Fragments by Dan Wells Read Free Book Online

out in a puddle and soaking Marcus’s knees and pants. There was too much blood—too
     much for Weist to ever survive—but Marcus kept the pressure on. The prisoner wasn’t
     breathing, and Marcus called again for help. “I’m losing him!”
    “Let him go!” shouted the soldier, loud and more angry. The world seemed drenched
     in blood and adrenaline, and Marcus struggled to stay in control. When hands finally
     jutted forward to help with the bleeding, he was surprised to see that they were not
     the soldier’s, but Delarosa’s.
    “Somebody get over there!” Woolf was shouting. “There’s an assassin somewhere in those
     ruins!”
    “It’s too dangerous,” said another soldier, crouching low in the brush. “We can’t
     just charge in there while a sniper has us pinned down.”
    “He’s not pinning you down, he’s aiming for the prisoners.”
    “It’s too dangerous,” the soldier insisted.
    “Then call for backup,” said Woolf. “Surround him. Do something besides stand there!”
    Marcus couldn’t even feel a heartbeat anymore. The blood in the victim’s chest was
     stagnant, and the body was inert. He kept the pressure on, knowing that it was useless
     but too stunned to think of anything else.
    “Why do you even care?” asked the soldier. Marcus looked up and saw the man talking
     to Senator Woolf. “Five minutes ago you were calling for an execution, and now that
     he’s dead you’re trying to capture his killer?”
    Woolf whirled around, shoving his face mere inches from the soldier’s. “What’s your
     name, Private?”
    The soldier quailed. “Cantona, sir. Lucas.”
    “Private Cantona, what did you swear to protect?”
    “But he’s—”
    “What did you swear to protect!”
    “The people, sir.” Cantona swallowed. “And the law.”
    “In that case, Private, you’d better think good and hard the next time you tell me
     to abandon them both.”
    Delarosa looked at Marcus, her hands and arms covered in her fellow prisoner’s blood.
     “This is how it ends, you know.”
    They were the first words Marcus had heard her speak in months, and they shocked him
     back to consciousness. He realized he was still flexing his arms against Weist’s lifeless
     chest. He pulled back, staring and panting. “How what ends?”
    “Everything.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    “I think it was the Grid,” said Xochi.
    Haru snorted. “You think the DG killed the man who used to represent them in the Senate.”
    “It’s the only explanation,” said Xochi. They were sitting in the living room, nibbling
     on the last remnants of dinner: grilled cod and fresh-steamed broccoli from Nandita’s
     garden. Marcus paused on that thought, noting that he still thought of it as Nandita’s
     garden even though she’d been missing for months—she hadn’t even been the one to plant
     this crop, Xochi had done it. Xochi and Isolde were the only ones left in the house,
     and yet in his mind it was still “Nandita’s garden.”
    Of course, in his mind this was still “Kira’s house,” and she’d been gone for two
     months. If anything, Marcus spent more time here now than before she’d left, always
     hoping she’d turn up at the door one day. She never did.
    “Think about it,” Xochi went on. “The Grid’s found nothing, right? Two days of searching
     and they haven’t found a single piece of evidence to lead them to the sniper: not
     a bullet casing, not a footprint, not even a scuff mark on the floor. I’m no fan of
     the Grid, but they’re not inept. They’d find something if they were looking, therefore
     they’re not looking. They’re covering it up.”
    “Or the sniper’s just extremely competent,” said Haru. “Is that a possibility, or
     do we have to jump straight to the conspiracy theory?”
    “Well, of course he’s competent,” said Xochi. “He’s Grid-trained.”
    “This sounds like a circular argument,” said Isolde.
    “Weist was part of the Grid,” said Haru. “He was