In His Command by Rie Warren Read Free Book Online Page B

a mass of swollen tissue in shades of purple with ugly greenish yellow mixed in, a thread of bloodied spit dangling from his lips. His mesh vest was torn to shreds, revealing slender muscles bruised by fists and metal-capped boots.
    When I marched up to the troopers dragging his floppy body by the elbows, Blondie kept pace.
    The traitor better not mess with my operations.
    I addressed the grunt closest to me. “Where are you taking this man?”
    At the sound of my voice, Leon drew his head up. His hair hung in sweaty clumps over his eyes, but he recognized me—the little shit had had his hands on my crotch only a few hours earlier. More cunning than I suspected, he maintained the same blank look Blondie and I adopted, with a hate-filled sneer for added emphasis.
    MP Coombes had a face like the sole of a boot and about as much charm. He and his hard-liner cohort were the opposite of the recruits I’d sent ass-backward at the never-ending beginning of this night.
    “He’s not a man; he’s a faggot,” Coombes spat.
    Being a ruthless bully, he grabbed Leon’s chin, digging his fingertips into one of the fresh cuts. Leon didn’t flinch when he jeered, “Ain’t you, boy? Like it up the ass. Fuckin’ dog. The queer’s implicated in the rebellion. Arrested him at that gay rave, the Amphitheater. All dolled up, wasn’t he, Jenoah?”
    The Jenoah in question was a bleak-featured bitch with eyes that held all the emotion of steaming shitholes in snow, except now there was a sick gleam to them, because she’d caught one of us.
    Landing a blow on Leon’s cheek, she agreed. “Sure was. Had to mess up that pretty face. The body too. Unnatural is what this shitpacker is. Bet he won’t get much action anymore.” She beamed at me, her superior, expecting a reward.
    Taking very deep breaths, I barely held in my hotheaded temper.
    “MOVE OUT!” A fresh wave of troopers deployed to the left of us, reminding me there was a lot more going down than just Leon, but he took top spec in my mind. Damned if I was going to let another good man end up with a rope around his throat.
    “He’s headed for the stockades for now,” added Coombes.
    “Under whose orders?” My hands curled into fists, ready to do something seriously stupid. Blondie touched my shoulder, murmuring something too soft to hear, but his light assurance delivered instant calm.
    “The XO.”
    No way around that.
    Leon’s eyes stopped spinning long enough to pierce me. “What you be lookin’ at, Corps cunt?” His insult came out gargled with fresh blood.
    That earned him another ball-kick before they hauled him away.
    His barb salted the open wounds from the entire messed-up night. There was only one way to deal with the duality of what I was—cut out all the emotion from my life.
    Another blast shook the ground. That would be the electrics grid shorting out.
    Blondie staggered into me with the earthquake hilling under our feet. For a second, I let myself be the fulcrum to his body.
    My D-P went off. I barely heard it through his low words, the rat-tat of gunfire, and the buzz of generators starting from scratch, relighting the Quad first and then hum-hum-humming halos outside the compound. Their weak illumination joined the rising sun barely visible through black entrails of fire and the rain of fat ashes.
    Leon was at the doors of the Tribunal.
    The acrid smoke choked me, stung my eyes.
    When Blondie said something about seeing what he could do for my moony-eyed boy, I figured my ears were still tinny from the explosions until he clasped my hand, holding it firm and tight and letting go to say, “I know you feel responsible for him. Not sure why.”
    A grin pushed up my lips. “Me neither.”
    “Should count him as competition and call myself lucky he’s off your grid.”
    “Leon isn’t even in the running.”
    The smirk. The wink.
    My error.
    “I’ll get him off the stockades, see about delaying the Tribunal. They’ll have more important things to