Not her. Not her.
I step over the body and shove myself into the next corridor, opening every door. My hands shake. My palms sweat against the gun. Every second she’s out of sight feels like someone is peeling the skin off my chest.
The last door at the end of the hallway is shut. My heart stops beating. I don’t think. I slam the door so hard it hits the wall.
And the world goes red. My heartbeat turns into a weapon inside my ribs. Kiara is on the floor, eyes huge, drowning in terror, Viktor is above her, one knee pinning her thigh, his other hand gripping her wrist, forcing it down. She’s stretching her free hand toward the dagger on the carpet, fingertips barely grazing the hilt.
I cross the room faster than he can turn his head. He manages half a breath as I grab him by the back of his skull and slam his face into the edge of the dresser with so much force the wood cracks. His body jerks. He tries to inhale a wet gurgle, I don’t give him the chance. I slam him again. And again. The second hit splits his cheekbone. The third caves in the side of his face. The fourth makes an ugly pop when his jaw dislocates.
But he’s not dead yet. Unbelievable. So I grab his dislocated jaw and rip it down, another pop, this time loud, disgusting and final.
His body convulses once, and then goes slack, dropping like trash.
I drop on my knees and hold her to me.
She’s alive.
“Did he—” My voice cracks into something I don’t recognize. Her shaking head hits my chest.
“No.”
“Are you—”
“I’m okay.”
My lungs collapse in relief so sharp it hurts worse than panic. She’s trembling, eyes wide and glassy. She’s soaked in blood, but her dress is untouched. I look at his body, noticing she slashed his chest before she lost the dagger.
Not her blood. Good.
Her fingers clutch my shirt, like she’s making sure I’m real. She points toward the second door with a trembling hand.
“Adrien, he’s in there.”
I shove us to our feet, positioning her behind me as I burst open the adjoining door.
Blood. Everywhere. Adrien is kneeling on the floor, drenched, straddling a man whose skull is half-mashed. Two other corpses lie crumpled nearby, one shot in the head, another with a smashed face.
Adrien is choking the last man with both hands, smashing his head over and over into the ground. His knuckles are split open. His teeth are red. His face is slashed in at least five places.
I shoot the last man alive in the head. The sound snaps something in Adrien back into awareness.
He looks up at us. “Kiara!”
“I’m fine,” she whispers, voice broken but steady.
Adrien wipes blood from his face with a shaking hand, smearing it more.
“He knew.” He spits blood. “He knew the whole time.”
“I know.”
I grab Kiara’s hand. “We need to go.”
Adrien staggers to his feet, grabbing his gun off the floor with hands that can barely function. We move out of the room, running, sliding, slipping on blood-stained marble. Kiara stumbles in her heels but I grip her so tightly she doesn’t fall.Her breath comes out fast and broken. I can feel the tremor traveling up her arm into mine.
We burst into the staircase. I hear footsteps behind us. Shouting. I turn around, move them both behind me and lift my gun as two men get in the hall. I take them both down immediately, clean headshots, before they even get their guns out.
We slam through the last door into the underground garage. The bikes wait in the dim light like the last two lifelines on earth. I throw a helmet on her head with shaking hands, securing the strap so tight that she winces. Adrien comes a second later, breath hitching, mumbling through his broken lips.
