Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

The words came from so long ago.

“Whatever you do, don’t blink during crucial negotiations.” Zacharias Wentz handed his rifle off to his niece without breaking eye contact with Connor. “Can you do that?”

Connor swallowed. Could he?

He’d been called from his makeshift bunker, stinking like an animal after weeks without running water, boots soaked through and mud-caked. Now the wind howled and blasted him with freezing drops. Those alone were enough to make his eyes close.

Negotiations? With the Directorate?

Wentz was centimeters shorter, but his posture and maybe even his nobility made that difference in height hard to notice. His armor was makeshift plates worked into an old, heavy jacket worn through at the elbows and shoulders and crudely sewn back together where it had been torn.

He made it look like a dress uniform. Water dripped off the bill of a battered black cap that completed the look.