Matty catches the body. Lowers it to the ground. Pulls the knife free with a twist of his wrist that is so practiced, so economical, it turns my stomach worse than the killing itself.
He looks at me. His face is blank. Not angry. Not afraid. Not anything. He wipes the blade on the dead man's jacket and straightens.
"Stay behind me," he says. His voice is flat—the voice of someone performing a task.
I can't move. The man's body is right there. The back of his skull is open. I can see... I look away. My hand is shaking so hard I can barely feel my fingers.
"Aoife," Matty says my name the way you'd say an instruction. "Now."
Raven grabs my hand, and we follow Matty across the gravel toward the tree line that borders the western edge of the property. He moves fast and low and silent, and I have to work to keep up.
Gunfire erupts to our right. Close. Raven flinches and ducks, and I pull her along, my free hand gripping the back of her cardigan.
Through the trees, I can see the battle unfolding. Aidan's men have formed a line at the front of the house, using the vehicles and the stone wall as cover. Muzzle flashes strobe in the darkness. Somewhere behind them, Aidan is shouting commands, and I catch his silhouette as he moves between positions, directing fire.
William.
I search the chaos for him. Every figure in the dark could be him. Every shape that falls could be him. My chest constricts until I can barely breathe.
Then I see him. At the corner of the house, gun raised, firing in controlled bursts at a group of men trying to advance through the garden. Jason is beside him. The two of them are moving together, covering each other's angles, communicating with gestures I can't read from this distance.
A light crosses the sky. Fast. Trailing something bright behind it.
I don't understand what I'm seeing. My brain is trying to make it into a firework or a flare or something that belongs in a normal world, and then it hits the east wing of the house, and the understanding comes with the explosion.
The light is everywhere. White first, then orange, then a wall of heat that reaches us through the trees. The shockwave follows a half second later, and it picks me up and throws me sideways. I don't feel myself leave the ground. I just feel the tree trunk when I hit it, my right shoulder and the side of my head connecting with the bark, and then I'm on the ground, and I can't breathe. My lungs won't expand. I'm pulling at the air, and nothing is coming in, and there's a high-pitched whine in my ears that drowns out everything else.
I try to get up. My right arm buckles. Pain shoots from my shoulder down to my elbow, sharp enough that my vision goes white at the edges. I try again with my left and manage to push myself onto my knees.
Raven.
She's on the ground two meters from me. Curled on her side. Her cardigan is torn, and there's blood on her arm, a gash just above the elbow where something caught her. Her eyes are open but unfocused, blinking at the sky like she can't remember how she got here.
"Raven." My voice sounds wrong. Muffled and far away, like I'm hearing myself through a wall. "Raven, look at me."
She turns her head. Blinks again. Then something clicks behind her eyes, and she pushes herself up, wincing, her hand going to the cut on her arm. Blood runs between her fingers.
"I'm okay," she says. Her voice is shaking. "I'm okay, I'm okay."
She's not okay. Neither am I. My shoulder is throbbing, and there's something warm running down the side of my face, and when I touch my temple, my fingers come away red. The whine in my ears won't stop. Everything sounds like it's happening at the bottom of a well.
Matty is on his feet. I don't know how. The blast that threw both of us women to the ground didn't seem to touch him. He's standing exactly where he was, steady, scanning the tree line. He looks back at us. His eyes move from Raven's arm to my head to our legs, checking if we can move, and the assessment takes less than two seconds.
"Get up," he says. "Now. We have to keep moving."
I reach for Raven with my left hand. She takes it, and I pull, and she grabs my good arm to steady herself as she gets upright. The world tilts. We lean on each other. Neither of us is steady enough to stand alone.
We reach a low stone wall at the edge of the property. Matty vaults it and reaches back for Raven. She tries to climb, and her injured arm gives out, and she makes a sound between a gasp and a cry. Matty grabs her under the arms and lifts her over. Then me. I use my left arm to grip the top of the wall and swing my legs over, and the landing sends a jolt through my shoulder that makes me hiss through my teeth. My knees buckle, and I go down hard on the other side.
The ground is cold and damp—grass, not gravel. I stay on my knees for a moment because getting up feels impossible.
"Wait here," Matty says. "Don't move. Not for anything."
"Where are you going?"
He doesn't answer. He's already gone, slipping back into the dark like it's a place he belongs.
Raven and I crouch behind the wall. The stone is cold against my back. I press my hand to my temple and hold it there. The bleeding has slowed, but the throbbing hasn't. My other hand is shaking. Both hands are shaking. I press the free one flat against my thigh and try to make it stop, but it won't.
