The blade goes in low, just under the ribcage, a forward drive intended to puncture and rip. His breath leaves him in a wet, defeated shudder. I haul him into me, lock an arm across his chest. Now he’s a wall of meat between me and the guns of the other two Mexicans. They’re fast, but not fast enough. Muzzles lift. I shove Pockmark into the line of fire. It takes an extra effort to maneuver his dead weight, so much so that I can feel the stitches on my shoulder rip. Fuck. Both shooters check, curse, and step sideways, trying to clear a new lane. Muscle gets there first. I drop Pockmark and jab my elbow up, right into his throat. So hard, he probably swallowed his Adam's apple. He folds with a sick crunch, and as his muscles contract, he starts to fire wildly before he loses the pistol. Oneround slams into the plaster by my ear, throwing dust and white noise.
The third man, the thin, jumpy rat with a cigarette and a switchblade, comes in at an angle. He’s not even watching his footing. I kick the table leg out with my heel, and the whole thing jumps, sending the ashtray and glass tumbling in his way. He pivots, and I kick out, hard enough to dislodge his kneecap. With a howl, he goes down, aiming his gun at me. I still have Pockmark's knife and throw it; it lands straight in his shoulder. The cut severs muscles, and the gun drops from his hand.
I take two steps forward before I slip on the glass. My heel loses purchase, but years of mat time control my skid. I land with my full weight on the thin man’s back. Pushing hard, I drive the knife deeper, pinning him against the floor. He screams, high and girlish. I clamp my hand over his mouth, feeling his jaw judder against my palm. I grab underneath him, twist the blade, and the scream stutters into wet, pitiful whimpers.
To my surprise, Muscle comes back swinging. His gun’s up, but the muzzle is shaking. He’s rushing because he’s enraged and can't properly breathe. Good. I turn the thin man around, and he absorbs the first two bullets. I roll, feeling hot heat against my side, unsure if I ripped another stitch or if I was grazed. I keep rolling, then turn. Muscle is still there, tracking me, swearing. He doesn’t see my hand go for a large piece of broken glass onthe floor.
I throw. The shard hits him in the cheek, splits the skin open. He fires, more reflex than aim, and misses by a mile. I’m already on him—inside the arc of his gun. My elbow meets his wrist; the pistol skates across the concrete. I bring my knee up between his legs twice, hard enough to rearrange organs. He folds with a gagging sound. Leaning over, I take the knife from the thin man's shoulder and cut it across Muscle's throat, sharp and quick, the way you field dress a rabbit. His exhale is hot and wet on my hand. Blood splatters the wall.
Silence tries to reclaim the room, but can’t overcome the sound of breath and drip, the bright, arterial red on concrete. Pockmark is leaking by the table, his lips working for a word that doesn’t come. I take it away with a clean blade through the heart. His eyes go flat, no poetry to it. The thin guy is still alive somehow, crawling for the door. I put a boot on his wrist and finish it, short and sweet. I’ve done this so many times that detachment is the default setting; it’s just clean-up now.
The pain in my side is sudden and blinding. I look down to see the stitches there have opened, one of the rounds or knife swings must have caught me. Warmth pools under my shirt. "F—" I hiss, teeth gritted. "Fuckers."
I rip a strip off Pockmark’s sleeve with my teeth, jam it against the wound. I wrap it tight, just enough pressure to keep the blood inside where it belongs. The room tilts and re-centers. I shake my head, blink twice. There is no luxury for rest.
Boots hammer in the hallway outside. The sound of angry voices, panicked and overlapping. They know something’s gone wrong. I grab one of the guns, rack it. Pocket the switchblade and strip the thin guy’s magazine off his belt. My hands are bloody, cold, but not shaking, my name is still in the air—Oksana Arsenyev, Metelitsa. I want them to hear it in every language: Russian, English, and blood.
Let them carry it back to their boss like a warning shot.
Four men burst through the door, stacked tight. They think they’re about to win the room. They don’t even have time to shout. I drop behind the table, brace, and fire on the move. Four rounds, four men. The first two drop nearly instantly, neat holes in their foreheads and chests. The third manages a return shot, but the table takes it, putting in a minor chip in the laminate. The fourth tries to run, but I pop him in the back of the skull before he hits the corridor. No theatrics, just clean kills. I watch them fall, see the pattern they make. It’s almost elegant if you squint.
I step over them like a woman walking past sleeping dogs.
Walking through the hallway, the warehouse is a ghost show. Lights illuminate the corrugated siding, and everyone is waiting for someone else to make the next move. I sweep down the hall, pressing close to the metal. Every time someone reaches for a gun, I give them a warning: one bullet, quick and impersonal. I find four women, and I lock them in a room—don’t know if theyare here voluntarily or not, but I’ll figure it out later. My last sweep is clean; there doesn't seem to be anybody alive—besides the women.
When I come back to the staging room, the count is right, seven bodies now, the three men who started this, and the four who thought they could finish it. They’re scattered like a bad hand of cards on the floor. I kneel by the thin one, who’s still twitching like a cockroach even with a knife in his heart. I fish through his pockets until I find what I’m after: cigarettes and a lighter. The lighter is slick with blood, but it works on the first try. I thumb it open, stare at the little blue flame. It’s a jealous thing—alive when the bodies around it are not. I check my watch: three hours since I was taken.Tick-tock, Stephano.I right the table with my shoulder, lean it against the wall, and sink down so the edge takes a fraction of my weight.
I light a cigarette and inhale slow, the smoke a small, private concession. The nicotine burns down into my chest, and my side flares with a white-hot reminder of stitches gone traitor. Good. Pain keeps the body honest. I press the sleeve tighter to the wound and wait.
There’s a sound of boots, men exclaiming. Someone clearing a throat down the hall, a staccato that’s not quite a mistake. I don’t flinch. I tuck the lighter into my pocket, slide the gun into my hand beneath my jacket, and let the smoke curl out of me like a question. The light from the bulb turns the blood dark, and the cigarette glows like a warning.
I wait.
The air slamsus the second we step out of the Hummer, iron and hot copper, the smell of blood sharp and bright like a fist to the face. Bodies lie splayed against pallets and crates, faces turned to concrete. Most of them have been cleanly shot. A few farther down have had their throats cut so clean the light catches like a blade. Whoever did this left no mercy as a calling card.
There’s no room in me for hope. Only a narrower, meaner thing: fact-check. The dot on my phone is still where it has been for some time. That means she’s here. That’s both a promise and a threat.
My men split and peel into the dark, quick and silent. I move with purpose—no swagger, just momentum—toward a long hallway, the kind that eats sound. The back door is open; smoke curls out in a thin, patient thread. Gun out, I step into the room.
Fuck me.
She’s there, leaned against the table like she owns the light, cigarette hanging from her mouth, a pistol held like a prop in the other hand. She looks ridiculous and impossible and bloody perfect. For a second, everything else—the smoke, the bodies, the hole in my chest—collapses to an honest, stupid little relief that makes my knees forget how to hold me.
"Took you long enough, Marito," she states without surprise, taking a puff from the cigarette like a punctuation. I can’t help the grin. It cracks some of the armor off me because it’s everything stupid and true.
I step forward, hands wide in that careless way men do when they want to sweep someone into themselves. "Your handiwork?" I say, looking at the bodies.
"Wasn’t anybody here to help me."
"I didn't know you smoked."
She flicks ash at me. "Bad habits," she says, "die hard. Especially when you wait for your Uber."
I laugh into the smoke. My throat is a dry place. "You shouldn’t joke," I say. "You?—"
"Cut the sermon," she snaps, but it’s a crack in her voice. She’s alive. "How's Nico?"
The grin dies on my face. She looks at me, and for half a second, the cigarette light is a confession. "He’s alive," I fill her in. "But he’s hurt. Bad."
