Page 26

“Wheel,” Leonid shouts, and lunges across the console with his one good arm to seize it, wrenching us off the wall by inches. I’d braced for a collision. Somehow, we get by with a shriek of metal as we scrape past instead of through. Harvey’s blood is pouring into his still-open eyes. I scream when Leonid grabs my arm, the side of his gun digging into my flesh. “Meera. Fucking look at me. Not him. At me.”

Like I’m another one of his soldiers, my body obeys his command. I look. I unclip my seatbelt, and I let him drag me to him.

“I’ve got one arm and we’ve got fucking seconds,” he says, talking faster than my mind should be able to keep up with, yet does. “I can’t drive and shoot. So, pick. Right now. Choose.”

Of its own damn volition, my mouth answers, “I don’t know how to shoot a gun. I’ll drive.”

“Good girl,” he grunts. “Take the wheel. On three.”

He doesn’t wait for me to agree.

“One. Two—” He slips in the front first, throwing open the driver’s side door of the moving car. Harvey wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, not that it would’ve saved him. His body falls out the side with a sickening thunk. “THREE!”

Before I know it, I’m moving. I climb between the seats in the very beat Leonid slips into the passenger side. Our bodies move in tandem, and then, the sound of gunfire fills the air again, his body half-leaned out the window.

“Where am I going?” I screech.

“Right at the light, Meera. Don’t you dare fucking stop,” he says, and his voice is fainter than it was. When I look at him, his eyes are red. He blinks furiously and pants every breath.

I can’t stop. I run the red, letting the cross-traffic blare and swerve around me, threading the SUV through the first gap I find. Adrenaline floods my body in a hot, bright wave, epinephrine pumping through my blood, surely blowing my pupils wide.

“Left,” he commands. My hands listen. “Through the alley. I know where we are. I know where we’re going. We’ll lose them.”

There’s no time to question why every nerve in my body trusts his word. All I know is that I’ve got to take the alley, and I do. The sideview mirrors clip brick on both sides of the narrow channel and I still refuse to slow down. Metal screeches all around.

“Take the service road!”

I swerve onto the service road. It’s at least broader than the alleyway, and mercifully empty. I bear down on the accelerator until the engine protests. The sedans are still in the rearview. Leonid fires with the gun bucking in his good hand, despite his breathing wearing more ragged between each shot.

“There’s an underpass,” he instructs, dropping heavily into the seat. He looks like he’s going to be sick. Or pass out. “Stop looking at me. Eyes on the road. In half a mile, take the underpass, kill the lights, and go right immediately. There’s—” he breaks off with a groan.

“Leo?”

“There’s a lot behind the freight depot,” he says, his breathing labored. “Don’t brake until you’re in it.”

Or else lingers beneath his words, as implicit as it is emphatic.

To the letter, I follow his instructions.

And I’m right to. By the time I haul the wheel right into a gravel lot crowded with parked trucks and shipping containers we disappear amongst, the SUV gets lost easily amidst it all. I finally, finally take my foot off the gas.

“Okay,” I gasp, my palms grabbing at my chest, as if needing to make sure my heart’s still inside it. “Okay, we lost them. Now you need to tell me where the hell the nearest hospital is, okay? You tell me, and I’ll get us there. I can do—”

“No hospital,” Leonid groans, his eyes rolling back into his head.

“You’re being insane. We can use a fake name if you’re so concerned!”

“A hospital is legally obligated to report any GSWs, Meera. Is that what you want? You want Daddy to find out who you’re w—Fuck. Fuck. No. I’ll apply pressure. I can fix this. I’ve done it before.”

“You’re so stubborn, and you think it makes you strong, but it really just makes you stupid,” I spit, but I ruck up his shirt, gathering fabric to press down on his wound. It grows damp and sticky beneath my hands. My stomach roils. “If not a hospital then where? There has to be somewhere suited for your world. Tell me.”

I’ve got him. I can tell from the caught look on his face, that I have him cornered.

Again, I press, “Leonid.”

His eyes slip shut. I know I’ve won. “There’s a place. We can’t—I won’t lead trouble to it. That’s the rule. You have to do exactly as I say, when I say it, and—”

Surprising myself, I laugh. “Did I or did I not just lose a tail? That was some very dangerous men shooting at us?”