Below me, she stirs. I lean back, and her lids flutter.
“Alexei,” she whispers. “Where am I?”
A fucking miracle.
I don’t understand what happened, and I don’t care. I help her sit up and see that she’s got blood on her palms from falling down.
“Can you stand? Or I’ll carry you.”
“Yes.”
I help her to her feet, but she wobbles. She’s so unsteady I’m sure she’ll fall. “Wait. Hold onto me for a second while I put my phone—”
“Oh, my God. This is me still alive?” she mumbles. “Where…?” Her hand pushes against me. “Light… I must see for myself.”
I pull out my phone and use the flashlight app.
Her face hardens as she looks at Egorov. “Mmm. Not dead either.”
I don’t know how she can tell. He’s lifeless in the dirt.
“Go,” she whispers. “Turn away. I will finish.”
Since she can barely stand, I don’t know how she thinks she’s going to finish anything. Or how she thinks she’ll be able to see anything without me holding the light.
When she straightens up though, the determination on her face is clear. She takes a couple of steps and then kneels with her knee on his neck. The pressure or the pain rouses him.
He reaches up to grab her, and she reaches down to cover his mouth and nose. For a moment, it’s a life-and-death struggle between two people who aren’t fully in control of their minds or bodies.
I grab her and pull her away from him. She resists, her hands reaching out. I drop her gently behind me.
Egorov scrambles, trying to roll over to get up, trying to pull a weapon from his belt.
My arm’s around his neck in an instant, my phone dropping to the ground. With my forearm across his throat, I lift Egorov from the ground, shaking him like a bear.
The icepick falls from his grip as he dangles. He tries to wrestle free, scratching at my arm. I hold my right wrist, torqueing harder on his neck until I’m crushing his throat.
His body goes slack. I wait until I’m certain, then I drop him.
I don’t see her crawl to him until it’s too late. She buries the icepick in his chest, raises it, and plunges it in again.
“I am sorry, Alexei. You should not see me kill him.”
He was already dead, but I don’t correct her. Something in her face stops me. Natalia staggers to her feet then, a little more steady than she was before.
I wipe the handle of the icepick, clearing it of her prints.
“Natalia, come here.”
She walks away slowly. “I must do one more thing… his plan, I will use against him.”
I follow her to the van. She can’t get the slider door open, so I open it.
“Please sit here. I am almost done,” she says breathlessly as she climbs inside. She tries to lift a gas can, but has trouble, and it falls from her hands onto the van floor.
“Hey,” I say, grabbing its handle and righting the can as I pick it up. “You sit. I’ll do it.”
“But—”
