My arm cocks.
And then a hand clamps around my throat.
KEROSENE
Brontë
Idid not come here to kill Poppy. I came here to make a bargain.
Yet every step I take feels like I’m walking toward the gallows.
Frigid rain slaps my hood with fat, cold droplets as the storm bellows a warcry in the night sky above. Adrenaline floods my system with memories. Throwing me back in time to a desert ranch. Tossing cold metal in my grip. Blaring a deadbeat soldier’s slurring commands in my ears—
Thunder smacks me back to the present. I squeeze the Kimber in my pocket to ground myself. The gun is for my own protection, nothing more. If all goes as planned, there won’t be a single need to use it.
I’m halfway to the café’s entrance when I hear the scuff of boots on stone followed by a choked gasp.
My head snaps up.
Poppy isn’t there.
The roaring world goes silent, and my training kicks in.
I quicken my pace, careful to avoid drawing attention from anyone on the street or in the café. Slinking to the edge of the building, I peer around the corner. Through the blinding sheet of rain, I distinguish a dumpster nestled against a brick wall graffitied with an ominous demonic skull grinning around a mouthful of fangs. Almostlike—
The dumpster rattles as something slams its opposite side in an offbeat rhythm.
I lurch into motion.
As I move, the past blurs with the present. Brick blends to barbed wire and back again. Cobblestone shifts to mud then reshapes when my soles don’t sink. Thunder morphs and rises to a howl as I round the bend.
I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, but it’s certainly not a man in black with a gaiter pulled up to his lightless gray eyes as he chokes the life out of Poppy. Her boots pound a desperate beat into the dumpster as the man squeezes her purpling neck. His grip is so tight, not a single sound escapes her bruised and bloody lips. Her wrists are pinned beneath his knees. A spray-painted butterfly knife lies on the ground, just out of her reach.
Wrath. Fury. Rage.None hold a flame to the maddening inferno burning through my veins at the sight alone. Of that vile, villainous,powerfulwoman flat on her back and kicking her legs as uselessly as an ensnared hare.
“You should consider yourself lucky,printsessa,” the man croons with a thick Russian accent, dragging a hand glinting with brass knuckles down the center of her chest. “It was only a matter of time before someone was going to do to you what was done to us. You should be grateful I got to you first. This way, you won’t have to suffer at the hands of some otherugly mug,da?”
Poppy flails without purchase, kicking that dumpster like it’s hell’s gates. She finds me looming in the dark, and the raw plea in her eyes dumps kerosene into my blood.
Idetonate.
In an instant, I grab the man by his hood and throw him into the brick wall. Under his surprised yelp, I hear Poppy’s rough coughs and choppy breaths.
Alive,is my only rational thought.She’s alive.
I send a fist sailing into the man’s stomach. He lets out a garbled curse and doubles over, spitting blood.
Faster than an adder, he strikes back.
Speed was never my friend. I sidestep, but not quick enough. Brass slams my jaw. I reel back, tasting salt and iron. Another immediate blow to my temple sends me stumbling. I blindly draw my gun, flicking the safety.
“Mine,” hisses a pink streak blurring by.
Poppy hammers the man with a front kick, audibly cracking bone. He wheezes, clutching his chest, and then she has her blade at his throat and his mask pulled down as she snarls, “Blackguard bastard!”
Lightning flashes against the man’s manic grin. “Would you not have done the same if you were me?”
“No, Vlad. Vows mean something to me—tous.”
