“Follow orders,Pakhan.”
When the big bastard finally loosens his hold, I spot the Glock at his hip and the water glittering below the bridge. My gut twists, but I know what I have to do.
Before I can second-guess it, I rip the gun from his holster, rack it, and fire. The shot explodes inside the car, and blood sprays. We jerk sideways, nearly sideswiping a bus. But I don’t wait, don’t think. I throw the door open, hit the asphalt, roll, and run.
Gunfire cracks behind me. And I dash for the railing, my shoes skidding on the loose gravel.
“You goddamn bastard!” Pyotr’s voice roars after me. “I’ll kill you with my bare hands!”
I grab the barrier, stare into the black water, and my stomach drops. Maybe it’s not as far a fall as it looks. But if I don’t make it…will it be such a bad thing? A lifetime of fear and violence flashes through my head, and I know right then that I’d rather die than go back.
I hook my legs, push off, and let go.
A fist catches my collar mid-fall, jerking me back so hard my neck snaps tight. He’s there, faster than I expected, boot crushing my chest, and his breath hot on my face.
“You think you’re getting off that easy?”
“Fuck you!”
I scoop a fistful of gravel and hurl it at his face. He curses, blinking and staggering, and that’s all I need. I twist, rip free of the torn fabric, and crawl for the edge. This time, I don’t stop and throw myself over the rail.
The wind tears past me. He fires from above, and a round clips my arm, another burns through my leg. Hot pain, then cold…so cold as I hit the river.
Water swallows me whole, the impact knocking the air from my chest. I fight for the surface, kick once, twice, but darkness rushes in faster.
I wasn’t supposed to survive the fall. Not awake. Not like this.
Even though I know how to swim—Papa taught me—my arms and legs don’t listen. They’re too weak. For a moment, I think about letting go, just sinking until it’s quiet. But something deep inside refuses. I thrash, claw, and kick, but each movement is slower than the last as the river pulls me harder.
Fuck.
“H-help…” The word tears from me, bubbles bursting in the water. No one can hear. No one ever does.
This is what you want.
Cold floods my chest, and my vision starts to close in until there’s nothing left to fight.
I stop kicking. The world goes quiet—then slips away.
“What the fuck!”
A hand hooks under my arm and yanks me from the water. Pain flashes through my shoulder, but I can’t scream. I can’t even cough, no matter how hard my body tries.
“Hey! Wake up! Breathe.”
The man drags me onto a jagged embankment and shoves at my chest until water bursts from my nose and mouth in sharp, burning spurts.
“Goddamn, kid. What the hell happened to you?” he mutters, rolling me onto my side as I choke and vomit what feels like every drop of the Schuylkill River. “Wait here—I’m gonna get help.”
When I look up again, he’s gone. The only sign he was ever here is a small tent flapping in the dark.
Shivering, I push to my feet. Blood runs down my arms, mixing with river water as I limp toward a dirt path, slip through a gap in a rusted chain-link fence, and keep limping.
I have no idea where I’m going, only that I have to move. Have to get away. I stagger down the narrow trail until it spits me out onto a street beneath a flickering light pole.
“F-fuck,” I groan as the adrenaline drains, leaving every broken part of me screaming. I lean against the post, trying to take the weight off my leg.
“You look like hell, dog.”
