PROMISE

CHAPTER 33

Lilith stood over Hain, hips cocked at an angle, her demeanor so thoroughly unbattle-like that the whole fight might have been a dream. Beside him, and also at her feet, all three guards lay unconscious, the biggest one snoring through a mashed and crooked nose.

"You're like a damsel in distress." Lilith's mouth twitched up on one side. "You know that?"

Hain kneaded his temples, shooting her a glare through the bulge of healing packs Sanger had plastered to his face. Lilith, for her part, hadn't taken a scratch.

"A damsel with multiple face contusions," Sanger snickered as she locked restraints around the biggest guard's thick wrists. "Though," she gritted her teeth as she fought to click them into place, "I have to concede that your current level of ugliness is completely due to this guy." Sanger took one of the guard's meaty hands and shook it. "I mean, really? How do hands get this big?"

Hain let out a disgruntled mumble through the mess of healing packs.

"Sorry, I can't understand you with all of this," Sanger waved a hand around her face, "going on."

Hain left the comment unanswered, and rested his head against the wall behind him. He'd helped them drag the unconscious guards to a small room branching off an adjoining tunnel, and now Hain was paying for the effort with a massive headache.

A steady woosh-woosh beat in his ears to the rhythm of his heart, and his lips felt thick as cooked sausages. But even so, he could tell it was getting better. Sanger assured him it was the healing packs doing their work–the packs she'd brought with her when she'd planned to help them escape. The least he could do was let her snark go unanswered.

"What's the plan now?" he mumbled through the heavy feeling in his face.

Sanger sat back from the guard, breathless from the effort of wrangling his tree trunk arms. "Beyond taking out guards, and mocking the grievously injured human?"

Hain leveled a dark stare at her.

"Better watch it, Sanger," Lilith said. "You might not see it because of the horrible disfigurement, but Hain's getting a very murdery look in his eyes right now."

"Well he can keep the murder to himself," Sanger said, throwing Hain a dark look of her own. "If it wasn't for me jumping these three, you'd be in a cell right now."

Lilith raised an eyebrow. "Would we say you jumped them?"

"Maybe not jumped, jumped. But I helped distract them, didn't I?"

"You definitely distracted them. In fact, your punches might be better at distracting people than actually punching them."

Sanger shrugged. "I like to think of myself more as a forward thinker than a brawler."

"Speaking of forward thinking, how did you know what Smith was up to? He had these three snatch us up before I even knew what was happening."

"Well my first clue," Sanger said, tapping her chin with one finger in a pensive way, "was the message he put out, telling everyone in the haven that the Vrai attacks were because of Hain, and that you'd been arrested for treason."

Hain's jaw would have dropped had it not hurt so badly. Lilith, for her part, did enough jaw dropping for the both of them.

"He accused me of treason?" Lilith's voice stretched into an undiscovered octave on the last word. "But he's the one who went against Hume's plan!"

"Technically he accused both of you." Sanger waggled a finger from Hain to Lilith. "If, you know, that matters."

Lilith's hands clenched tight enough that the skin went white as she growled with frustration.