Land of Smoke and Ashes

Spies and Soldiers

Sam was right. She'd been selfish just thinking of her mother and herself. If they didn't do something than all these people would die.

She needed to tell him right away. There was no waiting until after she found her mother. Natalie took a deep breath, struggling to reach across to her other arm, shoving the soldier back long enough to tap the silver cuff on her wrist three times.

Come on, Sam.

A long moment passed, during which the soldiers slumped lower, and Natalie grunted in annoyance, not wanting to drop him like a sack of bricks on the stone floor. He was a creep, but it didn't mean she wanted to be the one responsible for breaking his skull.

Footsteps from behind her made her jerk upright, nearly dropping the soldier. Luckily it was Sam who came around the corner. When he first spotted her and the Jake the soldier his face went all over with fury, and it would have almost been amusing if Natalie wasn't about to collapse under the deadweight of the guard.

"Help me with him," she hissed. "He's crushing me."

"Oh." Sam's eyes went wide with understanding. "I thought you were—Oh." He rushed forward, pulling the unconscious man off her. He let him slump to the ground with a little less care than he perhaps should have, and Jake the soldier hit the ground with a thud.

Sam looked abashed. "I saw the bracelet. He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"No. He was in no condition."

"You guys didn't...uh," Sam ran his fingers through his hair, eyes searching her face. Was he blushing? "You know...kiss?"

In any other circumstance she would have enjoyed the look on his face immensely, but now wasn't exactly the time. "No, look, Sam, we're in deep trouble."

He looked alarmed. "What? What did he say? Did he know what she's planning?"

She glanced both ways down the hallway. Probably here wasn't the best place to talk. Maybe they could go to the middle of the marketplace where it was so noisy there was no way anyone would overheard what they were talking about. Would that be better? Damnit, she was bad at this spy stuff.

Natalie opened her mouth, about to say as much, when there was the shuffle of a footsteps and someone shrieked in a high, echoing voice, "You bitch!"

She spun around just on time to see a flurry of black skirts and blond hair, and then someone crashed into her, smacking Natalie's in the face and shoulders. She hit the ground a second later, and the impact knocked the wind out of her, making her wheeze and gasp for air.

It was the woman from the kitchen, the serving girl who had been glaring at her while she talked to the soldier. She tore at Natalie's face and hair, and there was a sharp pain in her left cheek, and then the back of her neck. Something clinked onto the floor beside her.

The necklace.

Sam must have collected himself enough from the shock, because a moment later he was looming over them, pulling the serving girl off of Natalie, who scrambled up, heart in her throat. The hallway was so dark, she couldn't see the necklace, where was it?

For one panicked moment she scrambled over the floor, her hands grasping nothing, and then something on the ground beside the wall glittered. There!