10K.
Niki Creole and the Harper brothers, Trevor and Cole, all regained consciousness at the exact same moment.
The question was, where were they?
The air stank of rot and dirt and death.
They jumped to their feet.
"We're in some kind of alley," Niki said.
"No, a warehouse. Look. There's a roof," Trevor replied.
"We're not alone, either."
Trevor saw them himself then, maybe a dozen shadowy figures between them and what looked like the exit.
"Think we're going to have any trouble with them?" he asked.
"We'll see."
They'd taken their focus off Cole, and that was a mistake.
Cole whirled away from the two of them, and, as he did, he kicked both Niki and Trevor in the jaw, making them stumble back and putting them on the defensive.
Then he was gone, past the shadowy figures and out the exit.
Fuck that, Niki thought. I'm going after his ass.
She rose half a foot on her anti-gravs. She figured she'd catch up with Cole in a...
WEE-SHAW!
Damn!
Not a laser knife.
Not a laser sword.
A friggin' laser whip.
Niki reacted like a warrior after three years of intense combat training, which was exactly what she was. She dodged, but she still managed to catch the edge of the whip along her upper thigh. Yeow! That burned! Plus, no more Azure healers. She might have to carry that scar for the rest of her life.
Fuck!
Trevor and Niki went into a back to back defensive stance.
The shadowy figures became not so shadowy as they, each of them, flicked on their laser whips. Thin. Ragged.
Two men now stood guard around the only exit. They remained in shadow because they hadn't yet flicked on their whips.
The others, though...
They flicked their whips this way and that, warming up.
One guy made intricate light patterns with his whip in the dark.
"Bye," both Trevor and Niki said at the same time.
Nothing happened.
They were supposed to turn invisible, only they didn't.
"Shit," both Niki and Trevor said at the same time.
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