In the same motion, I let myself fall forward while keeping my grip on their black jacket.
They yell in surprise.
I land on my back and force them to topple over me. My bare feet collide with their hips and force them to flip over.
The silence of the cabin is shattered as the assassin crashes into the toilet and porcelain cracks under the impact of his body.
Water explodes from the cistern, masking his cry of pain, which ends abruptly as I drag the blade across his throat and leap to my feet.
I need to get to Aerin.
His cry alerts the numerous other people in the cabin and my desire to reach Aerin is met with blockage the second I step out of the bathroom.
A blinding flashlight catches me right in the eye. Wincing, I turn and duck, narrowly avoiding a fist that collides with the wall where my face was a second earlier.
Crouching, I leap forward and slam my shoulder into the gut of whoever is next. He collides with a man behind him, and the three of us topple like a stack of cards.
“Fuck!” yells the man beneath me as my knife embeds deep in his thigh. I rip it out and plunge it in again, an inch away from the first wound. His yells turn to screams, then the butt of an assault rifle collides with my temple and sends me crashing to the floor with a grunt.
Someone’s on top of me.
I throw my elbow back and catch a soft thigh. A fist lands square between my shoulders and pain shoots up my neck.
Bracing both palms flat on the ground, I surge upward with a roar and dislodge the man on my back.
He topples off me and crashes into a side table, sending his flashlight clattering to the floor with shards of vase and stems of fake flowers.
The bleeding man already on the floor is clutching at his thigh, screaming in pain.
I leap over him, sparing only a second to slam my heel into the hilt of the knife and truly drive it home, then I tackle the second man.
Hot pain explodes in quick succession all the way down my forearm, but I ignore it, punching the assassin twice in the face.
He punches my ribs, winds me with a knee to the gut, and grabs my hair to wrench my head back.
I slam the junction of my thumb and forefinger into his throat, choking him.
He gags and jolts, then punches me hard in the face. Dazed, he dislodges me with a roll and scrambles to his feet.
I follow.
We exchange blows all the way down the hallway as I use punch after punch to force him away from Aerin’s room and back toward the living room.
My punches grow sloppy as blood spurts from his face through his mask and weeps from painful cuts on my forearm from his blade.
“You can’t prevent this,” snarls the man, gargling on his own blood. “She’sours.”
My vision goes dark as the fallen flashlights behind me flicker, but I still catch the gleam of blood on the man’s mask. It’s the only pinpoint I need.
Leaping up against the wall, I launch myself off and dive down on the bastard with my fist balled.
It smashes directly into his face.
As he goes down, I catch his flailing wrist, twist it hard, and wrench the blade from his grip.
A second later, it’s embedded in his throat.
I’m panting, out of breath and slightly dizzy, but it’s all second to the cold fear about Aerin.
