t still her heart. She hated that she had to ask this, even though she should know the answer. “Depends. Tell me about Niko.”

Aron frowned, and she searched for any sign that his confusion about her question wasn’t genuine. “What are you talking about? What does Niko have to do with anything?” He took a step toward her, and she waved the nose of the gun at him, staving him off. “Brook, what’s going on? I find my girl out here, all alone in the middle of a bloodbath, and all you can do is ask me about Niko? Should I be jealous?”

Brooklynn blinked. She thought about shooting him right then and there, and then she glowered at him. “Don’t call me that,” she growled irritably.

He grinned then, a smug grin that made Brook’s stomach flip. And this time he ignored her weapons and marched boldly to her, disregarded the fact that she could pull the trigger at any moment. “Call you what? My girl? What do you expect me to call you, then? Commander? Ma’am?” His arm shot out to her waist, and he hauled her up against him, his eyes sparkling devilishly.

Brook let the gun drop to her side. Her heart stopped beating and lodged in her throat. The way he looked at her, the way his eyes roved over her face—“wolfishly” was the only word she could think of to describe it—made her cheeks burn.