Tactical error. My perception is degraded. I should have anticipated the flank.
I pivot. The vehicle is thirty meters away, bouncing over the ruts. A passenger is hanging out the window, a submachine gun in his hands.
My sight alignment lags. I fire anyway.
Five. Six. Seven.
The SUV’s windshield spiderwebs. The driver swerves, but momentum is a relentless force. Twenty meters. Fifteen.
The passenger fires a burst. The world goes white.
The impact hits my left side like a sledgehammer swung with full force. It is a hot, spreading sensation that numbs my arm instantly. I can’t feel my fingers. The pain exists, but it is queued for later; my brain cannot process it yet.
But I am still standing. The Kennel does not allow for falling.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
The driver of the second SUV slumps over the wheel. The vehicle veers hard, missing our sedan by inches to crash into the collapsed barn with a shriek of twisting metal and the groan of falling timber. The passenger is thrown through the glass. He doesn't get up.
Three down. One wounded.
I turn back toward the first SUV. My left side is heavy, wet. My vision is narrowing, the edges turning into a dark, pulsing vignette.
Behind me, the wounded operative has recovered. He is on one knee, his left arm hanging useless, but his right hand is steady. He is aiming at my chest.
Nikolai screams. A warning. My name.
I try to turn my weapon. I am too slow. The machine is running on empty. The gears have finally seized.
Eleven. Twelve.
The slide of my Glock locks back. Empty.
The operative’s finger is tightening on the trigger.
Something whistles through the air. A flash of rusted metal in the morning light.
It doesn’t need strength. It needs the timing Nikolai learned on the tennis courts of the Petrenko estates—the snap of the wrist, the perfect release. A heavy, jagged chunk of an old plow blade arcs through the space.
The operative jerks. The metal is buried in his throat. He looks down at it, his eyes wide with a profound, final confusion, before his knees hit the gravel.
I turn, my legs feeling like they are made of water.
Nikolai is standing by the passenger door, his arm still extended. His face is the color of bone. He is trembling so hard I can hear his teeth. But his eyes are locked on the dead man.
He killed someone. The man I unmade just saved my life with a piece of junk.
"Are there more?" His voice is a thin, high-pitched thread.
I try to answer. The words don't come. The gray sky is beginning to rotate, the horizon tilting at an impossible angle.
Assess. I need to assess.
Threats: Neutralized.
Status: Compromised.
Injury: Left lateral torso. Significant hemorrhage.
