I brace for the pain. For the bullet to tear through the mattress above me and into my body.
But the pain doesn't come.
Instead, there's a heavy thud.
And then the intruder falls.
He lands face-first on the floor, his head turned toward me, his dead eyes staring directly into mine. There's a neat hole between his eyes, and blood begins to pool beneath his face, dark and spreading.
A scream tears from my throat.
I can't stop it. Can't control it. All the terror I've been holding back comes flooding out in one long, ragged wail that scrapes my throat raw.
"Holly. Holly, it's me."
Nikolai's voice cuts through the panic.
Alive. He's alive.
Strong hands reach under the bed and grab my arms, pulling me out. I scramble on all fours, dropping the gun, desperate to get away from those dead, staring eyes. Nikolai wraps his arms around me and holds me against his chest.
"You're safe now," he says against my hair. "You're safe. It's over."
I can't stop shaking. Can't stop crying. My hands find his face, his shoulders, his chest, checking for wounds, for blood, for any sign that he might be injured.
But he's solid and warm and very much alive.
"I thought you were dead." The words come out broken, barely intelligible through my sobs. "He said… he said you were dead."
"He lied." Nikolai cups my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. Those piercing eyes bore into mine, fierce and full of something that looks like desperation. "He lied,solnyshko. You can't get rid of me that easily."
I kiss him. It's not graceful or sweet. It's messy and desperate and tastes like salt from my tears.
He kisses me back just as desperately, his hands tangling in my hair, his body pressing against mine like he's trying to absorb me into himself. Like he was just as afraid of losing me as I was of losing him.
When we finally break apart, I'm still trembling. Still crying. But the worst of the terror is starting to fade, replaced by something else.
Questions.
So many questions.
"Who were they?" I ask, my voice hoarse. "What did they want?"
Nikolai goes very still.
I pull back enough to see his face, and what I find there makes my stomach drop. There's guilt in his expression. And dread. And something that looks almost like grief.
"Nikolai?"
He doesn't answer.
"Please." I take his face in my hands and force him to look at me. "Please tell me what's going on."
"There are things I should have told you before now,” he says quietly. “Things about who I am. And things about who you are."
"What do you mean, who I am? I know who I am."
But even as I say it, a cold tendril of doubt curls through my chest. I think of my parents and their insistence on self-defense training. Their sad, knowing smiles. The way they always seemed to be preparing me for something they refused to explain.
