“And I don’t fucking care.” She racks the slide, and brass casings hit the snow. She’s magnificent, she’s terrifying, she’s everything I never knew I wanted, and I can’t lose her, I can’t, I won’t—
“Go.” I shove her toward the treeline with one hand and turn to lay down covering fire, and that’s when I see him.
The sniper.
Sixty meters out, prone in the snow behind a fallen birch, and I know that rifle, I know the scope, I’ve seen that exact setup in Grozny when we were clearing buildings and losing men. Dragunov SVD. The effective range is eight hundred meters. And he’s aiming at my wife.
I see the muzzle flash. I move. I don’t think. I just step in front of her. I’m already turning to push her down when the first bullet hits me.
Shoulder.
The impact spins me sideways, and I make a sound that isn’t words, just air leaving my lungs in a rush of pain that whites out everything else. My Makarov falls from my fingers, and I’m stumbling, trying to stay upright, trying to keep my body between her and the shooter because if he gets a second shot at her—
Gut shot. Wet heat spreads. My legs fold.
I’m dying.
The thought is almost calm, almost peaceful, and then she screams my name and the peace shatters into rage because I can’t die, I can’t leave her alone, I promised to protect her, and I’m failing, I’m fucking failing—
My boots hit ice.
I didn’t realize how close we’d gotten to the riverbank, didn’t see the slope under the snow, didn’t account for the frozen Moskva stretching out behind us in a solid sheet of white that’s been there all winter. The ice groans under my weight, and I try to stop, try to get my balance, but my legs won’t listen, and my shoulder is useless, and the blood is making everything slippery.
I fall.
The ice cracks on impact, not all at once but in stages, first a spiderweb of fractures spreading out from my body and then a sound that’s almost a scream, almost human, and then the world drops away, and I’m in the water.
Cold.
Blyad, cold doesn’t cover it, cold is a word for winter mornings and air conditioning, and this isn’t that, this is knives, this is every nerve in my body shrieking at once and then going silent because the signals can’t make it to my brain through the ice water flooding my clothes and filling my mouth. I’m sinking, and I can’t see which way is up. My lungs are burning for air, and there’s blood in the water around me, my blood, spreadingin clouds that I can’t see in the darkness, but I can feel, warmth leaving my body faster than I can stop it.
I kick.
My boots are full of water, and my coat is dragging me down, and my shoulder won’t move, but I kick anyway, thrashing toward what I think is up, toward the hole I fell through. The current wants to pull me sideways, wants to drag me under the ice and away from the light, and I fight it with everything I have left, clawing at water that’s too cold to feel, my lungs screaming for air.
Light.
There’s light above me, and I swim toward it with my one good arm, dragging myself through water that feels thick and wrong. My hand breaks the surface, and the cold air hits my skin, and I grab the edge of the ice.
I haul myself up.
The ice groans under my weight but holds, and I drag my chest onto the frozen surface, gasping, choking, vomiting river water while the cold wind cuts through my wet clothes. The gunfire is still going, I can hear it now, Luka shouting orders and Chernov’s men returning fire, and somewhere in all of it, Anya is screaming my name.
“ROMAN!”
She’s there.
Ten feet away, dropping to her knees at the edge of the solid ice, and I can see where the fractures end and the thicker ice begins. She’s crawling toward me with both hands extended, and her face is white, and her eyes are wild, and she’s moving too fast, not watching where she puts her weight.
“Anya, stop.” The words come out broken, barely a whisper, and I can feel the ice shifting under my chest. “Stay on the solid ice. Don’t come closer.”
“I don’t fucking care.” She keeps crawling, and a new crack spreads somewhere beneath us. Her body shifts as the surface tilts. “Give me your hand, I can pull you—”
“The ice won’t hold us both.” I’m trying to drag myself forward, trying to reach the solid section where she’s kneeling, but my gut is on fire, and my shoulder is useless, and every movement makes the fractures spread further. “Go back. Get to Luka.”
“I’m not leaving you here.” She stretches her arm toward me, and her fingers are close, so close. The tears freeze on her cheeks, and I want to touch her one more time before I die. “Take my hand, Roman, please—”
I reach for her.
