The heaviness deepens. My head drops back against the chair for a moment. I try to straighten, but it’s harder than it should be. My thoughts start slipping out of order, like someone is turning down the lights inside my mind.
Nadia’s small fingers loosen in my hand as she falls asleep. I brush her knuckles with my thumb, but even that movement feels slow.
When I look up at Anastasia, she’s watching me.
Her face is calm and her eyes hold a kind of focus I’ve never seen in them before.
And her mouth curves into a small, quiet smile. Everything goes soft around the edges.
I blink again, trying to stay awake, trying to speak, but the words don’t make it out. The room blurs and my fingers slip from the mug.
The last thing I see is Anastasia still smiling at me.
14
SERGEI
The guard’s voice is a little too fast. His hand holds the rifle a little too high. I feel the old instinct rise. It isn’t a roar. It’s a quiet pull that tells me where to look. “Show me,” I murmur.
We move toward the stairwell door. The air in the corridor is warm from the vents, but there’s a colder draft slipping through the metal frame. The guard opens the door and starts down. I follow, with Kirill behind me. The stairwell smells like concrete dust and recycled air.
Halfway down, the guard stops and points at the landing below.
“There,” he says. “Something fell.”
I see a dark smear on the concrete and a small scrap of cloth near the rail. He goes down one more step and leans forward, his back to us.
Everything in me goes still.
His shoulders tighten. His fingers shift on the rifle. The angle of his head changes a little too much.
I move before he turns.
He spins around and swings the rifle stock at my face. I duck, grab the weapon with one hand and his wrist with the other, and yank. The rifle hits the rail and cracks loudly. He tries to kick me. I shift my weight and slam his shoulder into the wall. The air rushes out of him. He reaches for the knife at his belt, but I already have my hand on his throat.
His eyes go wide. There’s real fear there now.
“You picked the wrong staircase,” I tell him.
I twist. His neck snaps against my palm. His body drops heavily onto the steps. The sound echoes up and down the shaft.
Kirill is there a moment later, rifle raised, breathing hard.
“Shit,” he says. “He was on watch with us two hours ago.”
“He was waiting,” I answer. I look down at the broken rifle, the cloth on the landing, the smear of blood that isn’t mine. “The Courier got to him. Or someone who works for him did.”
Kirill glances up toward the ceiling of the stairwell, toward the floor where the apartment sits. His jaw clenches.
“If he placed someone here,” he says, “what else did he place?”
“The bigger question,” I say, “is who he came for once I left that room.”
The answer hits both of us at the same time.
Raina.
I take the stairs up two at a time. Kirill stays close. The door at our landing is still closed. I shove it open and step into the hall.My heart beats heavily, but my head stays clear. Panic wastes time. Time is the only thing the Courier really wants from me.
