Fletcher’s eyes were enormous in his face, his lips white. He hadone hand fastened around Ferrington’s throat, apparently incognizant of the man’s choking and spluttering.
“Two.”
Zaria’s heart seemed to stop. She sent a last pleading glance at Kane who—to her surprise—met it. He flexed his hand again, nostrils flaring. Beseeching her to understand…something.
“One,” came Cleland’s gravelly declaration, and all at once, Zaria knew what Kane had been trying to tell her.
The rest of the world blurred as she moved in one whip-quick motion, ducking away from Cleland’s gun. At the same time, she reached up and dug her fingers into his bandaged hand with every ounce of her strength. Cleland let out a howl like a wounded animal, releasing her dress as he attempted to pull away, but Zaria held fast. She gritted her teeth and continued to squeeze his hand between both of hers, barely cognizant of the blood beginning to seep through the hastily-wrapped linen. She was near enough to Cleland that she could smell his rancid breath, but pressed her body closer, knowing his bullets were less likely to find her when they were inches apart.
In her periphery she heard a gun fire once, then again. Cleland’s head snapped up as he finally managed to rip his hand away, and Zaria took advantage of the moment to reach for her knife. She saw him tense against the recoil as he pulled the trigger, and she braced for an explosion of pain… but he was focused on something over her head. As if she were abruptly no more than a mere annoyance.
Could you kill a man, Zaria?She heard her father pose the question in her mind.If you had to?
She gripped the handle of her knife more tightly, then plunged the blade into Cleland’s neck.
ZARIA
Time seemed to move at an irregular rate.
Zaria knew even as it happened that she would never forget the sensation of splitting a man’s flesh and watching him die. Her whole body was shaking, the rapid scrape of her breath approaching hyperventilation. Cleland’s eyes were wide in horror and shock. Blood spilled steadily from his throat, soaking the collar of his shirt, and he scrabbled uselessly at his neck before dropping to his knees on the cobblestones.
Zaria relinquished the knife with a soft shriek. It remained there, lodged in his skin, until he managed to wrench it out and toss it aside. Doing so only spurred a river of crimson, and she watched, frozen, as Cleland crumpled to the ground. He writhed and jerked in his own fluids for what felt like an eternity before eventually going still.
If you had to, could you kill a man?
She stumbled to the nearest wall and used it to hold herselfsteady as she dry heaved several times. Her eyes watered, her head spinning, but when she straightened once more, she felt a strange sort of triumph.
I told you, she thought bitterly to her father.I told you I could do it, if I had to.
“Zaria!”
A panicked voice emanated from a short distance away, and it took her a beat to place it as Fletcher’s. She squinted through the darkness and dizziness until she saw him. When she did, her brain struggled to process the scene.
Four bodies lay strewn across the road. Fletcher knelt beside one of them, his face wan. Why he would be worried about the men who’d attacked them, Zaria couldn’t fathom. And where was Kane?
The body beside Fletcher suddenly twitched, propelling him to lean over and press his hands against the man’s chest.“Zaria!”
His cry was serrated this time, and only then did she truly understand what she was looking at. The body Fletcher crouched beside wasKane.
Except Kane wasn’t dead—not yet.
The nausea faded, heart-wrenching terror overtaking all else. Images of Cleland’s bloody, writhing form fled Zaria’s mind, replaced by profound clarity. She sprinted over to Fletcher, who had begun to claw Kane’s shirt away from his torso. In his haste he had ripped the fabric, giving Zaria an unimpeded view of the blood spreading across Kane’s ribs.
“He was shot,” grunted Fletcher needlessly. “Cleland fired right before you stabbed him.”
The man’s preoccupation during his last moments of life suddenly made sense. Zaria fell to her knees beside Fletcher, seeing with a jolt that Kane was not only still alive, but conscious. His face wasbone-pale, his eyes screwed shut. There was a sheen of sweat across his forehead, and his teeth were clenched in a grimace, jaw wired tightly enough that the map of veins at his throat stood out in stark, bruise-like relief. As Zaria watched, he snapped his head from side to side as if trying to escape some unseen attacker.
“Kane.” Her tongue felt heavy in her dry mouth. “Can you hear me?”
He didn’t respond, bucking his hips as he arched away from the ground. A moan rumbled from deep within his chest.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” Fletcher said, ripping his own coat off in one fluid motion and pressing it against Kane’s rib cage. No sooner had he done so than did Kane let out a guttural, strangled yell, his eyes flying open as he stared unseeing at the sky above. His legs kicked weakly as he tried to fight Fletcher off, his breath coming in pants.
“Stop it,” Fletcher snapped hoarsely. He used his forearm to push wild, sweaty hair back from his face. His gaze, when he lifted it to hers, was full of undiluted desperation. “Zaria—help.”
Her heart thundered in her ears as Kane arched again, hands clawing futilely at the cobblestones. Everything about this moment felt nightmarishly wrong. Kane didn’t show weakness. He didn’t acknowledge pain. He fought for the upper hand in every interaction, and he sure as hell couldn’t bedying. Taking a magic bullet to the ribs, though… that should have killed him already. It should have eaten through his flesh like parchment set alight.
Fletcher swatted her arm. “Christ, Zaria, are you listening to me? I need you to—”
