Dark Empathy by Archibald Bradford (inspiring books for teens TXT) 📕

conflict, but will do much to ease my concern for your safety. I was planning on leaving at least that many with you in the hive anyways. Or did you think I would leave our home undefended?”

Cordelia closed her mouth and drew in a deep breath of her own, then threw her arms around her Hornet and pressed her face into her breasts.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

Her tearful words were muffled by Oldeera’s cleavage, but the Hornet caught them.

“I will, and I will find Rebecca and keep her safe as well. You don’t need to worry so much honey! This is what I was born to do.”

The shorter brunette snorted out a half-laugh, then sniffled.

“I was born to bake cookies, so forgive me if I’m not used to seeing you off to battle yet.” She said plaintively, her words still muffled by tit-flesh.

Holding her worried bond-mate tighter, Oldeera let out a chuckle of amusement.

“And such sweet cookies you make, honey. I will nibble on those later… right after I nibble on you.”

As she finished her sentence one hand drifted down Cordelia’s back and gave her bottom a healthy squeeze.

“But for now, we need to leave if we are going to link up with the taskforce on time.”

Chapter 38:

Capital Punishment

Rebecca came back to consciousness slowly, her mind addled from the head injury.

She was sitting down, she could tell that much; her neck hurt from the way her head had been hanging limp for who knows how long, while her equally limp ears formed a curtain over her face.

Her eyes rolled around as she tried to focus; the side of her head and face felt tacky, dried blood indicating just how hard Carol had hit her.

Someone was talking to her, someone she loved, or perhaps… didn’t?

“-idea was to ship them in pieces, so that the inspectors would just see harmless machine parts.”

As she took in her surroundings the Lapine came to realize that they were in the office in the machine shop.

Somewhere she definitely shouldn’t be.

She jerked in place with the realization, only to feel hands settle on her shoulders and arms, firmly keeping her in the chair.

Head throbbing but fully conscious now, she looked across the desk, watching as the other woman deliberately assembled a familiar item.

“We even have a plausible explanation as to what they’re for to cover our asses. These-” Carol gestured with one of the little pieces before sliding it in place inside the weapon; “Are parts of the control mechanism for our presses. That explains the trigger and the springs and such to the uneducated.”

Her face darkened as she finished the trigger housing by putting the clamshell pieces together and Rebecca’s heart began to pound in her chest as their eyes finally met.

Carol was gone: Bethany was glaring at her now.

“It was a good plan, so what I need to know now… is how a dumb bunny like you figured out what they really were.”

The words stung, and she turned her head away as an involuntary sob escaped her lips from the crushing weight of her situation, all of the lies between them having been stripped away.

The grip that Gregory and the other man had on her arms kept her from moving as Bethany combined the parts she had just put together with the receiver and finished assembling the caster.

“And more importantly, who have you told?”

“Nobody.” Rebecca whispered immediately.

The arms dealer’s lips twitched into a slight grimace at the obvious lie as she looked to the night manager.

“Make sure everyone is armed up in case we have to deal with company, if it’s the lawkeepers we more than have them outgunned.”

“What if it’s the Aegis?”

Looking a little like she bit into a lemon, she sucked in air between her teeth with a grimace.

“Then we’ll see won’t we?”

She stood and stepped around the desk as Rebecca shrank in on herself, her ears flat to her head.

This time it was the cherry-haired woman’s grip that forced the bunny’s ears to straighten as she cruelly used them to force her to face her.

“As for you, sweetness, I’m sorry to say you won’t be making any more deliveries any time soon. Too bad, I really did love that piercing of yours.”

As the world crashed around her, the only thought that the young Lapine could formulate was a simple question.

“Was any of it real?” Rebecca whispered.

Bethany looked up and to one side as she thought back on every date they had shared, every truth she might have let slip to the Lapine in a rare moment of tenderness.

Inevitably she dismissed it all with a shrug and a smirk as she released her ears.

“I did grow up in the slums.”

With that she took a step back and leveled her pistol at the bunny’s head as a cold expression settled on her face.

Rebecca steeled herself, with strength she never knew she had filling her breast, she matched the other woman’s glare unblinking.

If this was her end then she intended to meet it with both eyes open.

The evil woman smirked.

“Brave little bunny. So very dumb, but brave.”

But just as she was about to pull the trigger, the whole building shook as something very large impacted it...

Or rather, something very small.

__________

Downstairs no work was getting done, the presses were silent and the crucible unlit. Workers were milling about with weapons in hand all over the machine shop, talking and laughing in the surety and arrogance that their employer had instilled in them.

Then everything changed.

The thick steel doors exploded inwards as a tiny red figured barreled through them with an enormous black hammer taking the lead, the heavy doors and the girl that broke them smashed into the crucible with implacable