ravaged hearts

CHAPTER TEN,

RAVAGED HEARTS | CHAPTER TEN

"I KNOW NOTHING about this," Nooria Minhas insisted adamantly. "I lost contact with all of them a year ago. None of them have ever contacted me since."

  Once, Nooria had been an unwitting ally to Anthony Contreras' top spies. She'd unknowingly supplied them information for months, not stopping out of fear even when she realised what precisely her intel was going to. It was in the final months of their takedown of Melique's intelligence network Nooria had stepped up and offered to give them information in exchange for protection and amnesty. Sai had accepted.

  After the war ended, the woman chose to live in Vayante rather than her native Dumah. Io's assumption had been that the reason Nooria had moved to Melique back then in the first place was to escape. Most probably she was a fugitive of the desert kingdom. What crime she'd committed, Io had never bothered looking into.

  With utmost politeness, Io said, "You're lying."

  Nooria shook her head. "No. No I'm not... I'm not. I haven't contacted them since... haven't heard from them..." She sat down in frustration, rubbing her forehead. "I'm not an idiot. It was difficult enough escaping from their gauntlet. What makes you think I'll go right back?"

  "Fear."

Nooria winced. "They don't have anything to threaten me with anymore. I've already lost everything."

  "Everyone has something to lose."

  Nooria looked up and eyed her. "But I'm telling the truth. I don't know who took them. Or why they took them—well, actually, everyone knows that. Or where they are. I'm nowhere as useful as I was before, I can assure you of this."

   "You of all people should know that it's not as easy as that, getting out of this." Io shrugged, leaning against the wall. "You've offered us valuable information before, so we're going to ask you for more even if we know you probably don't know anything."

  "Is that why you're here?"

  Io smiled. "No. I'm here because I think you do know something. You're just too scared to tell me. Why?"

  "I know nothing."

  This time, there was enough conviction in her voice, enough certainty that Io was fully convinced. She sighed. "Fine. I was testing you. If you don't know anything... any ideas? Assumptions?"

  Slowly, Nooria murmured, "You didn't get... all of them. Some of them are still out there. And they want revenge. It's why I asked for protection in the first place." Someone like her, a presumed traitor, would be first on their hit list. That, or apparently the children of a rising politician.

  "I know that."

  "And the people left out there. They're dangerous. The most dangerous, I dare say."

  "You know who's out there."

  "I've made my own guesses and calculations. It's the monsters who are still out there."

  "The monsters who pulled at the strings or just the ones who carried out the orders?" They were talking in riddles, but Io had a feeling Nooria would reveal nothing straightforwardly.

  "The claws and the teeth."

Now, Io moved towards the armchair at the end of the table perpendicular to Nooria's couch, sitting on the armrest. "The Falcons and the Cuckoos."

  "No one except maybe Contreras knows just how many there are out there."

  "Operations have been going on since before the war ended to locate them all."