“Run,” she breathes.
Then another wave of men pours into the bay, and the chance disappears. Hands grab my arms from behind and wrench me backward so hard my grip slips from Lila. I kick once, hard enough to connect with somebody’s shin, but there are too many of them and too much blood on the floor, and my body is no match for men who have done this before.
Lila tries to push herself up and fails. Maria doesn’t move again.
By the time they drag me upright, the side door is still only twenty feet away. It might as well be another country.
“Easy,” one of them mutters.
The command is almost casual, which somehow makes it worse.
Two guards kneel beside Lila. One presses a thick cloth against the wound in her side while the other speaks into the radio clipped to his shoulder. The words are quiet but urgent, swallowed by the hollow acoustics of the warehouse and the lingering ringing still echoing in my ears from the gunshots.
The air smells like burned powder and cold metal. Lila’s face has gone pale, but she’s conscious. Her eyes find mine, clear despite the pain pulling at her expression. She gives a small shake of her head.
Don’t fight.
I force myself to stop resisting the grip on my arms. Not because I want to. Because she’s right.
A few feet away, Maria lies on the floor where she fell. Someone has rolled her onto her side, but nothing else has changed. One arm rests awkwardly beneath her body, and the dark stain spreading beneath her has already widened into a heavy pool that glistens faintly beneath the industrial lights overhead.
No one is trying to stop it. The realization lodges heavily in my chest. Maria is gone.
The men holding me begin steering me toward the corridor again, but they stop suddenly. Movement ripples through the room, and the guards straighten almost at once, their attention pulled toward the open end of the loading bay. Even before I see him, I recognize the change in the atmosphere, the subtle tension that passes through the men stationed around the room.
Ivan walks in as if the chaos unfolding inside the warehouse doesn’t concern him at all. His coat remains buttoned neatly. His posture is relaxed, and his expression is composed, almost surreal, against the harsh fluorescent lights and the smell of blood still lingering in the air.
His eyes move slowly across the scene. First to Maria, then to the blood spreading across the concrete, then to Lila kneeling with a guard pressing the cloth against her side. Finally, his eyes find me.
“You moved faster than Arkady expected,” he observes.
The comment arrives in a tone that sounds more reflective than critical, as though he’s discussing a minor business miscalculation rather than a failed escape attempt that left one person dead and another bleeding on the floor.
One of the guards releases my arm when Ivan approaches. The other holds on for another second before Ivan glances at him.
“That won’t be necessary,” he instructs.
The man lets go immediately.
My wrists ache faintly where their fingers had been gripping, but I ignore it. My attention remains fixed on Ivan as he walks past me without another look and stops beside Maria. He studies her body, but there’s no visible reaction in his expression.
“Unfortunate,” he remarks quietly.
The word contains no grief, only inconvenience. Then he turns toward the guards stationed nearby.
“Take them back.”
Two men move forward immediately. One of them reaches for Lila, helping her slowly to her feet while the other starts toward me again.
I step toward her first.
“She needs pressure on that wound,” I tell them.
Ivan watches the exchange then he nods once. “Let her.”
The guard steps aside.
I kneel beside Lila and take the cloth from the man holding it against her side. The fabric is already soaked through, warm and slick beneath my fingers. I fold it tighter and press more firmly against the wound.
