"Check—check the safe!" He gurgled against my grip. "Documentation's there. Proof!"
I held his eyes, reading truth in blown pupils and fear-sweat. Then drove the second knife up under his jaw, through his soft palate into his brain. He died with surprise on his face, as if he'd really thought information would save him.
The safe opened to his thumbprint—I had to break his arm to get the right angle, dead weight being uncooperative. Inside: cash, drives, and a folder marked 'A.V.'
My hands didn't shake as I opened it. They never shook during operations.
Gabriel's face stared up from a Moscow visa. Aleksander Volkov, businessman, clean papers and a future that didn't include being dead. Transport manifests, property deeds, medical records showing recent surgery—facial reconstruction, subtle but enough to throw off casual recognition.
Alive. He was alive.
Gunfire crackled louder. Nathan's voice in my ear: "Could use some help down here."
I pocketed the documents, then stopped. A second folder, older. Institute letterhead. My deadname at the top, my real one. The one I'd forgotten until—
Subject shows exceptional adaptation to conditioning. Recommend acceleration of physical protocols despite short time in the program. - G. Mire
"Bunny. Now." Nathan's voice, edged with strain.
I burned the past and ran for the present.
Downstairs had become a Hieronymus Bosch painting rendered in muzzle flash and arterial spray. Nathan had position behind a container, laying down suppressing fire while three guards tried to flank. Blood pooled around two bodies by the laboratory setup.
I came from above like judgment, landing on the nearest guard's shoulders. His neck snapped on impact, gun spinning away as we hit concrete. The second guard turned, bringing his AK to bear.
Time slowed to honey.
I rolled, came up with the dead guard's Makarov, put two in the turner's throat. He clutched at the ruins of his vocal cords, drowning in his own blood. The third tried to run.
Cowardice offended me.
The knife caught him between shoulder blades, dropping him to his knees. I crossed the distance in heartbeats, yanking the blade free to open his femoral artery. He bled out watching me, confusion in his eyes like he couldn't understand how the world had teeth.
"Clear?" Nathan called.
"One second."
The last guard had been hiding, pressed against a container with his rifle clutched like a teddy bear. Twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. Baby Bratva trying to earn his stars.
He came at me with a knife, all desperation and no skill.
I caught his wrist, used his momentum to drive him face-first into the wall. The tile cracked. So did his nose. He swung wild, blade catching my ribs in a line of fire. I smiled—pain was just information, and this informed me he needed to hurt more.
I slammed his face into the tile again. Teeth scattered like dice. Again. His cheekbone gave. Again. The knife fell fromnerveless fingers. Again, until the wall looked like abstract art and he stopped twitching.
"Now clear," I said, touching the slice along my ribs. Shallow. Survivable. Irritating.
Nathan emerged from cover, taking in the scene with eyes that catalogued but didn't judge. "You're bleeding."
"He got lucky." I kicked the corpse. "Got less lucky after."
"The women?"
"Here!"
We found them in the containers—three girls, sixteen to twenty, bound and drugged but breathing. The laboratory held worse things: medical equipment, preserved samples, documentation in Russian and Mandarin that made my stomach twist.
"Institute protocols," Nathan said, reading over my shoulder. "They were going to—"
