She only stopped when her voice cracked.
Breathing hard, out of breathlessness or emotion, she stared at the ground, clenching her fists. I could feel one of the ladybugs get crushed in her grip, fading out of existence as far as my power was concerned.
Whoops. Rest in peace, li’l lady.
“Stop,” I told her, without using my swarm to change my voice. “Breathe. What happened?”
She looked up at me, then she swallowed hard.
I like that Taylor deliberately doesn’t use her swarm echo here. The swarm echo makes her less human-sounding, and in this case, human is exactly what she needs to be.
“The Merchants took him. My kid brother. I want you to get him back. Please.”
Looks like we’ve got a specific goal for Skitter’s upcoming attack on the Merchants!
I suppose this is why we had that bit in the previous chapter about the people the Merchants decided to keep around. So that we’d know how much trouble this means for the kid. And yeah, it certainly doesn’t sound pleasant.
There’s no way Taylor wouldn’t want to save him, especially when you consider how similar the situation is to Dinah’s.
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