“Is…is that?” I ask between panting breaths while bracing my palms on my thighs.
“That’s the estate,” Dominik answers.
“They need to leave!” I exclaim. “They’re going to all burn to death!”
“It’s worse than I thought,” Dominik replies as he shakes his head.
Tension winds around my throat and pulls as I continue watching the flames dance.
“Maybe he’s already evacuated.”
“He’s not going to leave his men behind.”
I throw my hands up in frustration. “Then, we need to go find him and convince him to leave. We have to do something!”
Dominik and I stare at each other in tense silence, not speaking a word as my previous ones linger in the air.
“If we go back now, then we’ll die with him,” Dominik says, his voice tight.
My eyes burn as I take his hand in both of mine, my lips grazing his fingers. I love Dominik, but the thought of Gavriil being killed makes it impossible to breathe. I didn’t expect to care about him like this, but a lot changed since I first went into that cage.
Gavriil and I bonded in a way that I can’t sever. And I think Dominik knows that.
Is that why he doesn’t want to try to help him?
“We won’t make it to the front steps alive, Alina,” Viktor chimes in.
“Let’s get to the bunker,” Renat agrees. “Survivors may take cover there, right?”
Dominik nods.
His eyes meet mine. “I’m sorry,dikaya koshka. Let me get you someplace safe. That’s all we can do right now.”
Wind blows through my hair as he waits, as I put us all in greater danger by standing in one place for too long.
As soon as I nod, Dominik grabs my hand and then we’re off running again.
The closer we get to the estate the worse the sounds get.
Explosions. Fire crackling. Shouts and screams.
Dominik speeds up as we race up the last tree-covered hill, finally putting the estate into view.
“This is it,” he says.
I can’t look away from the sight of burning vehicles, bodies strewn across the lawn, and the destroyed gate. Fire crawls out of windows on the second floor, and there’s a gaping hole where the front door used to be.
“Holy shit,” Petrov murmurs from beside me as we stare in disbelief.
“Alina!” Dominik’s voice says, but it sounds like he’s far away. Finally, he tugs on my hand to pull me along. “We have to get inside.”
I can’t breathe, but I manage to make my feet stagger behind him. Tears well up in my eyes. How can Gavriil survive that?
Dominik tugs me behind a cluster of bushes, then he reaches down, punching in a code on a keypad that opens a hatch.
“Go,” he says. “Hurry.”
There’s a ladder that travels down into a dark tunnel. My limbs shake as I wrap my fingers around the cold metal rungs, then take them down one at a time while sniffling back my tears.
