The Burn Zone Read Online Free PDF

moving across the screen, along with buttons and equipment standing out in sharp relief.
     
    “ He doesn ’ t have it, ” the soldier said. “ Just the standard-issue security override. ” The hand squeezed my neck a little harder.
     
    “ Where did you take him? ” she asked, her voice an electronically altered crackle. Dragan looked around the room at the soldiers.
     
    “ Is this how it is? ” he asked them. “ You ’ re going to just turn on one of your own? ”
     
    “ Watch your mouth, traitor, ” one of them said.
     
    “ Don ’ t talk to him, ” she said. She turned back to Dragan. “ I ’ m going to ask you one more time. Where did you take Alexei Drugov? ”
     
    Dragan shook his head, a single bead of sweat dropping from his stubbly chin.
     
    “ That place was destroyed, ” Dragan rasped. “ How can it— ”
     
    She clamped her black, scaly glove down on my neck hard then, and I gasped. I tried to squirm free, but the combat suit gave her incredible strength.
     
    “ Tell me where you took him, ” she said, the armor making a low whine as she slowly tightened her grip.
     
    “ Don ’ t let her do this, ” Dragan said to the other soldiers. My throat felt the size of a straw as I gasped air in. “ You know me. This isn ’ t— ”
     
    She lifted me up until my toes brushed the floor and I choked. Grabbing at her wrist to hold myself up, I tried to pull in another breath but couldn ’ t. I struggled, trying to peel her fingers back, and felt a flood of emotion surge through the mites as suddenly as a shock of cold water to the face ... anger, hatred, and disgust bled through my brain like chemical poison. Underneath it all hunger simmered, a desperate, driving hunger that made my stomach clench into a painful knot. It wasn ’ t coming from Tānchi . The signal was a million times stronger. It was coming from her.
     
    She ’ s a haan, I thought, staring down into the empty hood created by the dispersion mask. The thought buzzed in my head … But they ’ re so delicate. How can she ...
     
    The room seemed to get darker as I struggled to stay on my tiptoes. As dark clouds bloomed in front of me, I saw a fat scalefly come crawling down the length of her arm, then out of sight below my chin. A sound like water rushed in my ears as the world around me began to fade.
     
    “ Wait, ” I heard Dragan say. Through the slits of my eyes I found his face, and when I did I barely recognized him. I ’ d seen what he could do the day he found me and in the days since, but now the fierceness and strength that I ’ d always associated with him were stripped away. There was only fear in his eyes, just raw fear. Not for himself, but for me. I ’ d broken him.
     
    “ I ’ ll tell you, ” he said again. The room seemed to be tilting, and he sounded far away.
     
    I glanced right, swiping the 3i icons away in a streak of hot pink hearts and neon that left trails across the blurry backdrop of our ruined apartment. My friend list scrolled up until I spotted Dragan ’ s name and grabbed it. When I tapped him, he ’ d already begun to move, and I saw metal flash as the knife at his belt came free from its scabbard.
     
    love u 2.
     
    “ I ’ m sorry, Sam, ” I heard him say.
     
    The knife came down in an arc as he launched toward us, and the blade struck the soldier next to him. The soldier staggered back while groping for the blade ’ s handle, now jammed into the meat between his shoulder and neck. He struck the wall and left a streak of blood as he slid to the floor.
     
    Dragan seized on the 3i connection, his desperate reply stopping almost as soon as it started.
     
    Forgive me—
     
    The other soldier crashed his plated fist down on the back of Dragan ’ s head, and his 3i connection dropped as he went down like a stone. He wasn ’ t moving, but the soldier knelt over him and hit him again.
     
    “ Don ’ t kill him, you idiot! ” the woman shouted.
     
    He hit Dragan again,