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WE LEFT THE SICKENING scene in the office for an equally sickening scene in the foyer. There was blood everywhere: in big dark puddles around the motionless bodies of guards, soaked into their uniforms, sprayed on the floor, and spread around as boot-shaped footprints.
“They attacked us with machetes,” Nicha said by way of explanation, or apology, I didn’t know which. He used the Isla word.
They were machetes, big, ugly blades that looked a lot blunter than they probably were, seeing the amount of damage my team had been able to do with them.
I wanted to ask, Did you really have to make such a mess? But they probably did, because I knew they did not attack easily, and I had never known Nicha to have killed anyone before he became my zhayma.
That was because we were never in situati
